Sorry, that’s a random reference to one of my favorite “dumb” movies — White Chicks from the Wayans Brothers. It’s basically the ghetto equivalent of saying “Bring it on!”or “Let the Games Begin!”

Long story short, News International has invested in a UK property vertical search engine called Globrix. A few key facts:

• The investment was for “a multi-million pound funding round”. Combined with the valuation that Properazzi got from Mangrove just for the initial idea of a vertical search engine a couple of years ago, it shows that the property search engines like nuroa are an increasingly interesting area.
• The company, Globrix, still hasn’t launched, but intends to launch during this month. The company was founded in 2007. If you go to their website, you will see that they are still in private beta. This makes me a little better about all those people who asked “When are you going to launch nuroa?” Sometimes the prize doesn’t go to the person who launched first.
• The million-pound investment appears focused on marketing and advertising, as the goal is to make Globrix one of the most trafficked property sites in the UK within the next 12 months. So they’re going to buy their way into being a market leader.
• Globrix’s business model appears to be exactly the same as nuroa’s.
• News Corp claims that the technology is “next generation”, which is simply another way of saying “a web 2.0 property search engine”, just like nuroa. As the CEO of Globrix explains: “Globrix is about answering a fundamental need in this marketplace - creating a Google-style model for the property search industry. By enabling agents to list for free we cover virtually every property in the UK, which in turn provides a hugely compelling proposition for consumers and creates a new opportunity for an ad-funded model.“
• News Corp argues that investments in vertical search are a key part of its digital strategy (it should be remembered that News Corp invested $13.5 million in the US jobs vertical search engine, Simply Hired ( www.simplyhired.com), which Google is reportedly in talks to buy, a fact confirmed to us by a News International representative at a conference that we attended recently. In any case, News Corp appears committed to vertical search. As Clive Milner, Group Managing Director, News International, said: “Through its digital and print media, News International is one of the largest single players in the UK property media market, so this investment is about us remaining at the forefront of what’s happening commercially and technologically. Globrix is set to be a truly disruptive business in the online property search marketplace - it essentially turns the economics upside down and creates an unparalleled consumer offering from an innovative business model.”
• News International invested in a property search engine, despite already owning 50% of the number 2 property portal in the UK (Property Finder — www.propertyfinder.com). As mentioned above, they note that the new technology is the next step forward, even taking in account their years of experience in the classifieds sector, both print and in web 1.0 vertical real estate portals like Idealista and ImmobilienScout.
• All of this despite the fact that the UK property market is one of the most difficult, given the economic power of Rightmove (a valuation of €1.2 billion) and its exclusive control of the real estate agents (the top 3 real estate networks that control about 60% of the market are their original JV backers). No other market in Europe has barriers to entry as high as the UK market or as many strong already existing competitors. By comparison, the France, Spain and Germany are relatively easy — the market leaders aren’t quite as dominant and there are fewer property search engines covering those markets.

I think this is good news for other vertical search players, particularly those of us not focused exclusively on the highly competitive UK market. It seems that Globrix will do essentially the same thing, but will now count on a few million pounds to attack other UK players such as Extate, OnOneMap, Nestoria, Zoompf, Right Move, etc.

More news to come tomorrow about the recent ICMA conference, and the present Web 2.0 conference that I’m attending.