Craigslist

Craigslist is a very popular Web site which offers almost free classified ads (with headings such as job offers, curriculum vitae vitæ, residences, personal advertisements, object/services desired/offerts/à to exchange and Community events) as well as Discussion forum on various subjects.

“ Craigslist ” is the assembly of the letters of “ Craig' S List ”, which means “the list of French Craig”.

In January 2007, its only sources of revenue were the inscriptions for job offers in six cities (75$ per inscription with San Francisco; 25 $ per inscription with New York, San Diego, Boston, Seattle and Washington), and inscriptions of the Broker S real estate for apartments in New York (10$ per inscription).

Anecdote

In December 2006, the Chief of the direction ( CEO ) of Craigslist, Jim Buckmaster, present at the Total UBS Media Conference in New York, deafened the analysts of Wall Street in their saying that Craigslist had little interest to maximize its profits and, on the contrary, preferred to concentrate to help people to find cars, apartments, employment or meetings.

Some statistics

Fifteen million unique visitors views five billion pages on the site each month, placing the site with the 7th rank of the sites most visited in the United States (statistics of January 2007). In the United States, only the following sites are visited than Craigslist: Yahoo, AOL, Microsoft, Google, EBay and News Corporation.

With more than 14 million new advertisements each month, Craigslist is the leader of the services of classified ads all confused media (statistical of January 2007). One finds on the going site of the advertisements on all the subjects of the conventional headings of purchase offers and sale and of the Community advertisements of events, until the personal advertisements and even with the erotic offers of service.

The site posts more: 750000 job offers each month, which places it among more the large banks of data of job offers in the world (statistical of January 2007).

The users of the 100 forum of the site place there: 50000000 of inscriptions each month (statistical of January 2007).

Though the company does not reveal information on its finances, the journalists estimated that the annual incomes of the company were from approximately 10 million $ in 2004.

History

Having observed how people help each other in a friendly, social way and full confidence on Internet, on The WELL and Usenet, and feeling a little isolated as an new arrival in San Francisco, the founder of Craigslist, Craig Newmark, decided to create a news bulletin for the event buildings and to diffuse it by Email.

To begin the Mailing list from its bulletin, Craig requested charts of businesses of all people whom it met. The first bulletin was published in the beginning of 1995. Technology used initially to manage the mailing list did not function well and Craig suspended its publication while waiting to find a better technology. In June 1995, it started to use the manager of mailing list Majordomo and the Craigslist bulletin took again its activities.

The majority of the first advertisements were subjected by Craig itself. They were mainly advertisements for social events of interest for the developers of Logiciel and Web sites which lived and worked in San Francisco.

The notoriety of the bulletin believed quickly, which involved a fast increase in the number of subscribers and advertisers. There was no control on the contents of the bulletin and Craig was surprised when people started to use the bulletin for advertisements other than of the advertisements of events. People who tried to recruit Informaticien S found that the bulletin was a good means of joining qualified people whom they sought. Making against misfortune good heart, Craig added a heading “employment” to its bulletin. The requests of the users then brought the creation of other categories.

Quickly, Craig had to acquire a waiter dedicated SPARC to lodge the bulletin. Then the subscribers started to ask for an interface Internet to reach the bulletin. To answer this request, Craig created a Web site. Needing a Domain name, it chose craigslist.org . Later, it also held the name craigslist.com so that the name craigslist is not used by someone else.

At the beginning of 1998, Craig still thought that its career was in the field of the software Génie (Programmeur Java) and that Craigslist was only a connected Hobby which enabled him to be invited with best the parts of the accros of the Informatique and of the maniacs of Internet. On the other hand, as the management of the list monopolized much of its time and as he did not like the administrative activities, he engaged a consultant and a manager to help it to manage Craigslist.

With the autumn 1998, Craigslist started to use the name List Foundation . In April 1999, when the company noted that the name List Foundation was already used, it gave up this name. About at this time, Craig realized that Craigslist evolved/moved so quickly which it was better that he stops working as computer engineer and that he devotes himself full-time to Craigslist. In April 2000, 9 employees worked for Craigslist starting from the apartment of Craig to San Francisco.

Craig mentioned that Craigslist functioned well because the site gave to people a voice, a direction of community, confidence and even of intimacy. It also quoted of other factors of success in particular of the values pied-à-terre, the service to the customers and simplicity.

Craig was approximate to post advertizing stringcourses on Craigslist but it decided to preserve a not-commercial character at the site. In derision towards the marketing of the Web sites, on April 1st, 2002, Craigslist posted false advertizing stringcourses as a Poisson of April.

In January 2007, Craigslist operated with a personnel of 23 employees.

Principal stages of the growth of Craigslist

The first cities with being served by Craigslist were:

  • in January 2007: Craigslist serves at this time 450 cities in the 50 States of the United States and 50 countries.

Significant events

In January 2000, this chief of the direction ( CEO ), Jim Buckmaster, joined the company as programmer as a chief and director of technology. Jim Buckmaster conceived the architecture which makes it possible to extend the site to several cities, the search engine, the discussion forum, the system of notification of the advertisements which violate the policies of the site, the process of car-posting of the advertisements, the banner page, the categories personal and the option best-of Craigslist . He was promoted chief of the direction in November 2000.

