Craigslist
eBay: Taking on Craigslist with Kijiji?
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Written By Emily Koh | July 5, 2007 | Share This
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Yesterday eBay quietly launched its international online classifieds site, Kijiji, in the U.S.
Kijiji — which means “village” in Swahili — is currently the market leader in Canada, Germany, Italy and Taiwan, and is now available in 220 cities across the United States, according to the New York Times.
Kijiji’s primary competitor is Craigslist, the leading classified ads site in the U.S. Though Kijiji listings are currently free, it may follow Craigslist’s example and offer premium listings in the future. Kijiji will also have ads provided by Yahoo, as part of Yahoo and eBay’s existing U.S. partnership.
(more…)
Microsoft Continues Its Craigslist Chase
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Written By Reprise Media | March 22, 2006 | Share This
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A little over a month ago we told you about Microsoft’s budding classifieds portal, Windows Live Expo. This “dynamic social listing service” is currently available in beta form to select portions of the US.
The New York Times today has more on the developing product, which some say may be poised to take on Craigslist as the predominant provider of local classified ads.
From the NY Times article: (reg req’d)
“Garry Wiseman, Microsoft’s product unit manager for Windows Live Expo: ‘I’ve seen some sites attempt to create these kinds of services, but they have to build it up, which takes forever. We already had this massive network.’ Wiseman said Microsoft would not charge for classified listings in the short term, but it might charge businesses to post job or auto listings, as Craigslist does. He also said Microsoft was exploring a way to distribute the ads in print publications owned by other companies, and share in the revenue.”
Even though you can’t argue with free, Microsoft will still have an uphill battle, in my opinion.
Mike Yamamoto says it best in this post on CNET Blogma:
“Even if Microsoft does become a viable competitor to Craiglist with Windows Live Expo, ultimate success won’t be easy. The wildfire popularity of Craigslist may have been a fluke, but that fluke now generates 3 billion page views a month - and, even more important, a kind of grassroots loyalty that few companies can replicate.”
Craigslist & NY Culture
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Written By Reprise Media | July 26, 2005 | Share This
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A new job. A new home. A new love. When you think about it, the classified ads are pretty powerful. Anyone who’s ever placed an ad or responded to one (i.e., pretty much everyone) knows what impact they have on our individual lives.
But have you ever considered what classified sites can do for a bigger group? Say - an entire city? An article on NewYorkMetro.com called How Craigslist Has Changed New York reflects on how the classified site that’s low on bells & whistles but big on page views has altered the Big Apple’s culture.
Craigslist New York launched 5 years ago this month. Founder Newmark admits to “some trepidation” over the launch of the NY-based version of the San Francisco site, but said his fears were all for naught - “The moral tone of New Yorkers is very high.” Back then the site averaged 200 posts a day. Now it’s over 50,000.
Speaking of Craiglist, check out this slightly bizarre Craigslist post from “John F.”, a guy who wants to work for Google on the moon.
(link via BoingBoing)
Craigslist Multiple Site Search Shut Down
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Written By Reprise Media | June 28, 2005 | Share This
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170 sites in 34 countries is a lot to look through if you’re a telecommuter trying to find a way to work from home. Right now the only option for Craigslist users is to search each site individually, a task which can take hours, if not days.
Craigslist does not have a multiple site search feature, nor does it want anyone to create one. Techdirt points to a Craiglist user and coder who learned that the hard way after he was ordered to shut down his site, which contained a hack that enabled users to search postings across multiple cities.
While it’s interesting that a rather mellow, community-oriented site like Craigslist would put the clamps on what many of its users would regard as a welcome innovation, it’s even more interesting when you consider what part eBay might play in all this.
The firm bought a 25% stake in Craigslist last year, and the types of merchandise it sells is very similar to what you can find on Craigslist. By enabling users to search for goods across sites Craigslist would be cutting in on eBay’s game. It might make more sense for Craigslist to enable a universal search, but only for select areas of the site, such as jobs or forums.
On a related note, there’s a humorous guide for CL newbies in The Motley Fool today called How to Speak ‘Craigslist’. Scroll down to the bottom for the good stuff.
Craigslist Calls on Amateur Journalists
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Written By Reprise Media | May 9, 2005 | Share This
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Help wanted over at Craigslist, and we’re not talking about the Jobs section, though there’s an ad for a Rock Band Stand-In that looks pretty enticing.
