Great Write Up About ListGlobally in The Australian
Yesterday ListGlobally, a Classified Ad Ventures incubator business, received a great write up in The Australian newspaper. Althought I am not so sure about the headline 
Here is the article.
Nerd goes global in real estate listings: Simon Baker’s attraction to the net has paid off
FORMER REA Group chief executive Simon Baker is a self-confessed “closet nerd”.
From a young age, the 43-year-old says, he has been fascinated with computers.
Baker previously ran REA Group, the owner of realestate. com.au, before starting his latest venture, Classified ADventures.
He studied computer science at Monash University, and his first job was a “tour of duty” at IBM in the sales division.
“I started off life as a programmer in sales and marketing,” Baker says.
“As such, you can’t help but get attracted to the internet and the opportunities it provides.”
He loves the fact that the online real estate market is not fully defined yet, and that new products and possibilities are arising on a daily basis.
That fascination has brought him to where he is today — running his own show as founder of online classifieds company Classified ADventures.
The company provides operators of online classifieds sites with consulting services and helps them get the most out of the internet to advertise their listings.
Among the websites in the stable are smartagentsites; Sobox (Social Media in a Box) and listglobally.
The last, launched a couple of months ago, aims to help real estate agents get global advertising exposure for their listings.
After talking to real estate agents around the world, Baker discovered there were people buying properties across borders.
When you look at the way the online advertising space is set up, he says, each country has its own realestate.com.au, but no one is seriously asking how to market a property across a number of countries to attract an overseas buyer.
Out of that idea, listglobally was born.
From there, Baker says, his team approached the real estate.com.au equivalents in 20 markets around the world to see if they could put listings on their sites.
In each market, the website has become one of the most popular.
For example, if you are in Britain and want to buy property in Australia, he says, your first port of call may be rightmove.co.uk (the equivalent of realestate.com.au).
Each month, 1.6 million searches are carried out on that site’s international section, he says.
“What’s funny is that the fifth most searched country is Australia and there are only 200 listings there,” he says.
“It’s all about saying how do I put Australian listings in front of English buyers or South African buyers or Hong Kong buyers.”
Essentially, with one click and a fee of $90, a real estate agent can put their listing on the equivalent of realestate.com.au in 20 markets.
By the end of the year, he hopes to be in 23 countries.
If all goes to plan, listglobally will be a $10-20 million-a-year business.
Baker’s fascination with computers started early, but the property link was accidental, and only developed several years ago, while he was working at realestate.com.au.
Not long after joining News Limited (publisher of The Australian), Baker says, he was asked to undertake a review the realestate.com.au business.
Not long after that, he joined the board of realestate.com.au and asked for a shot at the top job.
In 2001, he got his shot.
For the next eight years, he says, he spent morning, noon and night turning the online property portal around from a loss-making business to what he describes as a very profitable, dominant market player. In 2008, he departed as chief executive of REA Group and a week later started his own venture with some of his former colleagues.
He had two aims. One was to invest in companies through an investment fund known as CAV Investment Holdings, and the other was to build companies.
With the money he earned from his shareholding in REA Group, Baker invested in a number of businesses. But the main focus for him is Classified ADventures.
He identified about four or five ideas and created an incubator in which those new businesses could be formed, he says.
Three of those ideas have become reality: Sobox, smartagent sites and listglobally.
Baker says his team has very clear goals it wants to achieve, given its financial projections.
With distribution partners lined up, he says, the next goal is to increase the number of listings going through the system. “Our first goal is to get to 1000 listings a month, then we want to get to 5000 listings a month,” he says.
“We are the only ones doing this,” Baker says of his new online property classified website.
“We are the first one to go out and line up all these market leaders, link them all together, and provide them with a feed of properties.
“Either it’s going to be an incredibly good idea or I just wasted two years of my life.”
