Leadpile’s Blog

Companies working with consumers to modify their mortgages has been going on for almost a year now. However, Ocwen Financial Corp (a servicer of sub-prime mortgage) is one of the first mortgage servicers to begin modifying mortgages under the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Home Affordable Modification Program. The new government program was rolled out in an effort to help mortgage holders who are potentially going to fall behind on their mortgages.
According to Business Journal,”For a loan modification, lenders would have to reduce the mortgage payments to no more than 38 percent of the borrower’s income. The Treasury Department would share the cost for lenders to cut that debt-to-income ratio to 31 percent.
Loans could be extended to up to 40 years. Those lenders who do participate would have to modify all loans, not just the worst ones. Loans originated before Jan. 1 are eligible for the program, which runs through 2012. Homeowners who have an unpaid principal balance of as much as $729,750 can participate. There are also incentives for firms such as Ocwen (NYSE: OCN) that service these loans.
They will receive an upfront fee of $1,000 for each eligible modification meeting guidelines established created by the initiative. They will also receive “pay for success” monthly fees – as long as the borrower stays current on the loan – of up to $1,000 a year for three years.”
Leadpile Lead Exchange has seen the loan modification lead type go through periods of high demand to not much demand. Maybe this lead type has some more life in itself in our marketplace. There still seems to be consumers that will want to be a part of this new government plan. We shall see…..

Facebook passed a remarkable figure this week.  The 200 millionth user was added this week to the popular social networking site.  If Facebook was a country it would have the fifth largest population in the world. Facebook isn’t only getting larger, it is also getting older.  People ages 26-44 make up the the fastest growing segment of the Facebook population.  

Most Facebook users are still reluctant to click on adds, and businesses are still trying to leverage the social networking space.  Real problems and perceived problems regarding products and customer service can be monitored with social media.  Great opportunities lie ahead for Facebook, Twitter and others.

Everyone knows eBay for it’s marketplace of buyers and sellers of all sorts of items. Leadpile Lead Exchange often times refers to itself as the “eBay” of leads. However, there is no affiliation to one another, yet many people know the concept of how eBay works and is considered a household name.

This household name is now expanding it’s portfolio of services it provides.  Ebay Motors is a division of eBay that provides a directory of automobiles. According to DMNews, eBay Motors has now launched an online classified section. This will allow sellers of automobiles to be connected with the buyers locally. The article goes on to state, “The new listing option is designed to connect car buyers and sellers within a 100-mile radius of their local market, and is being offered free through an initial promotional period ending July 15.” Pre-internet consumers utilized local newspapers to find a car, however this new enhancement of eBay motors will mirror that old school classified section, but be on your computer.  According to eBay, eBay Motors has 12 million monthly unique visitors, and they sell a car every minute. I guess this really means bye bye newspaper classifieds?

In addition to eBay Motors, eBay has a family of websites such as rent.com, half.com, kijiji.com, paypal.com, prostores.com and shopping.com.

With so many consumers being really strapped for cash, and banks trying to find additional revenue, some banks are offering an alternative type of loan which appears to be like a payday loan. As we all know, payday loans are issued by payday lenders, not necessarily our local banks.  However, Tennessee’s Fifth Third and U.S. Bank are offering 35 day payday advance loans.  According to Nashville Business Journal, “The loans come with an annual percentage rate of 120 percent, or a 10 percent fee on money borrowed. That’s a rate much higher than almost any other form of credit, other than businesses that offer pawn, title or unsecured payday loans, which often charge fees as high as 400 percent APR.” So my question is, is this the beginning of banks now offering payday loans? Will they have to go through the same regulations as the payday lenders are having to go through?

Brick and mortar payday stores, online payday lenders and others that deal with payday loans are facing more and more regulations these days.  Will our nation’s top 10 banks now be on that list of those being faced with the payday loan regulations?

In recent conversations with many of my affiliates, the conversations about the economy and the housing market have been very popular. The housing market as we all know has impacted those around us in a very dramatic way. There are short sales, foreclosures, and home sale conversations going on with those on the internet, and with those in our every day lives. If you are one that is in the market to buy a house, this is certainly the time to do that. However, knowing what a short sale , foreclosure and FSBO (for sale by owner) are is very important. To help with finding homes to purchase AND becoming educated on these terms, there is a list of websites that Hitwise.com considers the highest ranked real estate websites ending the week of 3/21/2009:

1. Realtor.com
2. Yahoo! Real Estate
3. Zillow
4. ZipRealty
5. RE/MAX Real Estate
6. US Department of Housing and Urban Development
7. Rent.com
8. Homegain
9. Trulia.com
10. ServiceMagic
11. Homes.com
12. Apartments.com
13. Century 21 Real Estate
14. Foreclosure Store
15. Foreclosure.com
16. Reply!
17. RealtyTrac
18. Coldwell Banker Real Estate
19. RealEstate.com
20. MyNewPlace

Leadpile Lead Exchange is always looking for new partnerships with websites such as these, and any other websites that are looking to be monetized. However, we are also looking for those sites that are great resources for consumers to learn information from, such as the ones listed above. Being educated on a large transaction, such as buying a home, is key to making that transaction that much more successful. These listed websites can certainly help with accomplishing that, so you might want to take a look!

Got Gold?????