Craigslist founder Craig Newmark recently told reporters that community journalism is high on his radar right now. Newmark is looking to groom a pool of “talented amateurs” to investigate scandals […]
Help wanted over at Craigslist, and we’re not talking about the Jobs section, though there’s an ad for a Rock Band Stand-In that looks pretty enticing.
Craigslist founder Craig Newmark recently told reporters that community journalism is high on his radar right now. Newmark is looking to groom a pool of “talented amateurs” to investigate scandals and cover politics, promoting the most credible stuff on outside blogs as well as Craigslist itself.
Why this could be cool:
- Built-in brand credibility: Craigslist has built itself a great reputation for trustworthy, credible content. They can use this culture of trust as a springboard for getting a news service off the ground, should they choose to go that route. It doesn’t look unlikely. In a recent interview, Newmark named ‘trust’ as one of the biggest issues facing online media: “Right now people have lost a lot of trust in the mainstream press.”
- No breaking the bank: Newmark hasn’t said anything about how he’ll hire or what he’ll pay staff, but the start-up costs should be relatively low. Craigslist devotees are a pretty rabid bunch, it’s not hard to imagine readers offering to contribute articles for free, a la Wikipedia.
- Craig’s in good company: Word has it Newmark’s been working with Dan Gillmor, a former writer for the San Jose Mercury News and founder of Grassroots Media Inc., and Jeff Jarvis, the blogger behind BuzzMachine.com and former critic for TV Guide and People. Jarvis, who has defined blogs as “The voices of citizens in conversation,” recently commented on a blog debacle involving some Los Alamos scientists and engineers and the director they were looking to oust. Read about it here.
Craigslist as Recruiters’ Pet
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Written By Reprise Media | March 23, 2005 | Share This
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Forget Raymond, everybody loves Craig. Why? Because he’s got one of the most popular and tightly-knit community sites on the web. Since its start in 1995, Craigslist has remained refreshingly non-commercial and remarkably simple in design.
The low cost, high-exposure nature of its job board has long made Craigslist a favorite among recruiters, and now a […]
Forget Raymond, everybody loves Craig. Why? Because he’s got one of the most popular and tightly-knit community sites on the web. Since its start in 1995, Craigslist has remained refreshingly non-commercial and remarkably simple in design.
The low cost, high-exposure nature of its job board has long made Craigslist a favorite among recruiters, and now a very real competitor for the likes of Monster, Careerbuilder, and newspaper classifieds. SEOmoz has a post that talks about some recent improvements to Craigslist’s recruitment functionality.
As a recruiter during the roaring 90’s, I remember when Monster ads could be bought for relatively cheap. A series of steep price increases, and the resulting pressure from management to curb costs, caused my firm to seek out other venues for job postings.
At first this was difficult, since our HR department was dependent on the very rapid, high volume of candidates that Monster ads generated. Word of mouth and online research eventually led me to a number of free and/or low cost alternatives, including trade association sites, college job boards, alumni associations, developer and programmer forums, and anything with “just___jobs” in the title (i.e., job boards broken out by vertical).
When pooled together, the resume quantity still came in slightly under the number of Monster resumes, but the resulting improvement in quality more than made up for it. These candidates tended to be more actively engaged and selective in their job hunt than the Monster folks, who tended to go with a “blitz” tactic - sending their resume to dozen of employers with little regard for job suitability.
Am I talking about the long tail here? Maybe I am.
Speaking of long tail, Jason Calacanis has a new drinking game based on the phenomenon.
Craigslist: The Movie
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Written By Reprise Media | February 8, 2005 | Share This
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It’s no lie. Wired takes a look at Michael Ferris Gibson’s new film, 24 Hours on Craigslist, currently playing at the San Francisco Independent Film Festival. It’s a documentary that a look into the people behind the site that generates upwards of 1.7 billion pageviews per month and has changed the way we do […]
It’s no lie. Wired takes a look at Michael Ferris Gibson’s new film, 24 Hours on Craigslist, currently playing at the San Francisco Independent Film Festival. It’s a documentary that a look into the people behind the site that generates upwards of 1.7 billion pageviews per month and has changed the way we do just about everything on the net.