Slashdot Mirror
Ebay Buys Into Craiglist
unboring writes "The news out today morning is that eBay has bought a minority stake in Craigslist. Here's Craig's take on the whole issue. For those unaware of Craigslist, it was launched by Craig Newmark in 1995 in San Francisco, and is an online network of classified ads and forums aimed at people looking to find an apartment rental, meet friends or trade goods. For those unaware of eBay, get out from under that rock! Google news stories for your convenience here. So will Craigslist now become more corporate/evil? Personally, I've benefited a lot from Craigslist classifieds and I hope it doesn't lose its attitude."
The article title says "Craiglist", but it should be "Craigslist."
I've used the barter/trading section of craigslist before but was leery of trusting the people who I traded with.
Then again, craiglist works only when you trade in person unlike ebay.
And the listings are free...
eBay is really trying to squeeze itself into every possible market it can, which deals with basically buying/selling.
It has also bought of India's largest trade portal baazee. Lets keep an eye on its tale of acquisitions in 04.
EBay bought 25% stake in Craigslist, as founder Craig commented in his blog. This is not your usual "community effort sold out to big corporation" story. It begins when craigslist first established as company, Craig made a gift of some equity to a guy who was working with him at the time. He reasons that the equity really had more symbolic than actual dollar value. Given the success of craigslist, this is probably self-deprecation. Indeed, this person latter left the company and decided to sold his stake to eBay. The irony is this person is going to make all the monetary gain while Craig would likely to shoulder all the criticism.
Being a for-profit company or owned by big corporation is not necessary a bad thing. People need to make a living and an office need money to run. Even slashdot.org a fervently independent outlet is now owned by VA Software. But craigslist has made a name of itself by strongly resist to commercialize. The web design is basic and text only, entirely free from advertisement. All services are free with the exception of job posting as its sole income. Had it decided to brought in venture capital, craigslist has every potential to be a contender to eBay, a 50 billion dollars corporate giant. But it choose to stay this way, running like a struggling non-profit, forgoing the dream of uncountable wealth.
While it might look a mistake now that he gave away equity to a person who later sell to big corporation and profited, I believe he acted in the interest of the organization at that time. He understand the website that bears his name is more than himself. By making some form of employee ownership he could make it a better and more accountable organization.
I can only hope the ownership change will strengthen craigslist's service without straying it from its mission. No matter what it is going to be, craigslist has already made its name as an antidote to the dot-com frenzy
(Comment replicated from my blog)
This issue is clearly at the top of my list where businesses begin to fail their customers, they lose that rough edge they had when they started out, that panache which got them noticed, their attention to fixing what was important and not wasting energy putting doilies on things, and lastly being accessible -- too damn many online companies have buried their customer service behind FAQ's and forms to the point you try to alert them to a problem and the square peg won't fit their round-hole request template and you never really know if anyone did receive that urgent missive, but you do get a form letter which seems completely out of context with your concern. In short, they become 'Sirius Cybernetics', a mindless bunch of jerks who should be first up against the wall when the revolution comes.
I'm fairly pissed off with eBay, for their constant fscking around with user interfaces and services that don't need half the crap they put into it and it never really quite works as well as it used to, but it's full of cutesy sh!t pictures and things, oh, and the pages are really big now, lots of bloat in there. I hope Craig's doesn't fall under the heel of the eBay design wizards, but expect some day for 'Craig' to be dropped, to look more corporate.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Err not really. For those who have tried the "Casual Encounters" forums, it's mostly just jokesters collecting photos, or men pretending to be women, just to see how many men respond.
:innocent:
There are some truly desperate people out there. Though I think the idea is great, it just doesn't work out in practice. If a real chick DOES manage to post, her email box is inuandated with 3247832987432 emails in about 2 minutes, making replies hopeless (especially if the post is any older than an hour).
Not that I know this from experience or anything...
Craigslist has its quirky charm, and it's free to use.
... is Pierre Omidyar in any way involved in eBay anymore? I notice that Craig thanks him in his announcement, and that seems odd. I thought Pierre had long since cut the cord and gone on to charitable stuff.
I certainly hope neither of those things will change.
It's always had a reputation for being a bit anti-corporate, so seeing a press release written in boilerplate corpspeak is more than a little appalling.
I also wonder about liability problems associated with the Erotic Services and Casual Encounters categories. That seems like the kind of thing a major corporation would be forced to neuter.
Still, it is a minority stake which I daresay gives them no rights at all. I wonder how much they paid for those no rights.
Oh
D
I wrote that comment all seriousness. I've posted several craigslist ads, and met more than one girl whom I've slept with.
Reason, free market capitalism, and individualism
I love Craigslist. It has become a very central part of bay area life, especially within San Francisco itself. If you live in SF chances are you found your current residence from an ad listed on craigslist, whether it was for an empty apartment, or one of the bajillion ads for room mates. I know that's how I found my current studio ($820/mo on Market Street, woohoo!!) apartment.
I'm not sure what E-bay would want from it. I understand that they charge for job listings, everything else on the site is free. Plus they are expanding to other cities rapidly. I guess maybe they actually make enough from the job listing ads to support the entire site and the salary of the people who work on it.
The Generation
I'd say something witty here, but I'm not that bright.
Oh, you mean Ashley Madison
You must be canadian, or live on the border and get CA broadcast television.
Canadian TV is a little looser with what they let go on-air. I think 10 PM is too early for softcore porn to be on TV, I guess they like to raise kids differently up north.
Those shares could have been sold to anyone- we're happy that eBay has communicated that they want no part of craigslist if we're unhappy with the deal. With a 25% holding, there's no real power that can be exerted by eBay. Obviously I can't go into details, but craigslist is secure.
it's up to us to prove with actions, not words, that we're still the same old craigslist.
Sean @CL