Craigslist

Craigslist is a central network of online communities, featuring free classified advertisements (with jobs, internships, housing, personals, erotic services, for sale/barter/wanted, services, community, gigs, resume, and pets categories) and forums on various topics.

Description
The service was founded in 1995 by Craig Newmark for the San Francisco Bay Area. After incorporation as a private for-profit company in 1999, Craigslist expanded into nine more U.S. cities in 2000, four each in 2001 and 2002, and 14 in 2003. As of September 2007, Craigslist had established itself in approximately 450 cities in 50 countries.

As of 2007, Craigslist operates with a staff of 24 people. Its sole source of revenue is paid job ads in select cities ($75 per ad for the San Francisco Bay Area; $25 per ad for New York, Los Angeles, San Diego, Boston, Seattle, Washington D.C., Chicago and recently Portland, Oregon) and paid broker apartment listings in New York City ($10 per ad).

The site serves over nine billion page views per month, putting it in 47th place overall among web sites world wide, ninth place overall among web sites in the United States (per Alexa.com on August 21, 2008), to over thirty million unique visitors. With over thirty million new classified advertisements each month, Craigslist is the leading classifieds service in any medium. The site receives over two million new job listings each month, making it one of the top job boards in the world. The classified advertisements range from traditional buy/sell ads and community announcements, to personal ads and even erotic services.

In December 2006, at the UBS Global Media Conference in New York, Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster told Wall Street analysts that Craigslist has little interest in maximizing profit, instead preferring to help users find cars, apartments, jobs, and dates.

The company does not formally disclose financial or ownership information. Analysts and commentators have reported varying figures for its annual revenue, ranging from $10 million in 2004, $20 million in 2005, and $25 million in 2006 to possibly $150 million in 2007. It is believed to be owned principally by Newmark, Buckmaster, and eBay (the three board members). eBay owns approximately 25%, and Newmark is believed to own the largest stake.

Background
Having observed people helping one another in a friendly, social and trusting community way on the Internet, the WELL, and Usenet, and feeling isolated as a relative newcomer to San Francisco, Craigslist founder Craig Newmark decided to create something similar for local events.

The first postings debuted in early 1995. The initial technology encountered some limits, so by June 1995 majordomo had been installed and the mailing list "craigslist" resumed operations. Most of the early postings were submitted by Newmark and were notices of social events of interest to software and Internet developers living and working in San Francisco.

Soon, word of mouth led to rapid growth. Both subscribers and the number of postings grew rapidly. There was no moderation, so Newmark was surprised when people started using the mailing list for non-event postings. People trying to fill technical positions found that the list was a good way to reach people with the skills they were looking for. This led to the addition of a category for "jobs". User demand for more categories caused the list of categories to grow. About this time, community members started asking for a web interface. Newmark enlisted the help of volunteers and contractors to create a website user interface for the different mailing list categories. Needing a domain name for this, Craig registered "craigslist.org" (and later, "craigslist.com", to prevent the name "craigslist" from being used for other purposes). About this time, Newmark realized that the site was growing so fast that he could stop working as a software engineer and work full time running craigslist. By April 2000, there were nine employees working out of Newmark's apartment on Cole Street in San Francisco.

Newmark says that Craigslist works because it gives people a voice, a sense of community trust and even intimacy. Other factors he cites are consistency of down-to-earth values, customer service and simplicity. After first being approached about running banner ads, Newmark decided to keep Craigslist non-commercial. In 2002, Craigslist staff posted mock-banner ads throughout the site as an April Fools joke.

