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Businesses The Almighty Buck The Internet

Craigslist Eyed for Possible Future IPO 205

Posted by CowboyNeal from the drooling-investors dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Eric Hellweg wonders if everyone's favorite want-ad site will join the ranks of eBay, Amazon, Yahoo, and, yes, Google. Hellweg guesses it makes $25 million a year by charging for only 12 percent of its ads. If it ramped up payments on more ads throughout its many-city network, it could hit $100 million. That's a monster margin for a 14-person staff! And they may even consider going public."
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Craigslist Eyed for Possible Future IPO More

Craigslist Eyed for Possible Future IPO

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  • Why bother? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RayMarron ( 657336 ) on Friday August 06, 2004 @12:34AM (#9896773) Homepage
    When you're raking in that much cash, why go public and turn over control of your company to shareholders? If you just want cash, sell the whole company.

    • Re:Why bother? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jusdisgi ( 617863 ) on Friday August 06, 2004 @12:43AM (#9896826)
      Yeah, totally. This story is pretty damn thin. This random journalist just 'guesses' that this website might go public and play with the big boys, and we're all supposed to bite? Whatever. These 14 people are running a website and pulling in 25M a year between them, I don't see them going anywhere but Tahiti. That's where I'd be. The people he quotes don't confirm his guesses at all...they basically say, "we've got plenty of money, why would we need VC's or going public?"...this is a stupid artical, and should never have graced /.'s main page.

      • ARTICLE!!!!!!!! (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        What the fuck is up with people spelling "article" as "artical"? Jesus Christ. Learn to spell simple words.

      • Re:Why bother? (Score:2, Insightful)

        by decepty ( 662114 )
        they basically say, "we've got plenty of money, why would we need VC's or going public?"

        Not to mention Craig (who's list it is...) has repeatedly said "No, we have no interest in going public; That's not what it was started for" on numerous occasions. Sounds like a business analyst is trying to stir up some (unfounded) hype.

      • Re:Why bother? (Score:3, Informative)

        by alw53 ( 702722 )

        Twenty-five million is on the low side of sales to take a company public. It probably costs $50-100K per year extra to run a public company, get big-8 audits, set up an investor services desk, file SEC crap, live in a fishbowl, pay liability insurance for the board, etc, etc. At this size one would look to VC's.

    • more $ (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Doc Ruby ( 173196 ) on Friday August 06, 2004 @12:45AM (#9896836) Homepage Journal
      In an IPO, you are selling your whole company, to the public (that's the "P"). Except for any part you hold back. And you can sell that later, while all the equity is price inflated by the IPO hype^Wadvertising. Sounds like a better deal than just selling the keys to the building to one private buyer.
      • It COULD be a better deal, it might not. In this market.

        If you're already massively profitable, do you need to take that risk?

        • Re:more $ (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Doc Ruby ( 173196 ) on Friday August 06, 2004 @01:47AM (#9897026) Homepage Journal
          You do if you want to make more than $25M:y, and you think the risk is relatively small. IPOs are underwritten by brokers, which means the brokerage is effectively buying the company from the private owner, before selling it to the market. That lowers the risk considerably, by validating the sale values, and by bringing the broker's bank into the scene. They aren't for everyone, but they are available to those who want the premium on equity that the scale of public markets can bring.

          I'm sure "Craig" understands these market dynamics. Whether "he" goes for an IPO is theoretical, because this story is really just the IPO hype heartbeat resurfacing in its most fertile medium, the breathless press.
      • The key bug in your argument is the "except for any part you hold back." That amount is typically at least 70%! And selling off the remainder is difficult (sends bad signals -- lemons theory).

        But in the meantime, you would get to give away 8% or so of the money raised to a fatcat banker, get to personally certify your financial statements (Sarbanes), and get to field phone calls from investors, analysts, and everyone else in the public market ecosystem.

        IPOs are not the bed of roses most people assume th

        • no guarantees (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Doc Ruby ( 173196 )
          It's no bed of roses - that sounds more like a grave :). The IPO is the cradle; that's what the "I" stands for: "initial". Holding back is no bug - because the bigger demand of the public market increases the value of the still limited supply of shares, the amount held back can be much greater than the value of the total to a single private buyer (lower demand).