Former JobsDB General Manager Joins iProperty.com Malaysia
IPGA Ltd (ASX: IPP), the owner of Asia’s No. 1 network of property portal sites under the iProperty umbrella brand (www.iproperty.com), today announced that Timothy Hor has joined as Country Manager for the Malaysia business iProperty.com Malaysia (www.iproperty.com.my). Prior to joining, Timothy was General Manager of JobsDB Malaysia, the Malaysian arm of the largest recruitment portal in Asia Pacific. As Country Manager, Timothy brings a wealth of online experience to the iProperty.com Malaysia business.
“Timothy is an experienced and proven operator of an online business and has the skills and capabilities to take the business through the next stage of its growth. iProperty is a clear market leader in Malaysia and we look forward to Timothy’s input and leadership as we expand upon that market leadership position and provide our customers with great levels of service and our website users with an outstanding experience,” said Shaun Di Gregorio, Chief Executive Officer of IPGA Ltd.
“The iProperty.com network has established leading positions in Malaysia, Hong Kong and Singapore. With the recent acquisition of Thinkproperty.com.my in Malaysia, I am confident Timothy will drive further growth in both these businesses,” commented Di Gregorio.
Timothy adds, “I am thrilled to be joining IPGA. There are only a handful of local online businesses one looks forward to working with and iProperty.com Malaysia is by far, the best.”
The appointment of Timothy Hor follows the appointment of former Fairfax Media Commercial Strategy Director, Glenn Thompson as Country Manager of iProperty.com Singapore in June 2010.
Classified Ad Ventures is Hiring
The team at Classified Ad Ventures is getting bigger and we are looking for great people to join us.
We have recently launched our new jobs section.
Currently we are looking for the following roles:
Check out the Classified Ad Ventures job section regularly for new opportunities.
iProperty acquires Malaysia’s #2 ranked property portal, thinkproperty.com.my
IPGA Ltd the owner of Asia’s No. 1 network of property portal sites under the iProperty umbrella brand (www.iproperty.com), today announced that it has acquired Think Media Sdn Bhd, owner and operator of Malaysia’s number two ranked property portal ‘thinkproperty.com.my’. IPGA Ltd currently operates Malaysia’s number one ranked property portal iProperty.com.my.
“Malaysia is one of our core markets alongside Singapore and Hong Kong. At the beginning of the year we stated clearly that our strategy will be focused on building on the market leading positions we’ve established in our three core markets. The acquisition of thinkproperty.com.my further consolidates our leadership position in Malaysia and builds an even better platform for future growth in that market and across the region” said IPGA CEO, Shaun Di Gregorio.
“We’ll continue to run thinkproperty.com.my as a standalone website in Malaysia as it offers consumers a different user experience and allows advertisers to reach a unique audience of property buyers and sellers. We’ve identified a number of improvements we can make to the website and ultimately deliver an even better result for consumers and advertisers in the Malaysian market.” commented Di Gregorio.
IPGA Ltd has acquired Think Media Sdn Bhd for AUD2.08 million. The website thinkproperty.com.my currently has more than 4,500 Agents advertising approximately 80,000 properties for sale and for rent. It received 178,000 Unique Visitors in May 2010* making it the clear number two property portal in Malaysia. Thinkproperty.com.my also accepts display advertising and has an active property forum and blogging community.
“Following the successful acquisition of SG-house.com in Singapore in June, the acquisition of thinkproperty.com.my in Malaysia further illustrates our commitment to be clear market leaders in Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong” commented Di Gregorio
IPGA Reports Record Sign Ups in June
IPGA Ltd (ASX: IPP), the owner of Asia’s No. 1 network of property portal sites under the iProperty umbrella brand (www.iproperty.com), today released its 4C statement with the result underlying the continued investment in the growth of the business. In June 2010, the company recorded its largest number of new customer sign ups and record consumer traffic to its network of property portals.