Significant Events for Craigslist

In January 2000, current CEO Jim Buckmaster joined the company as lead programmer and CTO. Buckmaster contributed the site's multi-city architecture, search engine, discussion forums, flagging system, self-posting process, homepage design, personals categories, and best-of-Craigslist feature. He was promoted to CEO in November 2000.
In 2002, a disclaimer was put on the "men seeking men", "casual encounters", "erotic services", and "rants and raves" boards to ensure that those who clicked on these sections were over the age of 18. No disclaimer was on the "men seeking women," "women seeking men" or "women seeking women" boards. Responding to charges of discrimination and negative stereotyping, Buckmaster explained that the company's policy is a response to user feedback requesting the warning on the more sexually explicit sections, including "men seeking men". Today, all of the above listed boards (as well as some others) lead to a disclaimer.
On August 1, 2004, Craigslist began charging $25 to post job openings on the New York and Los Angeles pages. On the same day, a new section was added called "Gigs", where low-cost and unpaid jobs and internships can be posted for free.
On August 13, 2004, Newmark announced on his blog that auction giant eBay had purchased a 25% stake in the company from a former principal. Some fans of Craigslist have expressed concern that this development will affect the site's longtime non-commercial nature, but it remains to be seen what ramifications the change will actually have. As of July 2008, there have been no substantive changes to the usefulness or non-advertising nature of the site (still no banner ads, still only charging for a few services to businesses).
In July 2005, Craigslist won the right to beam over 2 million classified ads into deep space (one light year away) in the near future after Buckmaster won an eBay auction for broadcasting time from the company Deep Space Communications Network. Newmark said, "We believe there could be an infinite market opportunity" in space.
In April 2008, eBay announced it was suing Craigslist to "safeguard its four-year financial investment". eBay claimed that in January 2008, Craigslist executives took actions that "unfairly diluted eBay's economic interest by more than 10%". In response, Craigslist filed a countersuit against eBay in May 2008 "to remedy the substantial and ongoing harm to fair competition" that Craigslist claims is constituted by eBay's actions as Craigslist shareholders.
Related media
In 2003 Michael Ferris Gibson filmed the documentary 24 Hours on Craigslist.
In November 2007, Ryan J. Davis directed Jeffery Self's solo show 'My Life On The Craigslist' at Off-Broadway's New World Stages. The show focuses on a young man's sexual experiences on Craigslist and was so successful that it returned to New York by popular demand in February 2008.
Controversies and illegal activities by users
On February 3, 2006, Craigslist was sued by the Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law for allegedly allowing users to post discriminatory housing ads in Chicago that violate the Fair Housing Act. The case was subsequently dismissed because of immunity granted by the Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
On September 8, 2006, several sites reported that Craigslist's "Casual Encounters" forums in several cities had been compromised by individuals posting fraudulent ads in order to obtain personal information about people. This information, including email addresses, phone numbers, home addresses, photos, etc. was publicly posted online.
On September 12, 2007, A woman from Minneapolis pled guilty in federal court to running an underage prostitution ring through Craigslist.
On February 8, 2008, a Michigan woman was charged with using Craigslist to hire a contract killer to murder a romantic rival.
In April 2008, a couple was charged with placing an ad on Craigslist inviting the public to take anything from a man's home in Oregon, leading to the loss of his possessions. The couple had placed this ad to cover up their own burglary of his house.
May 27, 2008: In Vancouver, British Columbia (Canada), a police report that a Vancouver couple attempted to sell their week-old baby on the site; the couple claims that the posting was just a joke. The investigation is ongoing.

To avoid illegal or inappropriate ads, Craigslist visitors can flag an ad if they think it is against the site policy.

Criticism

In July 2005, the San Francisco Chronicle criticized Craigslist for allowing ads from dog breeders, and thereby allegedly encouraging the over breeding and irresponsible selling of pit bulls in the Bay Area.
In January 2006, the San Francisco Bay Guardian published an editorial criticizing Craigslist for moving into local communities and "threatening to eviscerate" local alternative newspapers. Craigslist has been compared to Wal-Mart, a multinational corporation that some feel crushes small local businesses when they move into towns and offer a huge assortment of goods at cheaper prices.
In August 2007, Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin wrote a letter to Craigslist asking the company to take steps to avoid unwittingly enabling child prostitution through its classified ads.

Nonprofit Foundation
In 2001, the company started the Craigslist Foundation, a § 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that helps emerging nonprofit organizations get established, gain visibility, attract the attention of potential donors, and develop the skills and knowledge required for long-term success.

It accepts charitable donations, and rather than directly funding organizations, it produces "face-to-face events and offers online resources to help grassroots organizations get off the ground and contribute real value to the community".

Awards

NYPRESS: 2003, Best Local Website, by Manhattan Reader's Poll
Webby: 2001, Best Community Site, by the Academy

Cities
The first 14 city sites were:

March 1995: San Francisco Bay Area
June 2000: Boston
August 2000: Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Portland, San Diego, Seattle, Washington, D.C.
October 2000: Sacramento
April 2001: Atlanta, Austin, Denver, Vancouver
Vancouver, British Columbia, was the first non U.S. city included. London was the first city outside North America.

In November 2004, Amsterdam, Bangalore, Paris, Sao Paulo and Tokyo became the first cities outside primarily English-speaking countries.

As of May 2008, 500 "cities" in 50 countries are represented. Note that some Craigslist sites cover large regions instead of individual metropolitan areas—for example, the U.S. states of Delaware and Wyoming, the Colorado Western Slope, and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan are among the locations with their own Craigslist sites.