craigslist

craigslist

 

               

________________________________________

Creation

1995

Key dates           1995: Creation

August 13, 2004: Purchase of 25% of the shares by eBay

Founders            Craig Newmark

Key characters  Jim Buckmaster , chief executive officer (CEO)

Legal status

Private

The head office

san francisco in California ( United States )

Direction

Jim Buckmaster

Activity

internet services

Products

Classified ads

Discussion forum

Effective             30 employees (2010)

Website

http://www.craigslist.org/ [ archive ]

________________________________________

Turnover

$100 million USD (estimated for 2009) 1

Craigslist is an American website offering classified ads (with sections such as job offers and searches, housing offers and searches, personal ads , items/services wanted/offered/for exchange and community events) as well as forums discussion on various topics.

Craigslist means " Craig's list " ("Craig's list" in French ), Craig Newmark being the founder.

As of February 2011, its only sources of income were job listings in eighteen cities ($75 per listing in San Francisco ; $25 per listing in other cities), real estate agent listings for apartments in New York ($10 per registration) and therapeutic services (mainly massages).

 

Summary

             1 Business philosophy

             2 Statistics

             3 History

o             3.1 The main stages of Craigslist growth

             4 Significant events

             5 Controversies

o             5.1 Prostitution

o             5.2 Sale of drugs and stolen items

             6 Operation of the community

             7 Non-profit foundation

             8 Awards

             9 Notes and references

             10 See also

o             10.1 Related Articles

o             10.2 External links

Business philosophy

In December 2006 , Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster , attending the UBS Global Media Conference in New York , stunned Wall Street analysts by stating that Craigslist had little interest in maximizing profits and instead preferred to focus on help people find cars, apartments, jobs or meet people 2 , 3 .

Statistics

Fifty million unique visitors view twenty billion pages on the site each month, placing the site in 7th place among the most visited American sites 4 .

With over 50 million new ads each month, Craigslist is the leading classifieds service across all media (February 2011 statistics) 5 . The site features ads on everything from conventional buy and sell offers and community event announcements, to personal ads and even offers of erotic services.

The site posts more than 1 million new job offers each month, which places it among the largest databases of job offers in the world (statistics from February 2011) 6 .

Users of the site's 100 forums place 120 million new registrations each month (statistics from September 2008) 5 .

Although the company does not disclose financial information, analysts have estimated that the company's annual revenues will be approximately $100 million in 2009 1 .

Story

Having watched how people help each other in a friendly, social, and trusting way on the Internet , The WELL , and Usenet , and feeling a bit isolated as a newcomer to San Francisco, Craigslist founder Craig Newmark , decided to create a newsletter for local events and distribute it via email .

To start his newsletter mailing list , Craig Newmark solicited business cards (visiting cards) from everyone he met. The first bulletin was published at the beginning of 1995 . The technology initially used to manage the mailing list did not work well, and Craig Newmark suspended publication pending a better technology. In June 1995 he started using the Majordomo mailing list manager and the Craigslist newsletter resumed operations.

Most early announcements were submitted by Craig Newmark himself. These were primarily announcements for social events of interest to software and website developers who lived and worked in San Francisco.

Awareness of the newsletter grew rapidly, resulting in a rapid increase in the number of readers and advertisers. There was no control over the content of the bulletin and Craig Newmark was surprised when people started using the bulletin for announcements other than event announcements. People trying to recruit IT professionals found the newsletter a good way to contact the qualified people they were looking for. Doing good against bad luck, Craig Newmark has added a jobs section to his newsletter. User requests then led to the creation of other sections.

Quickly, Craig Newmark had to acquire a dedicated SPARC server to host the bulletin. Then users asked for an Internet interface to access the newsletter. To meet this demand, Craig Newmark created a website . Needing a domain name , he chose craigslist.org . Later, he also reserved the name craigslist.com so that the craigslist name wouldn't be used by anyone else.

