I got an email from Dave Borden (one of the former RentClicks owners) to take a look at his new site NiceDiggs.com.
I am always interested in what Dave is doing because he used to be an industry leader in the rental market. Kind of ironic that he is contacting me with a brand new site on the day that his old site died.
Dave is looking for people to beta test it before its August 1st launch. If you would like to send Dave comments send them to info@nicediggs.com. He knows he has bugs and to go easy on him.
I took a look at it but it crashed my FireFox browser twice (while pulling up the map page) - so I am going to wait a little longer to review it.
Not sure how he is going to monetize the site, I am guessing contextual ads. Perhaps Dave can chime in and tell us his business model. Dave is a person that likes to win, so I am a little surprised that he is taking on such a competitive market - Zillow and Trulia are years ahead of him. Perhaps he has an angle that I have not noticed yet.
Dave good luck with your new site. Let’s us know how it goes.
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15 users responded in this post
The site takes alot to load…But looks really nice!
Welcome back Dave!
Hi Dave,
I should have also mentioned that we have a lot of bugs on firefox, and still have some IE6 issues. We are most stable on IE7, and will get the other browsers up to speed before we launch. The loading time should go down with some caching. This site is huge, probably bigger than RentClicks, and was developed by David Yack, a microsoft MVP. He was the guy responsible for the .net conversion at Loopnet. I plan to monetize the site with upgrades, and everything else will be free, NEVER any banner ads, they make me ill. I am flying to Seattle today and i am furiously writing this post, so I will no doubt leave some stuff out. I will obviously be checking for feedback, and responding to comments on this blog. Thanks again for the post, we really need the beta testing. I will comment on the death of my previous website when I touch down.
Dave Borden
Dave,
I am glad you stopped by. Sounds like you are thinking big if you hired David Yack.
I should have guessed that you are going to charge for upgrades, sounds like a good business model.
I love to see you write that you are not going to use banner ads - I am not a fan of them too as I have stated that before on this blog. It must have made you sad when CSI plastered them all over RentClicks the day after they bought your site.
One other question I have for the new site is - who is going to do the SEO part? Are you working with Jonathan Hartley again? (Jonathan was mostly responsible for the very successful SEO on RentClicks).
I am very interested in your view point on the death of RentClicks - I am sure many people will be interested to hear what you have to say…
Dave (RentVine)
Dave Borden,
Your take on Huey and KS running the show would be interesting! Very few original Rentclicks folks left and I doubt the senior ones will stay much longer (the ones that have any sense).
Let me take a stab at this:
1. Death of RentClicks. It is sad, but the original plan was to migrate RentClicks over to rentals.com anyway. There were some logistical issues there, so we decided to wait. They certainly didn’t spring this on us and “kill our site” they made it clear that this was a possibility from the beginning. We actually really liked Primedia because they owned the rentals.com URL and we wanted to be able to compete with Rent.com URL wise.
2. Jonathan is not doing the SEO on this site even though he did consult. David Yack has some interesting SEO built into the site. Part of the success of RentClicks was certainly Jonathan’s mastery of the search engines (I would put him up against anybody). The other part of that SEO success was that our space was just not that crowded at the time. We are not starting Nicediggs.com with the expectation of getting organic search engine visits, that space is much to crowded and competitive to use organic search as a realistic expectation in our model. Instead we will be employing some guerilla tactics, and I think the community aspect of the site will attract a lot of users. Homes and Land has also partnered with us to provide some content for us to get started, and that has been helpful, we currently have more than 10 times the number of listings that RentClicks had when I left.
3. Banner ads: That was a constant battle for us. We grew revenue more every month than the banner advertising generated, and it just baffled me why they were so adamant about so little money. That was frustrating, it won’t happen on NiceDiggs.
4. Steve Huey. I don’t really know Steve that well as my interaction with him was limited. I was a little surprised to hear that decision but there was little choice since all of us left. One thing I can assure all of you is that the team running Rentals.com as a whole is VERY solid. Jamie Gallo is one of the brightest internet minds that I have ever encountered. Robert Turnbull is one of my favorite guys over there, and is a great sales leader. I know that much of my old IT, customer service, and sales staff still exists, and it would be a big mistake to under estimate any of them. As can be expected there are some issues that go on with a transaction and change of culture. All in all, I have to say that they have handled it pretty well. I’ve stayed pretty incognito since I left, but look forward to being a little more active in the discussion. Congrats on gaining the following that you have with this blog. You really came out of nowhere, and I have spoken to numerous contacts in the industry, and they are daily readers. Starting next week, nicediggs will definitely have a regular blog. In the mean time I will keep posting here. Best wishes to my crew at Rentals(RentClicks, RIP
), I hope they are treating you well.
Dave
Dave,
Can you tell me in private what Jonathan is up to these days - I would love to study any new site he might be working on.
From what you are saying it sounds like Jamie and Robert are pretty much driving the ship - thanks for sharing that with us.
I have always believed that banner ads and Google ads drive away more visitors than the amount of money they bring in.
For whatever small amount of revenue they generate, the take away much more in terms of the perceived legitimacy of a site.
Visitors come to a rental listing site to look at a particular type of ad – rental listings – why cheapen the experience and tire your viewers sooner by adding negligible content that you can’t control?
Dave Borden,
What are your thoughts on CSI paying for links?
I think this is a poor long term strategy. If I paid millions of dollars for RentClicks, RentalHouses and HomeRentalAds, I would have my whitest hat on when doing SEO on my sites. CSI could lose all that wonderful traffic by putting on a black hat and paying for links and those purchased sites would be worth zero.
I know you think Jamie and Robert are good leaders, but with this latest move I would have to disagree with you.
I totally understand if you would not like to comment on this issue. Give me a call tomorrow if you like.
I cannot understand the thinking behind CSI. Why do they continue to allow former owners of newly acquired companies to start a competing company. This is the case with RentClicks and HomeRentalAds, whose owners currently run other online rental sites.
RentClicks was a huge website, so why kill it and replace it with Rentals.com which couldn’t compete with even HomeRentalAds. It is apparent that between RentClicks and RentalHouses, the much large site was retired because its owners had parted ways with the company.
It would have made more sense to combine Rentals, RentalHouses, and etc. and market them against RentClicks which has the most traffic and users.
JC,
I agree with that CSI has made some mistakes lately.
Perhaps you know something I don’t. Please share the competing sites with us.
NiceDiggs.com does not appear to be a competing site (at least not yet).
I am sure the previous owners must have signed a non-compete for many years.
Dave,
Nicediggs has alot of new listings. the site sems to be doing very well.
Doing a good job over at nicediggs!
Robbie
Is nice digs starting to rank?
I have not seen them in search yet…..I will keep my eyes peeled for it to.
Nicediggs is off to a good start. IMHO, Redfin.com is the market leader in content and user experience. We will see who develops the best, most innovative features over the long term…to be continued.
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