SINGAPORE: Hunting for a home will soon be more than just about trawling through pages of property listings in the newspapers, thanks to a new e-classified website.
Called mocca — which stands for MediaCorp Online Communities and Classified Advertising — the new channel raises the interactivity factor such as users search, for free, in categories from cars to fashion.
Videos and articles by MediaCorp news agencies TODAY and Channel NewsAsia about property trends as well as links to nearby amenities such as schools will also pop up with the property listing in the new MediaCorp e-classified platform.
"If you think about how classified ads work now, it's very much a one-way thing. The person advertises and you, as the potential buyer, just read about it and do not interact," said MediaCorp's vice-president (New Media Business) Timothy Goh.
"With mocca, you can watch videos of the product and then talk about it in discussion forums as we roll this out progressively. This will bring the peer-to-peer marketplace closer."
In the pipeline for mocca — launched today — are features such as discussion forums for like-minded sellers and buyers, Mr Goh said.
These features will also be available for other search categories, such as travel, education, jobs and fitness.
Posting an ad is free for all categories, except property and vehicles.
There is a charge of $15 for each seven-day listing in these two categories. The advertiser can upload up to five images and a video link with each ad.
Ads on the other categories will expire after seven days. Advertisers can edit or completely change an ad whenever they want during these seven days, after which they have to renew the listing.
The one-week time limit is to ensure that ads on mocca are current, Mr Goh said, pointing out that many online classified advertising sites have lengthy expiration periods or none at all, which create the illusion of having a high volume of ads.
However, a sweetener awaits early birds: There is no charge to post all classified ads on mocca (www.mocca.com) for its first month. - TODAY/ac