In 2002, an opinion was posted on the headings “man seeks man”, “occasional meetings”, “erotic services” and “ rants and turnips ” to inform the users of the nature of these headings and to mention that these headings are reserved to the users of more than 18 years. In the beginning, no opinion was posted on the headings “man seeks woman”, “woman seeks man” as “woman seeks woman”. Answering the charges of Discrimination and negative Stereotype, Buckmaster explained why the action of the company had been defined according to the Rétroaction of the users requiring of the opinions in the sections most sexually explicit, including the section “man seeks man”. Today, all the sections mentioned previously as some others carry an opinion.

In 2003, Michael Ferris Gibson carried out the Documentaire 24 Hours one Craigslist .

August 1st, 2004, Craigslist started to charge 25$ for the inscriptions with job offers in New York and Los Angeles. The same day, a new section entitled “ Gigs ” was added to the site. One could announce there free not very paying or not-paying employment as well as in-company trainings.

August 13rd, 2004, Craig Newmark announced on its blogist that the giant of the auctions, EBay, had just bought 25% of the shares in the company of another Actionnaire. Certain users of Craigslist expressed their concern that this development could affect the not-commercial nature of the site, but this change of owner did not still have any impact on the site.

In July 2005, Craigslist acquired the right to project more than 2 million classified ads in space after Jim Buckmaster gained an auction over E-Bay for time of transmission of the company Deep Space Communications Network. To this occasion, Craig Newmark said: “We believe that there could be an infinite market in space”.

In 2006, Craigslist started to perceive expenses of 10$ for the inscriptions of the brokers for apartments in New York in order to discourage the excessive posting of advertisements and a fraudulent Publicité by which certain salesmen proposed apartments at very low cost then said to their customers that the apartments were not available any more and tried to sell a more expensive product to them (a fraud called bait and switch in English).

Controversies

In July 2006, the San Francisco Chronicle blamed Craigslist to have tolerated on its site of the advertisements of stockbreeder S of dogs, encouraging thus allegedly the intensive breeding and the irresponsible trade of pitbulls in the area of San Francisco.

In 2005, Craigslist received its share of controversies not to have withdrawn from its site of the advertisements of traffickers of tickets ( scalpers in English) for the resale of tickets for the Concert Live 8.

In January 2006, the San Francisco Bay Guardian published a leading article criticizing Craigslist because he threatened the existence of the local newspapers in the cities where he was established. The leading article compared Craigslist with Wal-Mart, a multinational corporation that some blame to crush small going local when they are established in a municipality and offer an enormous choice of products at prices very enticing. It is rather ironic that a newspaper uses its leading pages to attack a competitor which removes customers to him! Its readers are not these even which moved some as of the their activities of the newspaper towards Craigslist because they considered that Craigslist offered a better value to them?!

In February 2006, Craigslist was continued by the Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law to have allegedly made it possible users to register, with Chicago, discriminatory advertisements of housing in infringment with the Fair Housing Act . The continuation was not founded because it was rejected.

September 8th, 2006, several Web sites reported that the forum “occasional Meetings” of Craigslist were compromised in several cities by individuals who published fraudulent advertisements to obtain personal informations on people. This information, including addresses of email, phone numbers, addresses home, photographs, etc was posted publicly on the EncyclopaediaDramatica site.

Repression against the prostitution

Repression against the Prostitution gave place to dozen arrests of users of Craigslist suspected of having posted doubtful advertisements, including offers of exchange of sexual favors. Craigslist always cooperated with the police forces but the company reiterated on several occasions which it cannot and does not want to make the monitoring of the contents of the site. The policy of Craigslist is to rely on the users to announce the inappropriate or offensive advertisements.

Sale of drugs and stolen articles

Craigslist cooperates with the police forces to identify and stop the users who announce Drogue or stolen articles.

Forums, pseudonyms and the banishment

The forums of Craigslist gather users of everywhere throughout the world. Thus, the user who wants to know how to go to the Center-ville of London starting from the airport Heathrow, has only to put the question about the forum of voyages and somebody will answer him.

Several of the forums do not require a recording. The users who want to take part in the restricted forums, must be recorded and choose a Pseudonyme (called handle in the jargon of Craigslist). Craigslist does not control the contents of the restricted forums but the users can announce advertisements which contravene the policies of the site. The announced users too frequently are banished under their pseudonym running and must re-register themselves under another pseudonym if they want to continue to publish information in the forum. This mechanism is not without causing certain confusions. Thus, certain users announce legitimate entries simply because they are not agreement with their authors.

Though Craigslist states not to make the monitoring of the site, some mentioned that the site banished users who were critical site.

Foundation with not-lucrative goal

In 2001, Craigslist created the Fondation Craigslist , a non-profit organization, which helps of new non-profit organizations to be established, to obtain visibility, to draw the attention of potential contributors and to develop knowledge and necessary competences with their long-term success.

The foundation accepts gifts. Rather than to finance other organizations directly, it organizes meetings and events and offer computer's resources to help the organizations beginners to start and contribute effectively to the community.

Price

  • 2001 : the Webby Award of the best Community site according to the vote of the jury (the Webby Award is with Internet what the Oscar S are with the industry of the Cinéma).

  • 2001: the Webby Award of the best Community site according to the popular vote of 150.000 voters.
  • 2003: the best local site according to the Manhattan Reader' S Poll of the New York Close .

Notes and references of the article

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