          Selling off the remainder after a successful IPO is the name of the game. Insider trading has SEC rules, "golden handcuffs" agreements with other i
    • 1. Push valuation of company on basis that people will pay for the currently free ads (e.g. the article's suggestion that charging $75 per job ad will take revenues to $100m, that assumes that you will get as many ads at $75 each as at $0 each). 2. IPO 3. Profit 4. Leave investors to discover that revenues can not be increased that easilly. Why does this sound familiar? 5. Make every

    • Re:Why bother? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by ron_ivi ( 607351 )
      An IPO's a nice way to retire if he's bored of a website.

      After making X millions, you got to find something interesting to do - and in the business world, an IPO is one of those interesting things.

      Personally, it seems to me they still enjoy their jobs; so I don't see this happening anytime before all the key employees are in their 60s.

    • The same reason everybody else does an IPO: to get filthy stinking rich. It's just that those hippies at Craigslist just don't have that particular priority.

      The amount of money Craigslist rakes in sounds like a lot, but it's just enough to pay the bills and cover the (probably ample) payroll. Not a fraction of what they could make if they charged for more of the services they already provide, never mind expanding their operation. Which is fine with me -- it's not like greed is mandatory.

  • Is it just my city... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Vellmont ( 569020 )
    Or is Craigs List the ghetto of the internet? It's always appeared to be fairly trashy to me with it's ugly ameturish interface and rampant crappy advertising.

    • Re:Is it just my city... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by wankledot ( 712148 ) on Friday August 06, 2004 @12:39AM (#9896799)
      "... ugly ameturish [sic] interface..."

      I believe the words you are looking for are: simple, clean, fast, appropriate interface.

    • Re:Is it just my city... (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The ghetto of the internet is not craigslist.

      Craigslist is the trailer park of the internet -- a mixture of hippies low on cash, wanna be millionaires selling herbal remedies, and all noticeably smelly and white.

      Usenet is also not the ghetto. It's more the mostly abandoned hardcore, kind of like the ruins of Detroit -- looks like nuclear war, but surprising amounts of people living there.

      The ghetto of the internet is web forums such as yahoo groups.

      • Re:Is it just my city... (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Ohreally_factor ( 593551 ) on Friday August 06, 2004 @01:29AM (#9896982) Journal
        Funny, I was just noticing that most of the liquor and grocery stores on Yahoo are owned by Koreans.

        So, /. must be the Berekely if the internet. I don't mean in terms of actual politics, I mean in terms of the mindset that assumes everyone thinks like us, or would if they were intelligent. Ogg people are sort of like Trotskyites, when you think about it. An infitessimal minority that tends to disrupt the conversations of others with their irrelevant diatribes.
        • So, /. must be the Berekely if the internet. I don't mean in terms of actual politics, I mean in terms of the mindset that assumes everyone thinks like us, or would if they were intelligent....

          --
          I think that you and I must be reading two completely different slashdots.

          I read your comment and then your sig read my mind....

    • Re:Is it just my city... (Score:4, Funny)

      by iamdrscience ( 541136 ) on Friday August 06, 2004 @12:55AM (#9896874) Homepage
      Yeah, it needs some animated GIFs and flash intros to each listing. Maybe a javascript cursor or two and MIDI background music? Stars and Stripes Forever would work well, don't you think?
    • It's always appeared to be fairly trashy to me with it's ugly ameturish interface and rampant crappy advertising.

      Where are you posting this to, again? Oh wait...

      I kid...I kid...
    • It's huge in the Bay Area. It's really big for tech jobs. I've found my last three jobs through craigslist. I sold a Tivo unit through there. I bought a hard drive on craigslist.

  • RIP Craig (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Doc Ruby ( 173196 ) on Friday August 06, 2004 @12:36AM (#9896785) Homepage Journal
    Craig's List was great because it spread by word of mouth. The community had accurate ads for good values. Also, every user I ever heard of, on either side of any transaction, was encountered almost like a "friend I hadn'y yet met". That kind of transitive trust within the community will be exploited, and destroyed, by the IPO frenzy. If there's even any left now that it's been front page news on Slashdot.

    • Re:RIP Craig (Score:2, Informative)

      by mfh ( 56 )
      This came at me from out of left field. I knew CL made money on their ads, and I have often laughed out loud at the thought of paying $75 for an ad to run in SF-Bay online. I had no idea they made that much money. To me, the CL guys are making a killing because they have found a crack in the Matrix. Now if they could just figure out how to format their site, I think they'd be in business. Oh wait, this is Slashdot.

