I am not sure if anyone else has been watching indeed.com and simplyhired.com. I have, and it is turning out to be an interesting fight. Both sites have Google like aspirations except they are in vertical job search. This is something I have been watching for far too long hence my interest.
Indeed, Inc. was founded in 2004
Simplyhired. was founded in 2005
There is not much between them as far as start dates are concerned but I reckon we will see some very different tactics on capturing market share.
For instance:
Just recently indeed.com branched into the UK market with indeed.co.uk. This sent shivers down my spine because I run a Job Search Engine and started imagining the end of my website due to indeeed’s expansion. Looking at simplyhired’s growth over the last few months my fears were compounded. It is simply staggering. Around mid to late April this year their popularity shot up by over 100% according to alexa and quantcast. I reckon this is in large part due to a partnership with myspace (one of their major investors, Fox Interactive media owns myspace) .
My advice to indeed would be to find partners in viral or social networking organisations and do it quickly.
My advice to simplyhired would be to watch indeed’s internationalisation. I don’t give a damn what anyone thinks but entering international markets is a tough cookie to crack.
Another interesting thing is simplyhired’s move with jobomatic.com. I think this is a great idea and will definitely capture them decent content and a lot of traffic.
I am seeing simplyhired branching out in some very lucrative directions but I am not seeing (I may be missing things) the same focus from indeed.com. Perhaps I am not seeing indeed’s long term goals ie. why internationalisation etc……..