By: Billy BeerSlugger
A friend emailed me today about Craigslist with an intriguing article on how it could be fixed and or make it better. While there were some worthy considerations in there about drill down searches, opening up an API for developers and reducing anonymity among posters I would actually argue that Craigslist is not broken and does not need much “fixing”.
The article does touch on the “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” mantra Craigslist seems to employ at least covering that side of the story. However, what the author seems not to realize is that Craigslist probably has a plan for most of the things touched on in the article that are supposedly “broken”.
Craig Newmark, for all his quirks, his liberal political leaning and social awkwardness, is a hero of mine. A man sitting on a billion dollar empire who sneers at people who want to buy it, invest in it or sell advertising on it. It’s not like he’s broke or anything because it seems like Craigslist made over 100 million last year but Capitalists would argue much more can be made if Craigslist “sells out” and becomes overrun by corporate types and “policy”. Newmark doesn’t seem to want to stand for that and in my eyes that’s admirable. Not only that but Newmark pioneered the means of making money off of free services, something laughable only a decade ago.
You have probably been on Craigslist no doubt. Putting something up for sale, responding to an advertisement or looking for a “Casual Encounter”. What drew you, me and millions of other people there a month is the “Free” aspect. No more dealing with newspaper fees and deadlines to get your apartment rented, you could now realistically have it rented in 24 hours, for free. Not that Craigslist was the only reason but Newspaper Classified Ad revenue is down 50% from a decade ago. A shift from paper to digital for the medium and a “free” concept that neither newspapers or the Yellow Pages were willing to accept.
The reason why it works is that there’s so many people on it. It’s also the reason why startups with the Classified mentality will not work, Craigslist has cornered the market in most if not all major American cities. Nothing offered in terms of user interface, searchability or openness of code will ever be able to compete with the numbers Craigslist brings in monthly (the chicken or the egg principle). I for one have never not found a product or service that was on Craigslist that I was looking for.
People will criticize it’s layout, monotone colors and whatever else they can to knock it but you are getting more than you are paying for, which in most cases is nothing. Remember beggars cannot be choosers and while articles like the aforementioned and this one from wired magazine maybe are trying to just suggest things for the betterment of the site rather than cry that they are not available I would have to think that the Craigslist team knows what they are doing just like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates know what their next moves are.
Craigslist gets 41 million unique visits per month and has a total of 30 employees liken that to Amazon.com and they have 20,000 employees and have less traffic, Ebay less traffic and 16,000 employees. I’m not sure what that tells you except that Craigslist does more with less.
That’s not to say Craigslist doesn’t have problems with spam and the like. Newmark actually prides himself on “breeding the perfect spammer” and that seems to be a pretty full time job for a site that doesn’t require registration or payment for most services. However, opening up Craigslist to an API could be a daunting task for those 30 employees over there in San Francisco. Not to get it up and running but to keep it running and everyone happy plus have the customer service part (which has never been great at Craigslist) on the up and up. Essentially that means a lot more employees.
Probably what I’m getting at in this post is that “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” does still apply in the digital age though Craigslist is not untouchable. It will just probably take another pioneer along the likes of Newmark to topple Craigslist just as Newmark has toppled Newspapers and The Yellow Pages. It won’t be because of fancy graphics or easier searching though, but because of concept. Though it’s going to be hard to top “Free“.
Note: This post was written while listening to The Strokes album Room on Fire