      Please select one or more categories:
      Price: $75 per category (example - check 3 categories a

    • Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday August 06, 2004 @01:07AM (#9896915)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • So the list's underground protective field is blown on Slashdot, and Buckmaster won't even reap the windfall. And our kinda trusted community lies in the path of the oncoming horde.
    • I have bought quite a bit and sold a good amount of music equipment on ebay - amps, guitars, etc. Lately the music section in Los Angeles seems to have been run over by spammers who list stuff only to collect your email address. They have a great system for the seller to remain anonymous, but not for the buyer.

      My other problem with craigslist is people who list things for ridiculous prices - Power Mac G4 500 with 256 MB Ram - only $1500!

  • Won't work (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 06, 2004 @12:37AM (#9896787)
    It's precisely the ads that no one would bother to post if they had to pay which are the reasons I read craigslist.

    Sometimes advertisers charge a fee to raise the bar to keep quality up -- like a coffeeshop requiring a dollar tip to the waiter to post a flyer, to keep the place from being plastered in Christian rants. With some forums, it's exactly the opposite, if you charge the good stuff leaves. For example, if I couldn't set my viewing level to -1, I'd miss the good stuff on slashdot.

    It seems OK to continue to charge the SF area though. Those people basically pay to breathe, if they are dumb enough to keep paying California taxes and cost of living, they might as well subsidize one of my favorite websites too.

  • Why would they want to IPO? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mozumder ( 178398 ) on Friday August 06, 2004 @12:37AM (#9896788)
    The thing is, as a business owner, why would I want to dilute my investment in a business by going IPO? Wouldn't I want all the profits for myself? And, did everyone forget that the purpose of owning a business is to make money by profit, rather than making money through share trading?

    IPOs are pointless if you're already a massively profitable business and if you don't need anymore investment in your business. You *MIGHT* gain some return by going public, but that's not going to be likely in todays market...
    • I agree. Unless they are in need of capital in order to expand the business then why IPO? If they are already profitable and need to expand then they could use some of the profits for expansion. If there are no seed money investors who are eager to cash out (a la Google) then why not keep the company? An IPO should not be the goal that every company strives to achieve.
    • did everyone forget that the purpose of owning a business is to make money by profit, rather than making money through share trading?
      Says who? Says you? The purpose of owning a business is to make money, the means are many and varied.
    • There are lots of reasons.

      By selling, people will pay you for what they percieve as the value of future profits (and maybe some growth potential). You don't have to wait around for it to happen, or work your ass off to make it happen.

      Alternatively, if you don't want to sell entirely, but have a company that can turn X dollars into X*Y dollars. Investment in the company will allow you to increase X (and so presumably increasing X*Y).

      If you have more than one member in your company, and IPO creates a marke

  • why go public? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by incast ( 121639 ) * on Friday August 06, 2004 @12:39AM (#9896800)
    No seriously... what capital projects could they be planning that they would need an equity offer for? If the company is generating ~$2M/employee right now, I am willing to assume that they are making a fine profit and should be able to present a strong enough balance sheet to either get loans or simply pay for a reasonably-sized project without any debt or equtiy.

    At least with google there's a scale issue as they add more features/services and attempt to attract a larger userbase. Is Craigslist moving toward doing the same?

  • The article is mostly pontificated crap. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by noahbagels ( 177540 ) on Friday August 06, 2004 @12:40AM (#9896805)
    As someone who used craigslist when it was a (gasp) email list, and also lived on the same block as the cl headquarters for 3 years in SF, this article is utter nonsense.

    The whole point of craigslist is the micro-personal connection of real people, in close physical proxmity, buying & selling stuff. I've known a great many people who've purchased, sold, and gave away: airline vouchers, couches, desks, etc...

    Even while living in SF during the dot com boom and bust, I know virtually nobody who ever got a job off of craigslist. Further, nobody in their right mind would use craigslist to find a home to purchase...

    Oh - and back to the basics - craigslist expands thru word of mouth. How do you suppose they would charge for any of the garbage this tech-moron suggests? A great feature of cl is that you can include html in your posts - good posters often do, and include images, formatting etc... design resumes often include good css styles, images, and look pretty darn sweet - try that on hotjobs!

    So, this guy thinks that without additional cost/strain/staff they're going to just quadruple his totally BS estimate of their revenue?

