Seek on the job for cars, real estate

ONLINE jobs search engine leader Seek says it has examined developing its business via online real estate and cars classifieds many times in the past decade.

ONLINE jobs search engine leader Seek says it has examined developing its business via online real estate and cars classifieds many times in the past decade.

Seek also says that any toughening of the employment market could favour online classified sites such as Seek over print-based classifieds.

In response to questioning at an ABN AMRO communications conference yesterday, Seek's joint chief executive and co-founder, Paul Bassat, said: "The reality is, over a 10-year period, we've probably had three or four times where we've had a very good look at other categories: either in a conception sense or in specific opportunities."

Mr Bassat said Seek had "planned very much to do real estate and cars" at various times during this period.

"When we did our original business plan, back in 1997 (before the site was established in 1998), the plan was we started with real estate. Through that business plan we decided that employment was a better opportunity."

Mr Bassat said he "wouldn't say it's impossible" that Seek would expand outside the employment category, but said the chances were now "very low".

Mr Bassat has predicted that tough employment times that could follow the market meltdown might see Seek and other online employment sites unexpectedly benefit.

"I'll make one observation: if there were to be a slide in the (employment) market, you would actually expect the rate of migration from print to online to accelerate," he said.

"That's not necessarily a comment that we think it's going to be easier to drive our revenue or it's going to be a better environment or a weaker environment: that's obviously counter-intuitive ... But in a weak market, we would expect to increase our share of the pie."

Mr Bassat said his claims were based on previous experience soon after the dotcom crash.

"We very much saw that through 2001 and 2002 in markets like IT and financial services -- they were pretty smashed. (And) the most rapid migration of those markets from print to online actually occurred during the downturn," he said.

Earlier, Fairfax Digital chief executive Jack Matthews said newspapers could lift their readership online without cannibalising their print versions. "Online and print can work together and do work together," he said.

By accessing the younger audiences for online products, Mr Matthews said newspaper companies could support both the "brand" and the "brand value" of their print products.