Oodle pursues student market
Online classified ads venture Oodle is launching a dedicated search engine for students.
Oodle, which styles itself as “the search engine for local classifieds”, sees great potential in the student market, especially in the lettings and jobs sectors.
The new site is www.oodle.co.uk/college/ and it is starting with a network of 85 campus and college towns in the UK. The service includes house share, part-time jobs, second-hand furniture and other listings from popular classified sites such as eBay and Craigslist.
General manager UK Duncan Dunlop (pictured) said: “Unlike online auctions where users want to place the final bid, grabbing a bargain through classifieds is all about being first to respond. Students love deals and spend a lot of time online. Oodle appeals to them as they like to save time and money by browsing though listings in their area and Oodle alerts can notify them the minute the item they are looking for becomes available.”
At the same time Oodle is offering its API for UK student classifieds search to online brands that want to increase their offering in the student marketplace. The student sector is now proving very attractive for media owners and online brands keen to cultivate student eyeballs.
News International has just bought milkround.com, the UK online graduate recruitment company while founder of lastminute.com Brent Hoberman is involved with student social networking site univillage.com.
Oodle launched in May and has a media partnership with The Sun and The Evening Standard. More such partnerships are expected to be announced shortly.
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