    Why would they want to go public anyhow? With only 14 staff, and no reason to buy-out other companies or invest in serious R&D, does it ever come to mind that a businessperson with a small company making serious $$$ might just want to keep it that way?

    • Re:The article is mostly pontificated crap. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by faedle ( 114018 ) on Friday August 06, 2004 @12:45AM (#9896834) Homepage Journal
      I also could not stop laughing when I read the article. Craigslist go public? WTF? Is this guy going to the same Craigslist I've been using forever?

      It's apparent after reading this guy's article that he has no clue what Craigslist is. Hey, buddy, here's a clue: you haven't noticed the fact that the icon file you get when you bookmark it (or browse there on browsers like Safari) is a hippie peace sign?

      Why craigslist works would be destroyed by any attempt to mass-market and package it, which would be seemingly required for an IPO. Besides, as I understand it, Craigslist is a labor of love for the founder and the staff, so an IPO would only destroy what they've built.

      In short, this guy really needs to get a life... not everybody is out there to make a killing in the stock market. Some people are *gasp* just happy to make a modest living for themselves doing something they love.
    • Around the end of the dot.com era, I found a decent full-time (tech) job on craigslist.

      I know a ton of people who found apartments and other stuff there, too.

  • What really happens when you make it "big"? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by damu ( 575189 ) on Friday August 06, 2004 @12:45AM (#9896835) Journal
    Lets start with Yahoo. How do geeks and nerds see Yahoo? A wealth of information? Or just a pile ads with some search results in the middle?

    Google? Well, I have noticed as well as others have the current search results have not been as good as before.

    It seems that greed and advertising always tarnishes everything it touches. It will be interesting to see what the 14 staff memebers of CL.com decide to do with their up and coming fame.

    Good luck.

    • Re:What really happens when you make it "big"? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Ohreally_factor ( 593551 ) on Friday August 06, 2004 @01:15AM (#9896944) Journal
      From the article:

      If Google can show sites like Craigslist that it's possible to be "good" and wealthy, I think you may eventually see a publicly traded Craigslist. And based on its growth rate and fanatical user base, I think it'd be a smash hit.


      Since the Google IPO is still to come, and we aren't likely to see fall out from that for years, it seems sort of funny to hold Google up as some sort of exemplar.

      Furthermore, if I wanted to run a business that was good or ethical, why would I need model my business after another company specifically for that reason? I know they now teach ethics classes at B schools, but are we so out of touch with what is ethical and good in ourselves that we need someone else's business plan to give us guidance? If you have to do a cost/benefit analysis of Ben&Jerry's to understand the benefits of good corporate behavior, you're not getting it.

  • Do the math and you will understand why founders (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 06, 2004 @12:52AM (#9896863)
    want an ipo. Lets say Craiglist is making 25 million a year in profit and they file for an ipo. So what will the market capitalization of the company? Most likely some where between 250 million (p/e of 10) to 2.5 billion (100 p/e which is about yahoo p/e ratio) depending on how fast people will think your revenue will grow. By ipoing you can get the next 10 years of profits now. There are tons of details (ie founders have limits on how fast they can dump stock) but effectively you can get the next 10 years of profits now and the best part is you don't have to work for the next 10 years.

    Personally I think they will have problems charging for a lot of thier services. The reason people use CL personals is because they are free not because it is a great service. Same thing for a lot of other categories where people are trying to get rid of junk

    BTW It is the VC which prcess really founder equity more thab ip process.
  • Websites with people names in them just kind of fail in the long run... I mean, kids have their own websites with names like "Billy's Site" and they just don't have that "appeal" to em...

  • Craig Newmark, awesome human being (Score:5, Informative)

    by ortcutt ( 711694 ) on Friday August 06, 2004 @01:03AM (#9896898)
    Craig Newmark is an awesome human being. Check out his blog [cnewmark.com]. He's not only an open-source software user (SuSE on a Thinkpad T40) and the creator of the largest and most useful (and OSS-based) community bulletin board in the world, but also a progressive Democrat and all-around humanitarian.
    • One time while using craigslist, I emailed the default e-mail address about some spam problem on one of the personals pages. I got an e-mail back the next day, in a very conversational tone, from Craig himself! So i wrote back to say thanks, and he actually took the time to have a normal e-mail conversation with me, right out of the blue. He is so uncorporate, the only way he would sell out would be if he was convinced it would help his business.

