3 ms·

Craigslist and why it survived the bubble

• juwo 20y ago
  It is interesting that the real reason why craigslist succeeds is not mentioned. IMHO, it's because of being like a *local* classifieds, free, and without word limits. Also, the local dating, I suppose. I dont think it was unique either. In 1994, when I was a outsource programmer at a Dallas telco, there was a hugely popular newsgroup on the company intranet where people bought and sold stuff, told each other of local events, and was a kind of meeting ground. I tried to get my bosses at other places where I worked at, to do this - but the fears of legalities always killed it.
• bootload 20y ago
  Just the data: Cragslist survived because it was not *greedy*. The founders recognised that community matters and only charge small fees for placement. CL as a team are also pretty smart because they cannibalised newspaper listings. CL saw the market before the newspapers & seized it. From memory CL currently runs on about USD20 Million / year gained form paid adverts. No fancy designs, just the data.
  • dougw 20y ago
    Indeed, it has been widely noted that craigslist's authenic feel (hyped by the .org TLD) and community fostering ruggedness has created a cult-like following. It seems that their lack of graphics, change, and heavy UI development has kept the installed user base, well, installed, and growing. http://www.startupnation.com/pages/newsroom/PR_2006_0128.asp
    • bootload 20y ago
      '... lack of graphics, change, and heavy UI development ...' this is also a cheapskate way of concentrating on the development & lowering costs. Such cutting edge (performance wise) technology reminds me of the Mercedes Benz silver cars ~ http://tinyurl.com/2ufx36 http://tinyurl.com/2ufx36 ~ so called because they stripped back the paint to save pounds to enter Le Mons. In this case stripping back graphics to allow good scaling. Thanks for the link.