In early 1998 , Craig Newmark still thought his career was in software engineering ( programmer Java ) and that Craigslist was just a trendy hobby that allowed him to be invited to the best parties of computer addicts and Internet maniacs . On the other hand, as the management of the site took up a lot of his time and as he did not like administrative activities, he hired a consultant and a manager to help him administer Craigslist .

In the fall of 1998 , Craigslist began using the List Foundation name . In April 1999 , when the company found that the List Foundation name was already in use, it dropped that name. Around this time, Craig Newmark realized that Craigslist was changing so rapidly that it was better for him to stop working as a computer engineer and focus on Craigslist full-time . In April 2000 , nine employees worked for Craigslist from Craig Newmark 's apartment in San Francisco 7 .

Craig Newmark mentioned that Craigslist worked well because the site gave people a voice, a sense of community, trust, and even intimacy. He also cited other success factors, including down-to-earth values, customer service and simplicity [ref. necessary] .

Craig Newmark was approached to post banner ads on Craigslist but decided to keep the site non-commercial. In derision of the marketing of websites, the 1 st April 2002 , Craigslist displayed fake April Fool's Day banner ads 8 .

In February 2011 , Craigslist employed thirty employees 5 .

The main stages of Craigslist growth

The first cities served by Craigslist were:

             March 1995 : San Francisco ;

             June 2000 : Boston ;

             August 2000 : Chicago , Los Angeles , New York , Portland , San Diego , Seattle , Washington ;

             October 2000 : Sacramento ;

             April 2001 : Atlanta , Austin , Denver , Vancouver in Canada (the first city outside the United States);

             October 2002 : Miami , Minneapolis , Philadelphia , Phoenix ;

             April 2003 : Dallas , Detroit , Houston , Toronto , London England ( the first city outside North America);

             November 2003 : Baltimore , Cleveland , Honolulu , Las Vegas , New Orleans , Pittsburgh , Raleigh , St. Louis , Tampa Bay ;

             2004 : 37 English-speaking cities + the following cities which are not English-speaking: Montreal , Amsterdam , Bangalore , Paris , São Paulo and Tokyo ; in January 2007 , however, the site interface remained in English in all markets;

             November 2010 : Craigslist serves 700 cities in all 50 states and 70 countries.

Significant events

 

Craigslist Headquarters at San Francisco .

In January 2000, the current chief executive officer (CEO), Jim Buckmaster , joined the company as chief programmer and chief technology officer. Jim Buckmaster designed the architecture that allows the site to be extended to multiple cities, the search engine, the discussion forums, the notification system for ads that violate site policies, the process for self-posting ads , homepage, personal categories, and Craigslist best-of option . He was promoted to general manager in November 2000.

In 2002, a notice was posted on the men seeking men , casual encounters , erotic services and rants and raves sections to inform users of the nature of these sections and to mention that these sections are reserved for users over 18 years of age. Originally, no reviews were posted on the men seeking women , women seeking men and women seeking women sections . Responding to accusations of discrimination and negative stereotyping, Buckmaster explained that the company's action was set based on feedback from users asking for reviews in the most sexually explicit sections, including the men seeking men section . Today, all the previously mentioned sections as well as a few others carry a notice.

In 2003, Michael Ferris Gibson directed the documentary 24 Hours on Craigslist .

On August 1 , 2004, Craigslist began charging $25 for job listings in New York and Los Angeles. The same day, a new section called Gigs was added to the site. It was possible to advertise low-paying or unpaid jobs as well as work placements for free.

On August 13, 2004, Craig Newmark announced on his blog that auction giant eBay had purchased a 25% stake in the company from another shareholder. Some Craigslist users have expressed concern that this development might affect the non-commercial nature of the site, but this change in ownership has yet to have any impact on the site.