  • RTFA (Score:4, Informative)

    by ortcutt ( 711694 ) on Friday August 06, 2004 @01:07AM (#9896918)
    The article is a speculation about what might or would happen if Craigslist did go public. The Craislist CEO points out that, "We have no plans to go public." So, I'll be really disappointed if people post things claiming the Craigslist is selling out, because that would mean that you didn't RTFA.
  • I really hope they don't IPO. I use craig's list at work quite often to get rid of ancient "enterprise" grade hardware we get stuck with. Stuff that the local PC recyclers want to charge us for (can't blame em, its huge!), and the local scrap metal yards won't come pick up. Craig's list is a killer way to find local geeks, who will take the gear, use what they can, and dispose of the rest. Don't clutter this up with ads, it usually works better than Usenet too.

  • $25 mil div 14 people, nice.. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ttyp0 ( 33384 ) on Friday August 06, 2004 @01:20AM (#9896961) Homepage
    Well Craigslist finally made it to Indianapolis, and it sucks. The only buy/sell ads listed are SPAM. Perhaps this could change in 5 years, but doubtful.
    • The $25 million figure is the company's revenue. The employees aren't going to take all of that home, given that there are costs other than wages to running an enormous website. Among other things, I don't suppose the colocation facilities are giving server space and bandwidth away for free.
      • I figured that, but I assume the colocation costs are negligible. You can get a full rack at a colocation facility with unmetered bandwidth for $500/month (ev1). According to netcraft, it appears they only have around 12 servers.
        • Good point. I thought it would be more. They certainly don't spend to much on rent either since their offices are the second floor of a house on 9th Ave. in the mostly residential Inner Sunset district of SF.
    • I'm also a Hoosier and was just checking out Craigslist, since the article was making such a big deal out of it. My personal favorite:
      PINK GAME BOY........ - $85
      (Was originally going to post this comment as AC, but if you're brave enough to let people know you're from Indiana, then I too shall come forth in my shame)
    • You're right, the level of spam across all the boards has been increasing. On newer cities it's much more prevalent since there are fewer people actually using the board (and in turn flagging off bad posts). We're hiring more customer service people soon, but in the meantime, shoot an email with some URLs to abuse@craigslist.org

      cheers,
      Sean @ CL
      • I just moved to St Louis from SFBay and it is really disappointing. I spend a few minutes a day flagging spam posts, but their just aren't enough people out here to get the posts removed. In SF, NY, etc a blatant spam gets knocked off pretty quickly. Out here it stays on indefinitely. I've been "spreading the word" to people in St Louis, but it'll take a while to get people up there.
        Is there anyway that the threshold for smaller markets can be adjusted so that it doesn't take as many flaggings to get so
    • It's a great place to find queer-friendly roommates.
  • I use CL NYC quite religiously, found my apartment, couch, vacuum, and even a few surprisingly good dates there (no really). I've surfed it daily, and placed one or two ads, never once have I seen a paid advertisement or been asked for money. There's a lot of gak to sort through, but you can find what you need if you search right. So... how are they making 25 mil a year?

    If all the world's a stage, who's buying tickets?

  • There are many sites out there (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 06, 2004 @01:45AM (#9897019)
    Not to mention that there is a lot of competition on the internet.

    http://www.traderat.com [traderat.com]
    http://www.mjmls.com [mjmls.com]

    I personally like tradeRat.com, because it allows me to list my garage sales and sell within my neighborhood, saving me shipping $$$.

  • Another non-discussion about non-news (Score:5, Interesting)

    by fm6 ( 162816 ) on Friday August 06, 2004 @01:48AM (#9897027) Homepage Journal
    Why is it news when a stupid columnist points out the obvious? Yeah yeah, the craigslist people could make a lot of money if they chose to exploit their site as much as they could. But they've shown no interest in doing so. If that every changes, then we'll have a news item.

  • Is this part of a new wave of IPOs? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by SteamyMobile ( 783822 ) <support@steamymobile.com> on Friday August 06, 2004 @01:57AM (#9897062) Homepage
    If a company with a staff of less than 20 people, and no expenses beyond a bunch of server computers can make $100mil per year, they certainly don't need the capital raised by an IPO. They're doing it just because they can. That's exactly the same position that Google is in: they have plenty of revenue. They don't need to raise capital (which is the traditional purpose of an IPO). They are doing it just because they can.

