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The true sad story about this is the fact that Cars.com added reviews 2 years ago and has gathered several hundred thousand of reviews for the dealers and it took Autotrader 2 years to react.

If the reviews are a good thing to have for participating dealers, why 2 years wait? If they are not good to have for participating dealers, why now?

I believe Cars.com did this at no cost to the dealers and that so far this has been a positive experience for everyone. If Autotrader could have monetized this they would have probably had reviews a lot sooner than 2 years.

I can't help to wonder what other technological advantages we should have on their website that could be generating leads that dealers may have to wait 2 years to get. It seems that only if it can be sold in a new package they are interested in developing the technology.

I'm ranting about Autotrader because I believe they have lost focus. I don't want to argue whether they should charge more or less for their services but as the market leader they used to be I will argue that their search for El Dorado with relentless acquisitions put the focus somewhere else other than generating leads and improving their website properly. You think that this is not important to me as a vendor and that I may have an ulterior motive for this but I beg to differ. Anyone that brings down the ROI on digital advertising affects what we all do. Every company that answers to the corporate expansion plans rather than the dealer's interest turns the dealers agains what we do in digital media. I believe in and love digital advertising.

Going into 2014 so far the biggest news is that Autotrader will have reviews 2 years after Cars.com has had them. What improvement should we expect next? Will they just copy another web advertiser feature?