Fabrice Grinda is bullish on Brazil and betting big on Net classified ads in South America’s largest country. that year, Grinda’s New York-based company OLX opened an office in So Paulo, hired locals to translate the OLX site into Portuguese, asked top real estate brokers and auto dealers to offer low-priced listings, and recruited an executive from eBay in Latin America.

That approach has worked well for OLX in Mexico, Spain, Portugal, Russia, and a handful of other countries. And in September, OLX became the leading classifieds site in Brazil, surpassing local rival QueBerato in visitors, according to researcher comScore. Craigslist, which has come to dominate the U.S. and other markets by charging no fees for most ads, is a distant No. 42 in Brazil, according to comScore. “I would like to think we have a chance to become the Craigslist of the rest of the world,” Grinda says.

Craigslist is a worthy target. Founded

in 1995, the popular site for free online listings has nearly singlehandedly replaced the classifieds business of print newspapers and now dominates the U.S. online market. Yet critics say Craigslist has done little to innovate, ignoring opportunities to expand through search, social networking, and wireless communication. It’s additionally been slow to penetrate some developing overseas markets. Internationally.Craigslist is “asleep at the wheel,” says Grinda.

New players are raring to overhaul online classifieds. “Classifieds have gone through two chapters,” says Craig Donato, co-founder and CEO of classifieds startup Oodle. First came newspapers, next Craigslist, he says. “We are focused on the third chapter.” Craigslist declined to construct an executive available to comment for that story.

Most of the innovation in classifieds has happened in specific areas such as job postings on Monster and real estate listings on Trulia. “Those sites all have a lot of traffic and they co-exist with…

Original post by dhiram