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THE UGLIEST WEBSITE IN THE WORLD

Craigslist is a very ugly website. In 2009, it is estimated that
it will have a turnover of $100 million. It has 30 fulltime
employees.

Craigslist breaks all marketing and branding rules. In fact, it
doesn't market or brand or sell itself at all. There are no
marketers on staff. "Only programmers, customer service reps and
accounting staff work at craigslist," Gary Wolf writes in an
excellent Wired article.

Craigslist does things slowly and repetitively. Its strategy for
growth involves "a slow, bloblike, seemingly unstoppable
accretion of new craigslist cities, each an exact clone of the
others, launched with no marketing or publicity," Wolf writes.
"Sometimes a new site grows very slowly for a long time."

47 million Americans visit Craigslist every month. More people
visit it than eBay or Amazon.

Craigslist is a "centralized network of online communities,
featuring free online classified advertisements - with sections
devoted to jobs, housing, personals, for sale, services,
community, gigs, resumes, and discussion forums" according to
Wikipedia.

Craig Newmark founded craigslist in 1995. "Newmark has one trait
that mattered a lot in craigslist's success," Wolf writes. "He
is willing to perform the same task again and again. During the
company's first years, Newmark approved nearly every message on
the list, and in the decade since he has spent much of his time
eliminating offensive ones. Even by the most conservative
accounting, he has passed judgment on tens of thousands of
classified ads. Very few people could do this and thrive."

What is the philosophy or vision statement of Craigslist?
According to Newark, "People are good and trustworthy and
generally just concerned with getting through the day ... Customer
service is public service."

Craigslist gets a lot of criticism for its ugly design that
hasn't changed since 1999. "I hear this all the time," CEO Jim
Buckmaster tells Wired. "You guys are so primitive, you are like
cavemen. Don't you have any sense of aesthetic? But the people I
hear it from are invariably working for firms that want the job
of redoing the site. In all the complaints and requests we get
from users, this is never one of them. Time spent on the site,
the number of people who post-we're the leader. It could be
we're doing one or two things right."

So what are they doing right? How about their approach to
revenue generation, for a start? "Companies looking to maximize
revenue need to throw as many revenue-generating opportunities
at users as they will tolerate," Buckmaster tells Wired. "We
have absolutely no interest in doing that, which I think has
been instrumental to the success of craigslist."

There is method to this apparent commercial madness. "While it
may seem paradoxical, Craigslist actually is being much smarter
(on purpose or not) in how it "maximizes profits," an article on
the Techdirt website states. "It's doing it by not pissing off
users and not trying to squeeze them for every possible penny
today, knowing correctly that doing so is a horrible long-term
strategy."

Craigslist is willing to do the basic, boring stuff again and
again and again. It thinks long-term. It puts people first. It
trusts them. And millions of people trust it back and use it
every day to find love and cars and stuff. Craigslist, the
anti-brand, is one of the biggest brands of the 21st Century.

Why Craigslist Is Such a Mess
http://www.wired.com/entertainment/theweb/magazine/17-09/ff_craigslist?currentPage=all

The Myth Behind Craigslist: It's Not Maximizing Revenue
Potential
http://techdirt.com/articles/20090825/0407055988.shtml

mailto:gerry@gerrymcgovern.com

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September 7, 2009 - Volume 14 Number 30
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