Craiglist brought classified ads onto the Internet in 1995. Fifteen years later, Slovenian entrepreneur Robert Farazin is launching mmatcher, a classified ad service aimed making the ads “mobile, spam protected, personal and real-time matched,” he told me via email.
The number of online adults who have used online classifieds has more than doubled in the past four years, according to Pew Internet Research. Ebay estimates that the global online classifieds market size will be worth $22 billion annually in 2010.
Mmatcher will attempt to match buyers and sellers who are looking to connect, but don’t have time to pore through ads manually until they find each other. Farazin’s favorite example goes like this: “Mark wants to sell his bike and Jenny, who lives three streets away wants to buy a bike. They can start messaging instantly.”
Mmatcher will also build up reputations for members who use the service a lot. An English tutor, for example, could stand out by building a reputational profile on mmatcher, where future potential students would be connected to him.
Frazin’s current business model for America is a freemium hybrid. You can use ad-supported mmatcher for free, but you’ll need to buy a monthly subscription to build your reputation. Small businesses will be able to buy a package tailored toward building an online presence as a retailer or service provider, complete with analytics tools.
“On the East and Middle East markets we will have different strategy and business model,” Frazin said. “We will make partnership and revenue sharing with mobile operators, because this is the fastest way to get users and also charge them. They are used to paying for services on a mobile phone.”
For now, mmatcher is privately funded.
Tags: DemoBeat, DEMOspring2010
Companies: mmatcher, R3 d.o.o
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