Tribune Co., which dropped its paid-access barrier on the entertainment component of
LATimes.com website today, is also getting very aggressive with the roll-out of free classified sites under the
Recycler.com brand. That's new, but what's even more interesting is that the Recycler sites also are offering searches of unaffiliated sites, including
Craigslist and
LiveDeal.com.
Until now, Recycler has been primarily a southern California brand, but Tribune rolled out sites last week in Dallas, Houston, St. Louis, Seattle, New Orleans, and Indianapolis (all of them cities where it has TV stations). It's also planning to launch five cities shortly in beta: Chicago, New York, Baltimore, Hartford, and Orlando. (Those are cities where it publishes newspapers.)
This is a pretty aggressive move by Tribune, especially the concept of integrating free ads from Craigslist and LiveDeal into its site. All private-party ads on the Recycler site are free. In addition to "stuff," the Recycler.com sites include sections for real estate, "community" (lost and found, ride-share, volunteers), employment, events, and services.
