A shiver went through the audience. On the Internet, classifieds are automatically sorted to make it easier to find what you re looking for. Suppose you re trying to find a 1997 Toyota Camry, silver, four-door, with a CD player and less than 35,000 miles on the speedometer. In an instant, Internet classifieds will sort and highlight every car fitting that description. In your city, your state, or the entire nation.
Many large Internet classified services are still free to advertisers.
Once the service is firmly established, they ll probably start charging. Banner ads within the classifieds also make money. By mid-2000, some major newspapers were responding to the threat. They banded together to launch regional classified Internet listings that duplicate the classifieds in their newspapers. People who buy classifieds in most of these initial offerings pay a small surcharge to have their copy included in the Internet listing as well as the print version.