To subscribe, click here . Knight Ridder and the Tribune Co. think they've found the way to lead in the race to become the top provider of job listings as a critical source of newspaper revenue migrates to the Web. In doing so, the two media powerhouses are betting that a bigger site will give them greater national reach as consolidation threatens to wipe out all but the top few online job sites. Over time, you're going to see a fallout of different players. I think synergies are going to make it easier to gain national traction.
Online classifieds account for only a sliver of the overall classified market now.
But estimates call for the segment to increase as much as sevenfold in the next five years. Much of the growth is expected to come from recruitment ads, the biggest classified category, dollarwise. The merged company, to be called CareerBuilder Network, believes its superiority will come from its audience reach and filtering search technology. Filters will let prospective employees and employers conduct highly targeted searches via Tribune's and Knight Ridder's newspaper Web sites as well as other online sites. CareerBuilder believes sites will be measured by how well they match people and reach passive job seekers, not just by how many listings and eyeballs they have.