Unless you have been in a cave, you would know that the price of gold is on the rise.  Right now, the price per ounce of gold is pushing above $1000!  The price of gold has appreciated greatly during this economic downturn.  According to Time.com, “The supply of gold is also a factor in pricing. Many investors holding gold reserves have faced losses in their other assets, which would have led them to sell their gold. Ordinary people, too, have motive to sell their gold jewelry during a recession, which should increase the supply of gold on the open market and impede a price hike.”
Leadpile Lead Exchange has certainly recognized this increased demand in gold. Getting cash for your gold is hot in the affiliate marketing world, and on our televisions. I don’t think I can go an hour or two without seeing some sort of cash for gold commercial on t.v. Knowing this, Leadpile has created an offer, and is always looking for traffic to it (nationalgoldcenter.com). We have advertisers wanting more and more leads in this arena, and if you have a desire to jump on this band wagon, let us know.

It is with sadness that I write about another major newspaper ceasing publication.  Tuesday, March 17th will be the final printed edition of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.  Just like the Rocky Mountain News, this comes as no surprise as the Hearst Corporation was attempting to sell the newspaper with no success.  The company will retain a small staff to continue with an online-only news venture.

Seattle becomes another major city with just one daily printed major newspaper.  The Seattle Times for the moment remains in operation, but is bleeding debt.  The Times is a family-owned newspaper, and will benefit some by the closing of the competition.  There is an outside chance that Seattle could become the first major city with NO printed major newspapers if the family cannot, or chooses not to, withstand the challenging time ahead.

Sadly, there will be more newspapers closing in the near future, and the San Francisco Chronicle is likely to be next.

Much has been written and spoken about Twitter recently.  Some people love it, and others view it as a waste of time.  Also, the lack of a business model that produces revenue has been discussed.  Does Twitter act like email, search, and/or social networking?  The answers currently appear to be no, no, and yes.

This week, the people at Hitwise came out with some research on where people are going after visiting Twitter.  Indications are that Twitter is acting more like social networking than search or email.  Two out of five visitors are visiting social networks or entertainment sites after visiting Twitter.

At this point, very little Twitter traffic is visiting retail sites (search activity) nor is the traffic visiting finance, business or dating sites (email activity).  It appears to be more about social networking and distributing content, especially photo-sharing, than on selling products or services.

Things are sure to change rapidly, but it appears that the monetization of Twitter and its growing traffic is a work in progress.  This potentially huge opportunity is still there for the taking.

I know it is tough going for many people and companies right now.  So, I am writing about the major search engines.  Let’s take roll call… Yahoo are you here?  Good.  How about you Ask.com?  Ok…maybe a little louder next time.  Google, I’m sure you are here… of course you are, you are everywhere.  Lastly, MSN are you out there?  Ok, everyone is accounted for. 

Now, let’s have everyone who increased their market share during this tough year take one step forward.  Ok, anybody else?   If anyone lost market share, please sit down.  Well, as you may have guessed there is only one search engine standing.  Times are tough, but there is only one company weathering the storm, and their dominance is growing.

In February, over 72% of all search queries were done on Google.  An 8% increase from a year ago.  The other three major players (can we call them major anymore?) accounted for over 26% of search activity.  Yahoo accounted for 17% of the search activity (down 17% from a year ago) and isn’t really trying anymore.  Ask.com is also shrinking (down 10%) with little effort to improve.  MSN (down 20%) is at least trying, and may still acquire Yahoo to a form a decent second option to Google.

When we assemble this same group a year from now, will Google have over 80% of the search market?  Don’t bet against it.

According to internetnews.com, “A new forecast from research group IDC is projecting that in the first quarter of 2009, online ad spending will see its first real decline since the dotcom implosion in 2001. ” In addition, the fourth quarter e-commerce spending had declined, compared to 2007 e-commerce spending. Consumers spending less could certainly have an impact on the overall online ad spending, however it appears paid search has been the best performing. This article also points out the correlation between the US economy (recession some call it) and the overall online advertising being down. Companies don’t have as much money to spend on this aspect of their business, compared to when sales are up they can afford to spend more on things such as advertising.

Leadpile Lead Exchange deals with all sorts of online activity. Paid search is a very common way of driving traffic to our lead generation websites, however there is also a lot of others that seem to be performing well too.  I am not sure I really see the decline in ad spending, but time will tell.

Do you ever wonder how the online experience will change over the years?  Well, to look forward, perhaps we should look backward.  Do you remember how you spent your time online just over a decade ago?  You probably started by firing up your modem, and going to your AOL account.  If you ventured away from AOL, you would use Internet Explorer (maybe Netscape) to explore a few sites. Remember, you were paying by the hour, so you didn’t stay online very long, and you were tying up a phone line.  Also, it took forever for pages to load, so it wasn’t very easy to move around.

Americans with internet access were spending less than 30 minutes a month online just 13 years ago.  Today, it is estimated that people spend over 27 hours a month online.  There was no Google, and YouTube was still years away.  The Web was completely different back then, and to predict what the future will look like is difficult.  The safe guess is that we will be spending more time online, but how will the experience change?

For those of you in the online lead generation business, there is a great conference coming up March 4-5th, 2009 called LeadsCon. This conference is being held in sunny Las Vegas, Nevada at the Mirage Hotel. Companies from all over will be coming together to try and increase the effectiveness and success of the industry.  Leadpile will be a sponsor for this great event.  Also, we will be attending this conference and we are looking forward to meeting some new faces, and once again seeing the familiar faces. If you will be attending and would like to meet up, please let us know!