espotting.ie - Espotting Irish op?

Hard Times For Espotting?

[jmccormac]

Just spotted a new .ie registration for Espotting (espotting.ie). However all the contact details and the prices are still UK ones. Espotting has a bit of a reputation in Ireland already. They are used in presentations and demos as an example of badly targeted advertising. When you search for cars on the branded Google search of the main users of Espotting here (the EsatBT owned IrelandOnline), you get a pile of UK garages and vendors. Naturally these links are useless if you are looking for a garage down the road in Waterford.

The deal seems to be due to some old BT deal with Espotting though the manangement in EsatBT is a bit hard of thinking when it comes to search engines. It is being hammered by Eircom, the largest ISP operator in Ireland and Eircom also has a branded Google search facility.

The search market is dominated by Google here in Ireland and seeing Espotting trying to make a move in here is laughable. The company must be in dire straits if it has to consider a market as small as Ireland's.

Regards...jmcc

[glengara]

As the major European PPC player, I can see where it makes sense to have a specific Irish service, though if/when E-Spotting lose Y! UK & Ireland..........

[jmccormac]

As the major European PPC player, I can see where it makes sense to have a specific Irish service, though if/when E-Spotting lose Y! UK & Ireland

Exactly. This may be a preemptive move to cushion the blow of losing big customers. I think that they only have IOL/Oceanfree/Esat as clients here. Eircom is using Google but I don't recall any other sponsored links other than Google's.

Espotting has a major battle on its hands with Google and I think that they way things are moving, they are in trouble. The Google Adsense has mopped up a lot of the smaller operations and gives Google a lot more outlets. Espotting is too dependent on a few big players. This is a very tricky position for any company to be in, let alone one facing the might of Google and potentially Yahoo and the rest.

Regards...jmcc

[michael heraghty]

I agree with you jmccormack. I think these guys are starting to see the writing on the wall and what you're seeing now has a hint of desperation about it.

[Receptional]

Findwhat and Espotting better finalise their deal soon - otherwise they are BOTH going to be sprats in a see of sharks.