Idea: KIJIJI FREE CANADIAN ONLINE OBITUARIES (KijObits)

Overhearing a convo right now that makes me think... be grateful Kijiji is free: do you KNOW how much they charge to run an obit in a major daily newspaper?! Hundreds of dollars!

That's one thing newspapers still make money on from the classifieds section: obituaries. They've lost all their classified business to Kijiji, now they charge an arm and a leg for obituaries.

Come to think of it, is that one category for which Kijiji does NOT offer free classifieds? Obituaries?

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Is there some kind of conspiracy with the papers? Some truce that says "we know we've lost the classifieds to you, but please don't kill us" vs "for some reason, newspapers, we'll let you have that and not entirely kill you, and we will not run obituaries as a sign of ... something"? I dunno. Maybe Google knows. Will report back.

(searchsearchsearch)

My first search reveals no obituaries category on Kijiji. Am I on to something....? Will report back.

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Okay, something's either very weird or there's a good reason for Kijiji not having an obituaries section. Is it discomfort with the idea of having death notices on a rainbow-colored site that still relies on algorithms and a series of volunteer ad reviewers to keep the existing categories free from spam and exploitation by rule-ignoring bots or hackers for hire? Would a good reason be just a "bad fit"?

Is there a good reason?

Because if not, there's a business niche to be exploited: (KIJIJI) FREE CANADIAN ONLINE OBITUARIES. You could call them KijObits or Kijijobits or ... whatever. You have people paid to think of clever names like Kijiji to begin with. I don't presume to know what the ad wizards would be able to sell to the people.

If Kijiji doesn't start it or add it as a category, someone should take the niche. People would probably love to be able to bring THAT category into the free realm as well. And you could run ads, and you could have Adsense ads above and below pitching limos, caskets, etc. The death industry is huge.

And whoever does develop this niche (and I'm not developing it), I want 10%!

If Kijiji, I want 13.37%

So, after pondering this, Yousuckatkijiji.com asked Kijiji if there's a reason why Kijiji obituaries don't exist.

"We're always looking to make it easier for Canadians to find exactly what they're looking for on Kijiji and this includes adding new categories," says the Kijiji spokesman. "We have thought about launching categories for weddings, funerals, and obituaries but we don't have a specific timeframe for this, yet. You can visit the homepage to check out new categories - they're always marked "new" to make them easy to find."




Well! Stand by, I guess. Those are the remaining categories that newspapers still charge big bucks for but have not crossed over into the Kijiji Free Local Classifieds world. It may just be a matter of time.