In July 2005, Craigslist acquired the right to project more than 2 million classified ads into space after Jim Buckmaster won an auction on eBay for transmission time from the company Deep . Space Communications Network. On this occasion, Craig Newmark said: “We believe there could be an infinite market in space. »

In 2006, Craigslist began charging a $10 broker listing fee for apartments in New York to discourage excessive posting and fraudulent advertising whereby some sellers were offering apartments at very low prices . , then telling their customers that the apartments were no longer available and trying to sell them a more expensive product (a fraud called bait and switch ).

controversies

In July 2006, the San Francisco Chronicle held Craigslist responsible for tolerating dog breeder advertisements on its site , allegedly encouraging the intensive breeding and irresponsible trade of pit bulls in the San Francisco area .

In 2005, Craigslist received its share of controversy for failing to remove ads from concert ticket resellers ( scalpers ) from its site for the resale of tickets to the Live 8 concert .

In January 2006, the San Francisco Bay Guardian published an editorial criticizing Craigslist for threatening the existence of local newspapers in the cities where it operates. The editorial compared Craigslist to Wal-Mart , a multinational corporation that some accuse of crushing small local merchants when they establish themselves in a municipality and offer an enormous choice of products at very tempting prices .

In February 2006, Craigslist was sued by the Chicago Lawyers ' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law for allegedly permitting users to post discriminatory housing advertisements in Chicago that violate the Fair Housing Act . The lawsuit was unfounded and was dismissed.

8 , 2006, several websites reported that Craigslist 's "Casual Encounters" forums were compromised in several cities by individuals who were posting fraudulent ads to obtain people's personal information . This information, including email addresses , phone numbers, home addresses, photos, etc., has been publicly posted on the Encyclopaedia site. Dramatica .

In April 2008, Le Figaro published an article reporting the presence of American war material stolen from the American army 13 .

Prostitution

The site is regularly singled out by the American and Canadian authorities for its laxity and its complacency towards the classified ads for erotic services related to pimping. In 2009, a local police chief in Illinois declared Craigslist to be the largest source of prostitution in the United States, based on the results of an FBI investigation that identified more than 2,800 classified ads under the prostitution of minors present on the platform 14 . He also accuses the company's leaders of turning a blind eye to these uses of their services for illegal purposes.

In 2010, after the abolitionist law FOSTA-SESTA in the United States was adopted with the declared intention of combating pimping, Craigslist decided to close its section of services “for adults” 15 . Advertisements for erotic services then largely migrate to other sites (such as Backpage 16 ), but Craigslist is still singled out for other types of advertisements that explicitly offer or seek such services in other parts. of their site 17 (such as real estate ads 18 ). Many classifieds sites have, following this law, carried out a similar self-censorship

According to professionals in the prostitution business, this law has made their working conditions more dangerous 20 , forcing them to return to the streets to work 21 and making it more difficult to identify violent clients 19 . The police, for their part, deplore the disappearance of these sites which helped them to identify pimps and track them 22 , and consider this new legislation to be ineffective 23 . This inefficiency has resulted in a drop in cases brought before the courts, having even, in Delaware, led to the disappearance of specialized courts in this area 24 .

Sale of drugs and stolen items

Craigslist works with law enforcement to identify and arrest users who advertise drugs or stolen items . [

Community functioning

Craigslist forums bring together users from all over the world. So the user who wants to know how to get to London city center from Heathrow Airport just ask the question on the travel forum and someone will answer them.

Many of the forums do not require registration. Users who want to participate in restricted forums must register and choose a nickname (called handle , in Craigslist lingo ). Craigslist does not control the content of restricted forums, but users can report listings that violate site policies. Users reported too frequently are banned under their current username and must re-register under another username if they wish to continue posting information in the forum. This mechanism is not without causing some confusion. Thus, some users flag legitimate entries simply because they disagree with their authors.

Although Craigslist claims not to monitor the site, some have mentioned that the site has banned users who were critical of the site. [ ref . necessary]

Non-profit foundation

In 2001, Craigslist established the Craigslist Foundation , a nonprofit organization , which helps new nonprofits establish themselves, gain exposure, attract the attention of potential contributors, and build knowledge and the skills necessary for their long-term success.

The foundation accepts donations. Rather than sponsoring other organizations directly, it organizes meetings and events and offers IT resources to help start-up organizations get started and contribute effectively to the community.

 

 

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