• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, June 11, 2010

A number of newspaper and broadcast TV news Web sites have come together to create Boocoo, a national online listing and auction site with a local focus. It is intended to compete with Craigslist and EBay.

Developed by Michigan-based Ranger Data Technologies, Boocoo is a self-serve consumer-based product scheduled to launch officially on June 21, following a soft launch on some of the participating sites.

Ranger Data founder and chairman George Willard Sr. stated that Boocoo was designed "to regain revenue lost to online classified advertising and auction sites," in part, by creating a forum for online transactions with a real auction feel.

That method contrasts with fixed price selling and retail, often the case on sites like eBay. The consortium consists of over 300 newspaper publishers with a total print audience of 22 million readers, including The Boston Herald and Austin American-Statesman and three broadcast TV sites.

All these sites have committed to monthly print or broadcast ad campaigns to promote the site. Each Boocoo landing page is customized with headers and footers matching the media partner's home page.

According to a report in the American-Statesman, listing fees start at $0.20 for items priced $9.99 or under, and range up to $1.60 for items priced $200 or more, with Boocoo charging the seller 6% of the final price up to the first $1,000.

The local listings are also supposed to help newspaper sites compete against free national classified sites like Craigslist, which have undermined one of their key sources of revenue over the last decade.

According to the Newspaper Association of America, total newspaper classified revenues tumbled 68% from $19.6 billion to just $6.2 billion in 2009.