What can you learn from Craigslist?
April 1st, 2007 by Robert
Craigslist seems to be one of those sites that makes one wonder how it got so successful.
I don’t know if it because it is largely free or just incredibly simple, but Craigslist has certainly challenged the mainstream classifieds market, traditionally dominated by newspaper organizations. As a web developer its blunt simple interface seems overly congested with simple links. I’m all for simple, intuitive interfaces but goodness, theirs is on the extreme side.
User interfaces aside, Craigslist makes a reported 10 million a year off of a few areas of the site that are paid, according to Wikipedia. The really interested part however was what CEO Jim Buckmaster said to the UBS Global Media Conference:
In December 2006, Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster appeared at the UBS Global Media Conference in New York and perplexed Wall Street analysts by telling them Craigslist has little interest in maximizing profit from the website but instead prefers only to help users find cars, apartments, jobs and dates.
What does this mean?
I’m sure that quote did baffle the Wall Street types who are more interested in making money that actually providing a good product. In other words, provide something the customer can truly use and wants and the revenue will follow.
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