Community Newspapers – Hear Them Roar

 I got a press release yesterday from Adicio, a classified platform vendor, about a newspaper client and how well they’re doing with the Adicio vertical-specific platforms, and I had to take a look. Heraldnet.com  is a very emulatable site and according to newspaper executives it’s increased both classified traffic and revenue by 25 percent as a result of the classified revamp.  The group is The Daily Herald Company, part of The Washington Post Company.  Four verticals to look at are Northsound Jobs, Northsound Cars, Northsound Shopping and Northsound Homes.

Sure, plenty of other newspaper online recruitment verticals are doing job video and advanced job search and Top Jobs, for example, but not enough are offering an applicant tracking system and that’s crucial to lure hiring managers and keep them coming back.  Adicio has done a nice job with theirs as evidenced on HeraldNet’s Northsound Jobs. 

 But there are also some smaller, memorable and even “fun” items here that I really enjoyed. For example, you can use a Millionaire Maker tool and find out if what you make and what you currently save are going to make you a millionaire and when. Well, I’ll have to wait until I’m 88 to be worth a million. SIGH. But if I save another $x dollars annually I’ll be a young 83 when that happens. Okay, obviously it’s too late for me but I can see a young job seeker having fun with this. I also used the Cost of Living Wizard to find out that my hypothetical job in Phoenix is not as lucrative as it would be were I to do the same job in Las Vegas, where wages are higher and the cost of living is lower. It calculated the difference and told me my net increase.

I really liked Northsound Shopping , though many of its scrolling display ads look like poor reproductions of print displays, and probably are. But it has a number of excellent features, such as Google maps of local shopping areas, links to news articles on retailers and shopping, and a garage sales search.

Take a look around. While it must be said that Adicio is not the only vendor offering good classified vertical platforms, you still might find some new ideas here.