    This is a big contrast to the traditional purpose of an IPO: raise a lot of capital to finance some business need.

    This seems like an interesting new approach.

  • Please don't ruin Craiglist. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Rotten168 ( 104565 ) on Friday August 06, 2004 @01:59AM (#9897071) Homepage
    Craigslist has pretty much made moving to a new city bearable, and I didn't have to put up with the commericial bullshit on other sites. If Craigslist dies (which it would were this to happen), I would be willing to invest my time in creating a new non-commercial craigslist-ian type site so I could give back what it gave to me.

    I'm not kidding either, I got my current job through Craigslist and my apartment. I didn't get any responses from any of the crappy commercial job posting sites and the apartment results sucked from other sites.

    Anyone willing to make a new craigslist when (it's only a matter of time, let's be realistic) craigslist either dies or kills itself (IPO).

    I dunno about anyone else, but I got pretty worried when they expanded to new cities, I figured the more exposure it got, the chances of it becoming commercial became greater and greater.
  • what craigslist ads do you pay for?

    Or am I just on the A-list no-pay-filter and don't even know it?
  • I think the really interesting thing about this is that the web pages that are really successful in the new web (post bubble) are ones that are super stripped down and basic. Google and Craigslist two of the main sites I use. Blogs and blogging are big. Slashdot has basically the same design as ever, with the exception of the top banner ad. It seems that people didn't end up wanting lots of complexity in their web sites.

    The printed word ends up (again) being the most important thing out there. It goes to show that you don't need heavy-duty graphics and don't want flashy ads if you're delivering on content.
  • You must read this [craigslist.org]

    And for some more:
    Best of Craigslist [craigslist.org]
  • I use craigslist every day to buy and sell music stuff, and I sold my car thanks to craigslist. I have never been charged a penny, or needed an account. How does craigslist make money? They don't have ads. (other than the classifieds themselves) Last I heard craiglist was run by a bunch of volunteers. Could someone be pulling this reporter's leg?
  • Until now I thought Craigslist was nonprofit, but I guess not. Its " mission and history [craigslist.org]" page seems to support that: "After being approached toward the end of '97 about running banner ads, he decided to make craigslist non-commercial. 'Some things should be about money, some shouldn't, and I make enough doing contract programming.' He was joined by other folks who proposed running face-to-face parties to make the sense of virtual community more physical, and who proposed creating a nonprofit foundation as
    • Here [craigslist.org] is your answer. They're half nonprofit and half for-profit. I don't think they can do an IPO, or at least only their for-profit half could. Even then, I'd say that (under the law) they have responsibility towards their nonprofit donors to ensure that any sort of IPO doesn't interfere with the nonprofit mission, though IANAL etc.

      Frankly the article seems like hype.

      Also, the offices of craigslist.org are just down the street from my apartment -- SO IF YOU'RE HIRING CRAIG HIT ME UP... I know Pe

  • Craigslist isn't as popular as eBay, Google, etc.. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by iamhassi ( 659463 ) on Friday August 06, 2004 @11:24AM (#9899217) Journal
    The author lives in a dream world: Craiglist isn't nearly as popular as eBay, google, etc. Until recently it didn't even cover my city of 2.5 million people and even now it only has a whopping 290 housing listings and 156 jobs. Sorry Craigslist, but you have a long way to go before you reach the ranks of eBay or Google, might be great if you live in San Francisco but the rest of us are left in the cold.
  • most (if not all) of the housing ads advertised as "listed by owner" are in fact actually sneaky brokers who do nothing other than collect a fee for renting a place out.
    I went through and reported every one I ran across, but they just kept coming...
    That is here in New York where the market is insane, so I am sure it might be okay in other places, but if you live in NYC don't bother messing with it, or be very very careful and call first and specifically ask "Are you a broker or an agent?" and 90% of the ti

  • The economics of a website like Craigslist, or your local weekly want ad flyer, is pretty interesting stuff. Both of these publications specialize in the one & only form of advertisement that people all over the place are actually interested in: classified ads. Lots of people pay for their local newspaper just to throw away everything but the jobs section, the automotive & real estate listings, the movie listings, and similar classified ads.

    Publishers know and depend on this fact about their audie

  • Craigslist is THE place for finding hookers and buying stolen property.

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