Lookout Craigslist - here comes ChosenList

Now that online classified advertising service Craigslist has pushed most former classified advertisers off the newspaper pages and into cyberspace, it was only a matter of time before another innovative company would produce a more robust and free online selling service.

That time is now, as Scottsdale-based ChosenList emerges from two-years of incubation and beta-testing to potentially usher in the next step in personalized, Web-based commerce and job posting. ChosenList blends the video capabilities of YouTube, the job-search function of Jobing.com, and the free selling service of Craigslist, all into one site.

But what sets this site aside from its predecessors is the potential to organize and create a nationwide sales force of entrepreneurs, each using the ChosenList portal to bring video, mapping, and further connections to those still using newspaper classifieds and Craigslist to sell their products.

Created in 2006 by Cary Peters, president and chief operating officer, and Dwaine Canova, chief executive, ChosenList was designed to give users a place to provide video recordings of their products, video resumes, video job listings and company tours. And if you don’t have video taping capabilities, one of the company’s independent contractors, called the ChosenList Videographer Network (CVN), will gladly lend you a hand at their predetermined price.

Ever see a car on the side of the road with a “for sale” sign and a telephone number? Imagine logging on to a Website, viewing a video of that car – inside and out, and having a map to the pick up location and relevant contact information all on one page. That’s what ChosenList provides.

“What we’re doing is taking all existing technologies and putting them in a new business model,” Peters said. “It can’t be done in just text anymore.”

Taking on Craigslist won’t be easy, Peters said. With only 25 employees, the Internet’s most trafficked free job and advertisement posting site receives about 9 billion pageviews each month, with approximately 2 million job listings and 30 million product listings.

Popular technology publication Silicon Alley Insider estimates Craigslist’s value at $5 billion, based on Classified Intelligence’s estimated revenue of $80 million in 2008 and $55 million in 2007.

But Peters and Canova aren’t necessarily taking on Craigslist, Monster or Jobing.com. They think that their site is the next in the evolution of sites of this ilk.

“Do we expect to be as big as Craigslist? Well, that’s possible,” Canova said. “But we think we’re creating our own thing here.”

The two expect their growing number of CVNs to start scouring the newspaper classifieds, businesses and even Craigslist, offering to take other people’s advertisements to the next level. Each CVN signs up with ChosenList, receiving selling, communication and even tax advice for starting their own videographer advertising business.

CVNs are given general background checks and must watch tutorials on the ChosenList Wed site. Their only investment is a video recorder, which, with new products like the Flip Video series and the RCA Small Wonder, will run between $100 and $180. Both the Flip Video and Small Wonder have USB connections that allow users to upload video in a matter of minutes.

“A CVN could literally videotape a client’s product and have it up on the Internet in 10 minutes,” Peters said. “The client could sit there and watch the entire time.”

ChosenList also has a video job listing service similar to Jobing.com and CareerTours, and a resume service like Craigslist and Monster. But where ChosenList differs is that it combines the offerings of all three for a much cheaper price. The company charges $95 to secure a page for video, text and other information. That is 80 percent cheaper than CareerTours, which provides a similar video job posting service.

ChosenList has soft-launched in 15 cities, including Phoenix, Tucson, Dallas, Las Vegas and San Diego. Peters said that number will increase to 300 by the end of the summer. That will bring ChosenList much closer to Craigslist, which is now in 450 cities worldwide. It will also include RSS feeds and its social media community forum will continue to grow, Peters said.

“There are a lot of jobs out there begging to be filled and a lot of products not moving because they are stuck on the side of the road or in the newspaper classifieds,” Canova said.

Ty can be reached at ty@aztechnews.net.