funda.ie is closing up shop...

[davidbehan]

blog » Funda.ie to cease operations! | davidbehan | web design - web development - web marketing | ireland

So is daft.ie always going to "own" the market or will anyone ever be able to better them?!?

 

[mneylon]

Weren't they the lot who spent a fortune on the teaser ads etc.,?

 

[davidbehan]

Yeah, I think they paid about 30k or something like that for the shamrock island off Dublin!

 

[RedCardinal]

My view is that they probably blew a large proportion on that campaign. I liked it a lot - just dont think they leveraged teh attnetion they got.

This is probably purely strategic. The fundamentals here have been deteriorating and the decline is starting to pick up. Funda HQ likely just made the call to pull out and consolidate their position.

Personally I think that daft could be toppled. But it would take a very, very good site that offered something both unique and useful functionality-wise. I imagine quite a bit of marketing spend would be required also.

Not too sure how happy I'd be if I were in either property or recruitment at the minute... not in the regualr niches anyhow. Tougher times ahead methinks...

 

[mneylon]

People will always be buying and selling property....

I think a lot of them had it too easy for a couple of years, but now they'll have to work harder

 

[Martina]

I remember that advert - it was broadcast before the website was launched. Enough said!

 

[EdenWeb]

Richard - just sent you an email about this.

I was asked to meet the Funda guys several weeks before they set up shop or announced their presence over here and we had a very interesting conversation about their plans for the Irish market.

Can't really go into details here but they had some very ambitious creative and technical plans for their site which were never realised and would have walked all over Myhome.ie imho.

Their site was using the IAVI listings so there was certainly no shortage of content. I didn't think that their new Irish web site worked very well and they didn't seem to 'get off the ground' but it's a real pity that they've pulled out of the market so soon after entering it.

 

[dude]

This kind of thing really puzzles me.

How are their costs so high they have to close their website?

I run loads of spidering websites and I can tell you right now that they cost me the price of a domain name to run per year, so they will never close down.

Funda.ie is basically a spidering service, right? Surely they can make cutbacks (e.g. get rid of full-time web developers) and keep the site going?

 

[addoc]

wasnt there a copyright problem with funda. Basically they were goin to list porperties from other sites, ie a property on daft would appear on funda. But they did not have permission to use the daft listing therefore using dafts content sans permision was copyright trouble?

 

[EdenWeb]

They did get their wrist slapped for that but I'm pretty sure they then disabled those feeds.

 

[TheMenace]

I think Funda failed simply because of their big ambitions. Cornering IAVI was a smart move but the amount they spent on marketing (Dublin Coastal Development viral, TV ads, etc.) as well as all the design and development costs were always going to be an issue. When competing against the likes of Daft and MyHome, who are household names, it's never a bad idea to start small and build your way up. Funda wanted to be Daft now if you know what I mean. It simply wasn't to be. Having a personal interest in Hunt For Property, I have mixed feelings about their demise.