Small town classifieds: San Angelo

Today I looked through most of the San Angelo Standard-Times. It’s the big newspaper in town here.

One thing that caught my eye is that they have a 14-page classifieds section. That’s as big or bigger than most of their other sections.

It makes sense that a small town in Texas would be behind Seattle in terms of adopting the internet—and therefore craigslist—as an alternative to the classic newspaper. It is happening, however. I spoke to a couple people in town here who have recently cut their subscriptions because they wind up just reading news online (sound familiar?)

Out of curiosity, I looked at their online classifieds setup, because sooner or later they’re going to start seeing their paper-based classified ad revenue dry up, unless they take steps to move their classifieds customers (who are clearly active) online now.

The good news is that they’ve got classifieds listed prominently on their home page. They’ve got a step-by-step guide system to posting an ad. They allow interactive elements like slide shows.

The bad news is that they’re charging money. And if they don’t move to a freemium system soon, they run the risk of losing that audience.

The cost of printing a newspaper no longer provides the relative monopoly (and therefore relative captivity) of a community audience. If there are better and cheaper tools online, people will find them.