User Generated Video Classified Ads has just entered our lives with HotSwap Launches - Video Classifieds as reported in TechCrunch today.
"...Hotswap is targeting the $370 billion/year U.S. used car market with a free, video-focused classifieds site. Listings are optimized to allow users to quickly upload video of the car with a camera phone or other low end video equipment.
Both normal users and car dealers can upload listings. The company has inked a deal with Red McCombs Automotive, which will upload all of their used cars to the site. Other business development deals are being negotiated now."
For example, http://hotswap.com/products/view/13dc2f6c979f/2003-BMW-M3-/ shows a 2003 BMW M3 you can buy that's located in Beverly Hills. If you see the Video Classified ad and then want to share it you can email the page to a friend. You can't embed the video anywhere else (which I'd have preferred, but I can understand why they don't want to do that).
Why is this all important? Today it's used cars, tomorrow it's going to be dating, your next job interviews, and pretty much... anything you can think of will start being done this way.
No, I'm not kidding and I'm rarely wrong about this kind of thing. My Intuition, just flashed a big..... this is big. User Generated Advertising - just arrived in full force with HotSwap.com, but it's only the very beginning of a much bigger movement beyond used cars.
I also like the search interface of HotSwap.com, very smart, very easy to operate and it has just the right level of selectivity ... give controls to the buyers, they know what they want.
I could put in a Zip Code around where I live and see used cars I can buy around here (New York) but I think the concept is viable that soon we're going to see clones of this interface for dating and job candidates, as well as a dozen other things. I give it by this time next year - a whole market will emerge around platforms like what HotSwap.com is using.
How about Political Candidates using a platform like HotSwap.com to talk about what they'd do for local neighborhoods? A well researched campaign could find many potential hot neighborhoods where swing voters are located who have issues they are waiting to be addressed...might now a platform like HotSwap be the idea way to deliver a candidates message?
I predict HotSwap will become a major player and TechCrunch did give them a favorable review HotSwap Launches - Video Classifieds.
Marshall, you've got good intuition! There are already some other sites out there incorporating video into the classifeds arena. Check out Listasaurus.com, they're already doing all categories, not just cars...even their biz directory allows video. But one nice thing is, they're still giving their users the option whether to include video or not. also they pay users to list certain ads...which is a pretty unique twist on the free classifieds.
will be interesting to see how the video trend progresses!
Posted by: Ziggy | September 10, 2007 10:05 AM | Permalink to Comment