“It’s been a tremendous first half of the calendar year with the business achieving a record number of new agent sign ups and a record number of consumers viewing our websites. Each of our core markets of Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong have grown strongly and we continue to develop a platform for future growth as we build on our market leading positions in these three countries” said IPGA CEO, Shaun Di Gregorio.
“With our continued investment in the business, we’ve seen a marked improvement in the productivity of our sales force which has driven the great result in new customers sign ups. At the same time our ability to drive consumer traffic to our websites has become more sophisticated as we focus on being more innovative and dynamic in everything we do. We’ve also significantly improved the quality and experience of our Senior Management team with a number of new appointments over recent months” commented Di
Gregorio
“With a clear strategy in place and the right team to lead us into the future, we are a very optimistic business. Continued growth in new Agent sign ups combined with a focus on providing consumers with the best possible user experience when searching for properties are the fundamentals of our business. We intend to continue to excel in these areas and build on our market leading positions in Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong” added Di Gregorio
“It’s a very exciting time to be the CEO of such a passionate and committed group of people who are all intently focused on ensuring the business succeeds ” said Di Gregorio.
Former REA Group General Manager, Shaun Di Gregorio, was appointed as CEO of IPGA Ltd in January 2010.
Great Article About ListGlobally by AAP
A big thanks to the guys at AAP for their write up of ListGlobally.
Here is the article that they have written.
TECH:Aussie pioneers global property site
By Angela Harper
BRISBANE, July 21 AAP – An Australian company has developed a world-first internet platform to help real estate agents market their properties globally.
ListGlobally.com acts as a hub for real estate agents to list their offerings on multiple websites around the world.
Rather than agents having to list properties separately across many sites, they can instead send the data to the new site, which will then post the properties on many real estate portals.
The product is the brainchild of former realestate.com.au boss, Simon Baker, who says no one has previously done a deal with market-leading sites and then put the technology in place to syndicate listings.
“The beauty of these products is that you are helping them reach an audience they’ve never reached before,” Mr Baker told AAP.
“It’s the thing that stitches it all together between players.”
The websites where the properties are syndicated are the top performers in each of the markets, he said.
The site, which was launched this week, has so far attracted listings from the UK, Germany, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, United Arab Emirates, Canada, Japan, and India.
In the next few weeks, ListGlobally will also publish in Mexico, Russia, and South Africa, with Australia, Spain, France, Italy, Brazil and the US to follow.
ListGlobally – A US Market Perspective
The team at 1000wattconsulting in the US has done a great write up of ListGlobally and its applicability to the US market.
Thanks to Brian, Marc and Joel.
Here is the artcile.
————————————————————————————–
“Real estate is local.”
For a century, that statement has been about as questionable as “The sky is blue.”
No so anymore. Consider this:
The NAR’s 2010 Profile of International Buying Activity notes that foreign buyers represented 7% of the entire U.S. residential real estate market in the year ending March 31, 2010. 28% of all Realtors reported working with at least one international client in the past year.
Real estate marketing can no longer stop at the water’s edge. But there’s been precious little American brokers and agents can do to reach global buyers on a large scale. Sure, there are international networks of real estate brokerages – particularly in the luxury market. But the world we live in requires a quicker, easier and more direct channel to international buyers.
That’s what makes ListGlobally, a global listing syndication app launched just last week, so interesting.
For $90, ListGlobally distributes your listing to leading property portals from Singapore to Spain for a period of 90 days. It’s one-click global marketing.
Simply load up your property details, along with photos, videos and virtual tours, to the site. You pay only when you hit “Publish”. ListGlobally then does the heavy lifting for you and pushes out your listing to all of its publishing partners. On the backend, it then gives feedback on exactly what kind of traffic and leads were generated from each site.
It took a few years, but syndication of listings to a wide network of sites within the U.S. is now taken for granted by agents and expected by sellers. In an age of globalization, extending that reach even further seems like a no-brainer.
