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'Organically Grown' Nerd Values
from the mmm-fresh-and-yummy dept
Mark Glaser has written up an interesting piece on the growth of Craigslist.org and the competition it gives similar but more commercial ventures. According to Craig himself, Craiglist is run as a "non-commercial" site based on "nerd values" -- where things are done for the effect on the world, not necessarily the pocketbook. Apparently, Craig has turned down some lucrative offers for ads and buyouts. And after doing so, he's continured to slowly build up a comfortable (& profitable) business that threatens major newspapers. Depending on how you look at it, classified ads are being "stolen away" from major newspapers by this Bay-Area-grown community. On the other hand, many of the ads that go up on Craigslist might never have been placed in a newspaper for various reasons. Craigslist doesn't publish its earnings, but even assuming it has none, it has definitely succeeded in its "nerdy" goal of changing some small part of the world.
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Now come the wolves
Just wait till all the spammers, scammers, find out about craigslist en masse, and create an unenforceable quagmire of false advertisements. Craigslist will be in the dilemma of doing nothing and letting it go to rot, or creating ever more stringent security measures that turn off most users.
Chat room services have tried the open model, and it didn't work.
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Re: Now come the wolves
5 million unique visitors / month ... how much more 'en masse' do you want? They have their share of BS ads and they deal quite well with it. I don't think they'll have any appreciable problems in the future that they haven't already...
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Re: Now come the wolves
There's still a difference between being a fringe/insider phenomenon at 5 million, or being mainstream in the sense of posing serious competition to newspapers. When it becomes mainstream, it will get overrun by the bad apples.
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Re: Now come the wolves
Maybe it never will, or will never have to.
There is such a thing in this world as a business that's doing well enough, people that don't need a sack of money to do things. There is such a thing as providing a useful service to people with integrity.
I could put 10,000 different banners and ads all over my own site. But the single advertiser we have is relevant, and brings us enough money consistently. Makes the end experience better for our users. We provide real, useful information, and everyone wins.
Doesn't mean we don't try to be profitable. It means we don't have or need to be greedy. I think Craigslist is on a similar track, and totally on the right one.
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