Gary Wolf's feature on the idiosyncrasies of craigslist, its founder Craig Newmark, and its CEO Jim Buckmaster perfectly captures the thing that makes the site so wonderful: the quirky, zen character of its executives who love the heroically ugly, creaking beast and refuse to change it.
But if you really want to see a mess, go visit the nation's greatest apartment-hunting site, the first likely choice of anybody searching for a rental or a roommate. On this site, contrary to every principle of usability and common sense, you can't easily browse pictures of the apartments for rent. Customer support? Visit the help desk if you enjoy being insulted. How much market share does this housing site have? In many cities, a huge percentage. It isn't worth trying to compare its traffic to competitors', because at this scale there are no competitors.
Each of these sites, of course, is merely one of the many sections of craigslist, which dominates the market in facilitating face-to-face transactions, whether people are connecting to buy and sell, give something away, rent an apartment, or have some sex. With more than 47 million unique users every month in the US alone–nearly a fifth of the nation's adult population–it is the most important community site going and yet the most underdeveloped. Think of any Web feature that has become popular in the past 10 years: Chances are craigslist has considered it and rejected it. If you try to build a third-party application designed to make craigslist work better, the management will almost certainly throw up technical roadblocks to shut you down.
- Unicorn Art Car, Free to Loving Home (Craigslist Sign of the Times …
- Bank Robber Uses Craigslist To Hire Unsuspecting Accomplices …
- Spammers discuss breaking Craigslist verification system – Boing Boing
- Arrests in fake Craigslist "everything must go" ad rip-off – Boing …
- Boing Boing: How to improve Craigslist: essay by Mark Pesce
- Boing Boing: Jihadist Italian Bathroom Tile ad on Craigslist?