Quickflix Records Significant Increase in New Subscribers
Quickflix is pleased to announce that total subscribers (paying and trialists) have now surpassed 66,000, representing a significant increase on the 55,367 reported as at 30 June 2010.
The addition of over 10,000 subscribers throughout July to date represents over 500 net new subscribers per day or growth of over 20 per cent on total subscribers at the end of June.
Furthermore the Company has achieved a new record for the number of subscribers added in a day of 2,649. This eclipses the previous record and makes July’s growth to date the strongest start to a quarter recorded by the Company.
The Company is pleased to inform that it is achieving the new additions at a low cost per subscriber acquisition.
The surge in new subscriber additions is a result of increasing awareness of the Quickflix brand, new promotional campaigns and growing consumer demand as the structural shift from physical video stores to online gathers pace.
ListGlobally Goes Live Giving Agents and Developers Global Exposure
ListGlobally, a new and innovative global marketing tool for agents and developers around the world, has just been released. Backed by Simon Baker, the ex-Managing Director of the REA Group (realestate.com.au), ListGlobally allows agents and developers to market their listings to over 25 million buyers around the world through a network of leading property portals.
With a few simple clicks, a property listing is uploaded and displayed on 10 leading property portals in key markets. This will shortly grow to 25 leading portals. There are no contracts or set-up fees, just one low price for each listing which is active for 90 days.
ListGlobally currently publishes to leading sites in the United Kingdom, Germany, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, United Arab Emirates, Canada, Japan, and India. In the next few weeks, ListGlobally will also publish to leading sites in Mexico, Russia, and South Africa. More partners will be announced shortly in markets including Australia, Spain, France, Italy, Brazil and the US.
| Country | Partner |
| United Kingdom | Rightmove.co.uk |
| Germany | Immobilienscout24.de |
| Malaysia | iProperty.com.my |
| Singapore | iProperty.com.sg |
| Hong Kong | GoHome.com.hk |
| Japan | Realestate.co.jp |
| Global | Enormo.com |
| India | 99acres.com |
| Canada | Canadahomeguide.tv |
| United Arab Emirates | Propertyfinder.ae |
| Coming Soon | |
| South Africa | Privateproperty.co.za |
| Russia | Domavin.com |
| Mexico | Metroscubicos.com |
Announcing the launch of ListGlobally at the Real Estate Connect conference in San Francisco, CEO Simon Baker said: “Most agents and developers have sold properties to overseas buyers without any international marketing program. With ListGlobally, agents and developers can now effectively market selected properties on real estate sites with a combined audience of over 25 million visitors each month. On rightmove alone, there are 1.6 million international searches conducted each month by UK house hunters.”
To find out more, go to www.listglobally.com.
ListGlobally is owned and operated by Classified Ad Ventures.
Wanted – Sales Staff to Join Classified Ad Ventures Team
Classified Ad Ventures is looking for experienced online sales people to join our rapidly growing sales team. We are currently looking for sale people in all states in Australia and later in the year, we will have opportunities in other markets.
The ideal candidate has probably worked for a seek.com.au, carsales.com.au, realestate.com.au or domain.com.au in a front line sales position. They would have experience as either a BDM (business development manager – ie new business) or account management (management of existing customers).
Classified Ad Ventures is building a series of new and innovative online products and services targeted at the real estate agency market. Recently we launched SOBOX and ListGlobally to the Australian market.
- SOBOX provides social media solutions for Australian and New Zealand real estate agents
- ListGlobally allows real estate agents to advertise their listings around the world
Classified Ad Ventures has more products in the pipeline and these will be launched in the coming months.
Our sales team will sell across the range of products to real estate agents in their territory.
Packages for sales people are competitive, weigheted towards uncapped commission, and include mobile and laptop.
In addition, you will get to work with many of the team the built realestate.com.au and the REA Group.
If you are interested in a position, know someone that is or just want more information, please send an email to sbaker@classifiedadventures.com.
