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Craig and his List
Schlemphfer writes "The San Francisco Chronicle has published a long interview with Craig Newmark of Craigslist. The interview covers topics like running a business with a moral compass, hiring people while finding leadership to grow a website, and last week's eBay purchase of 25% of the site."
this is in or around the slashdot area
it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
-- "I'm not a religious man, but if you're up there, save me Superman..."
in comes ebay, and... craig's moral compass starts to swing wildly!
Seriously! Read the casual encounters section. I wonder if that really works. If you were a guy who was looking for BJs from a transexual, craigslist would seriously be your mecca.
Another funny thing is there are always a lot of posts like "Gay dude seeks straight male for discreet oral -- No reciprocation." To each his own and all, but I can't imagine that being successful.
NJ Local Music Scene
Craig uses only Linux PCs and a linux PDA.
Anyways, back to the subject at hand: Craig said they didn't really promote Craigslist... yet now it's so huge they even charge for job listings in certain cities(that's how they get all their money). Wow. This is really showing how the web can really be a great place for community building an etc.
The interview's long but it's well worth reading. Craig touches up on how he will work with the eBay fraud people to find new ways to combat fraud now that Craigslist is getting bigger (and hopefully better).
Note the referral link in parent's comment. He tried to disguise it so we won't notice. I suggest modding parent down.
Q: A former employee of Craigslist sold 25 percent of the firm to EBay Friday. Did you try to stop this?
A: We tried to channel it toward a partner we could live with, with a similar moral compass. It was not my intention to have any of this happen, but we're happy with the results.
In other words:
A: Yeah, it really blows. Because we still have business morals, where eBay don't have much. We'd have prefered a partner with some morals left, but now they're stuck their foot in our doors, hey, I guess eBay is really really great after all...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Ridiculous. The only way for an organization of individuals to have any sort of lasting "moral compass" is to dilute power among it members. There is a practical method for this, it's called democracy. In business circles it's called a cooperative.
Anything else will fall apart or centralize to the point of paralysis.
A heirarchical organization has only the "moral compass" of the fellow at the very top - not much of a moral compass.
It is quite amusing (well disheartening actually) these days to watch all these "internet activists" attempt to recreate (in complete ignorance) what syndicalists were doing over a century ago.
This article restored my faith in the "google" philosophy, Craig is doing the right thing and not selling out. Until reading this in-depth interview I interpreted the story earlier this week implying Craig had sold out. On the contrary, it turns out a former employee with 25% (closely held) shares sold them independently which is a whole lot different from Craigslist negotiating a sale to eBay.
/. readers read the entire interview (warning, its long, but hey, its Sunday morning...). My faith in (as Craig calls us) nerds is restored. We gotta make a living but we don't have to sell out.
I recommend
Its a long shot to think that eBay could expand to include a highly regional business. My guess is its not likely to happen, but if it does I may take another look at eBay. In the mean time, Craigslist meets all my needs and after reading the article I an reassured that they match my philosophical views too. Like Google, doing simple very well can be fair and also profitable.
The issue is not who has the power to act, but rather to whom the actors are accountable. A hierarchy works fine, indeed far better, than a committee, so long as there are adequate checks on the hierarchy.
As to decision-making by committee, the problem is that "None of us is as dumb as all of us." Consensus will almost never equate to moral decisions. This is one of the reasons why the United States operates under a constitution that strips the power of the majority to act in certain areas -- precisely because MORAL conduct often requires sacrificing the will of the many for the benefit of the few.
If Alexa is any indication, they are doing well. Alexa users make up maybe 10% of Internet users, but being in the top 100 on Alexa is very good.
Pete Carr Owner Chatmag.com
I'm stupid.. Sorry. I'll use the preview button from now on, honest.
Fucking Cicadas - 27 >
A great story of racial harmony in the DC subway
RANT: Fucking BUGS in my FUCKING apartment
I didn't bust a nut because of your dog
Goddammit you stole my ho bag
"The Wright brothers were the first to fly with a heavier-than-air machine, but boy did they have a lousy plane"
600 page views a second at peak hours (and 1 billion a month) according to craigs blog.
Just because someone's morals aren't identical with yours, doesn't mean the person is immoral. Plenty of people on this planet don't see anything wrong with providing a service for money, erotic or otherwise.
Craigslist has/had its problems but it has become an institution here in NCAL. It is so hugely popular that people try selling their castoffs for incredibly high prices -- two-year-old laptops for a couple of hundred more than when they were NEW. And because the ads are free, nothing is lost. A poster, f'rexample, has advertised the same 1983 650cc motorcycle for $2500 every other day for nearly two years. Craisglist is, to me, a free spam area as well as a public, community service. Myself, I have bought several motorcycles (one FREE) and two laptops, a mobo/CPU combo, and the odd PC network card and CD-burner through CL over the years.
/., there is no moderation as such of their forums, and mostly no registration needed either, flame wars, OT posts, misinformation, etc. abound.
.com can own a .org. Or am I missing something?
NB: I believe it is a credit to Craig's readers that the overpriced motorcycle has NOT been sold!
And because, like
"Craig is a coder" is the `explanation in the feedback forum. He bu8ilds what people ask for or seem to need, and pays little attention to the way his service is used.
If EBay can buy into Craigslist, can't someone sell shares of Debian (if there are any) to MS?
I don't understand how a
From everything I've heard PayPal has improved markedly since eBay bought it.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Craigslist has ALWAYS had the Google philosophy--Do what's good for the community--Everything you do comes back to you. People helping people. I was shocked too about the 25% sell but knew it couldn't be Craig wanting it. If that were the case, he could have sold out for millions of $$$ and retired in style and luxury during the dot com boom. Instead he's just barely or just comfortably paying the bills for running the website via fees from job ads.
I recommend /. readers read the entire interview (warning, its long, but hey, its Sunday morning...). My faith in (as Craig calls us) nerds is restored. We gotta make a living but we don't have to sell out.
Amen.
Its a long shot to think that eBay could expand to include a highly regional business. My guess is its not likely to happen, but if it does I may take another look at eBay.
i'll never take another look at ebay as long as some scam seller from Romania, Russia, Indonesia or Nigeria can hide behind his computer while ebay does very little to stop him from coming back again & again to scam others AND ebay can trap me with legalese ("you bid so you have to pay") into sending $$ to the scam seller because i pressed the "buy it now" button and "won."
The 25% buy by ebay of craigslist looks like another way ebay is trying to make themselves "smell" better without too much ODOR to gain a better reputation for "safety" with the public.
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