Comments on: AOL Autos and Vast partner – something a little different?

By: Riddlingj

Riddlingj — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 02:25:00 +0000

Big Mistake on aols part vast as the worst of all car dealers using their
services nothing but nightmares to deal with .They advertize cars at low
ball prices And dont even have the car when you get there,isnt
that against the law ,Bait and switch?

By: David

David — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 16:51:36 +0000

It occurs to me (like most in this blog, I’m sure) that the dealers actually “own” the inventory and photos…not Cars.com or AutoTrader.

Therefore, anyone who can “aggregate” on behalf of the dealer could easily show “all” the inventory. This benefits the dealer, of course, who wants as many as possible to see their inventory and provide the contact info. As an in market buyer, I’m very dissatisfied with the current search aggregation sites. Hard to use and slow (my $.02…you may not agree). If Vast can provide fast/easy search with photos and prices, they will quickly make a serious dent.

I do like their simple interface and fast search…despite the buzzwords.

By: Chris

Chris — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 04:54:42 +0000

Without breaking out my tin foil hat, it is interesting this relationship has eventuated when a former AOL executive is the CEO at Autobytel/MyRide powered by VAST.

When I was at ABTL we were under the impression this was to be exclusive to ABTL. Even then they were touting that MyRide would have the largest used car inventory on the Web. Interesting now to see it’s basically everyone other than ‘Trader and Cars will now have a huge used car “vehicle” to sell to their dealers.

BTW, when I was at ABTL pay for performance meant the more you pay the higher in the waterfall your listings will come up.

By: Joe Pistell

Joe Pistell — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 14:44:57 +0000

Jason,
I don’t know how to tell you man but…

Your site needs a makeover from one of those marketing “touchey feely” GUI gurus (and so does mine!!). This is not a flame, just a comment from a peer in the trenches.

Joe

By: Jason

Jason — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 20:40:52 +0000

sorry – as soon as I see the “rich” / “robust” (and similar phrases), I immediately ignore everything else..
Coming from a programming and IT consulting background, nothing sets me off more then vendors and consultants using these absurd nonsense terms..
“with our rich interface and robust feature set blah blah blah blah”….
I AM impressed with their technology – but they do it a huge dis-service by resorting to such stereotypical IT marketing fluff..

By: Ali Amirrezvani

Ali Amirrezvani — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 19:59:53 +0000

The big thing that vast brings to the table is their spidering technology. Its this technology that scours the internet and pulls inventory from all sorts of sites. This is why they have 3 million cars.

By: Glen Garvin

Glen Garvin — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 14:39:46 +0000

I met with Vast last week at NADA and came away really, really impressed. Their partnerships have the potential to be a major disrupter in the traditional automotive sites. It is so rare to see a company have more than vaporware – most of the stuff I see like this is really easy to poke holes in and Vast was rock solid. This is going to get interesting!

By: Umer Farooq (AutoJini)

Umer Farooq (AutoJini) — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 00:34:25 +0000

Hmm… if I remember correctly Vast.com business model is paid search placement… i.e large classified providers pay extra to get the listings up high in the results… much like Yahoo organic placement… I wonder if same “robust optimization technology” will be in play at AOL.com…

By: Mike Muncy

Mike Muncy — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 23:39:41 +0000

man… how do I get the ‘in’ like Jeff? LOL

Good job Jeff

By: Jeff Larsen

Jeff Larsen — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 06:11:52 +0000

Very insightful and makes sense. Thanks again Jeff for keeping us updated on the up and coming trends in the market!