Great interview. I'm glad that vertical search is beginning to level the playing field in terms of classified market share.

That's a brilliant idea!

Great job as usual Jeff! Keep up the great work!

While it may not look good for myride on the service, the model is not bad. Searching for a vehicle on a portal is not rocket sciece. The market from a consumer standpoint is saturated. You have an abundance of choice. More choice is good but what will make something stand out is the content outside of the search results, the search criteria and accuracy and the overall efficiency. That's one thing that I think Vast has done well.

The social network/ user review part is going to gain more and more momentum. I don't think it'll be dealer rater... maybe carfolks will have the content and model. But maybe, just maybe myride will hang on long enough to be the dark horse winner?

Joe I'm not so sure that money is all is needed. Sites that are easy to use are successful, and very few car shopping sites are. Dealers shouldn't have to put their URLs in images in order to help customers find their websites. Car sites don't understand tracking funnels so they blackout features instead of managing them properly.

Garbage in, garbage out. This is the same shit I can get on any other site with brighter colors.

All this money being made (or lost) with a 'nothing-new' effort. It sickens me.

C'mon CS,
It sure puts a light on how much cash they have to dump in it to become an "established" YACWFUC.

-YET
-ANOTHER
-COPRORATE
-WEBSITE
-FOR
-MARKETING
-USED
-CARS

They need a big media partner... BAD.

Meh. The meta tags issue is a small one. Sites like this have little content that search engines are interested in.

Does anyone know why MyRide.com uses the Vast API instead of the Autobytel database? I sure don't.

Does anyone know why the search box on the homepage doesn't search the "research" and classifieds sections of the site? I sure don't.

Joe your graph is funny to look at, but would you really expect a new site to compete with an established authority?

myride.com, should be mymynoaudienceatall.com

To think autotrader.com was scared of this concept! Shows you how in tune they really are! LMAO!

myride = myouch


Bet there is some boardroom drama going on over there.
The suits who pushed this MyRide drivel thru are now back peddling and talking about "longer time lines" to mature.

Actually, I haven't been to myride in months. Looks like they're shedding the street attitude community angle and going more corporate. It's a better fit for them. The Problem is that this space is quite full. (kbb, edmunds, etc..)

We had Eric Cotter, Product Manager of MyRide.com weigh in before, Eric, you still with us? Where are you taking MyRide Now?

Boy it would have been nice if this sale would have happened 3 months ago when the company had their last RIF, costing 40 people their jobs.

It's no secret Autobytel is losing money every quarter so this sale will give them a few more quarters in which to continue losing money. MyRide was a catastrophe last summer when they tried to launch it. A perfect case of how outsourcing ends up costing you more money than you could have ever spent doing it right the first time.

Jeff, you're spot on when you speak to how frustrating the MyRide site is. They so want it to be the next Facebook. Plus how is it supposed to drive more traffic when no one outside the industry knows about it. They spent 10's of thousands of dollars promoting it in the automotive press, but none of those eyeballs are going to ever be an organic Autobytel lead.

In any event, hopefully this will prove a good move for AVV.

MyRide.com = YACWSTTLC.
You can just feel the Suits at autobytel.com running it. It lacks "attitude".

YACWSTTLC
Yet
Another
Corporate
Web
Site
Trying to
Look
Cool


Gotta love DR!
Joe

Does anyone here on the forum use Grant Cardone's Epencil CRM? We have had good results at our dealerships with Epencil and are looking at cancelling our ADP CRM and using Epencil's CRM. I know it is just a reskin of dealerpeak but it seemed simple to use and cost effective.

Thank you in advance for your input.

Does anyone here on the forum use Grant Cardone's Epencil CRM? We have had good results at our dealerships with Epencil and are looking at cancelling our ADP CRM and using Epencil's CRM. I know it is just a reskin of dealerpeak but it seemed simple to use and cost effective.

Thank you in advance for your input.

I have been watching the Whole purchase of AVV web Control. I used it 7 years ago and it couldn’t keep up to demand then. I think it was more of a purchase of customer base??? what else could it be they bought a dyeing horse.

Dave,
They are just such popular topics that they pop up on every thread!
LOL!

Seriously.....What the hell happened to this post???? Did you hear that AVV was sold to Dominion? HAHAHA Seriously, how did AutoTrader and iMagic Lab get brought into this?

Bill, I don't know where you got your information from, but iMagicLab has not been sold to Salesforce.com or any other company. It is still an independent company.

Cliff I agree with your comment.

Chris,

I understand -- or at least, sympathize with your pain about the high cost of ineffective software or solutions you guys have to put up with, but I'm curious as to why you expect something like AVV to be free -- or at most, $50 a month?

Aren't vendors allowed to make some money?

Cliff Banks

How many times has iMagicLabs been sold now? I've lost count!

Sorry but to be clear imagiclab was sold to salesforce.com not avv

Well Gil it doesn't matter because they are closing with Salesforce.com buying them anyway. I agree they were good but the sold out anyway

I would have to disagree with you Chris. iMagicLab has an awesome ILM. I may be accused of being a homer, even though I am not associated with iMagic anymore, but their ILM is hard to beat.

myride.com, should be mymynoaudienceatall.com

To think autotrader.com was scared of this concept! Shows you how in tune they really are! LMAO!

myride = myouch


Bet there is some boardroom drama goin on over there.
The suits who pushed this MyRide drivel thru are now backpeddling and talking about "longer time lines" to mature.

Actually, I havent been to myride in months. Looks like they're sheding the street attitude community angle and going more corporate. It's a better fit for them. The Problem is that this space is quite full. (kbb, edmunds, etc..)

We had Eric Cotter, Product Manager of MyRide weigh in before, Eric, you still with us? Where are you taking MyRide Now?