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97 of Top 100 Classified Sites Are Craigslist
According to a recent report, 97 of the top 100 classified sites are just localized versions of Craigslist, up from 88 just last year. Combine that with a massive rise in traffic to classified sites in general and you have a recipe for one raging behemoth. "Craigslist isn't just crushing the newspaper industry and crowding out other classified sites. It's also taking an increasing slice of total U.S Internet traffic: the site's market share in February was up 90% year over year, accounting for about 2.5% of total US Web site visits."
As Prostitutes Turn to Craigslist, Law Takes Notice. Given how much of the web is devoted to porn, why is anyone surprised that the best site for marketing prostitution is doing so well?
Note to sarcasm impaired: This is (mostly) a joke.
$_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgcdwatb"; tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print
While it lasted.
.gif flaming skulls and starfield backgrounds, and dumped on the present. However, it is fast, even on devices without the chops for horrible flash and javascript monsters, unobtrusive, no in-your-face ads, and if it exists, you can find it.
Seriously, though, Craigslist now seems to be an unstoppable testament to the power of network effects and general benevolence. The site feels like it was dragged out of 1993, stripped of all the animated
I'm not at all surprised that it has terminated the traditional classifieds, since they all sucked; but I am mildly surprised that that it seems to be crushing its online competitors so absolutely. I would have expected at least a few me-too outfits with gmail-styled "Web 2.0" interfaces to be doing OK somewhere. Network effects, I suppose. Like ebay; but without the evil.
I may be off here, but part of the reason of the reason Craigslist may be gaining popularity is because its listings are finally well indexed by search engines, where as of a year or so ago, they weren't - now when I search for an item or service, Craigslist actually shows up in the relevant hits! The more users who see Craigslist in google results, the more likely they maybe are to list with it.
the year 2000. Everybody had to be on it. It will explode into this huge mass, consuming everything, for the next 5-6 years. It will be bought for over $2 billion(USD). It will turn to crap shortly there after, and by 2016, a new online overlord will rise from the IPv6 pit of doom to consume the next generation of online users.
You need to be very careful online.
The problem is that Joe User doesn't understand infosec, and trusts too much. Period.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
I'm happy for Craigslist to destroy the newspaper industry (at least in the English speaking world), so long as it takes Rupert Murdoch and his empire with it.
The problem that I have with craigslist is that they're refusing to scale their staff and procedures in accordance with their popularity. In some categories, the spam/scam level is as high as 90% so clearly whatever they've been doing for the last few years isn't working. If you're a legitimate user whose IP has been marked on their system as suspicious and try to post an ad, they tell you to jump through a bunch of hoops (including creating an account, verifying the account, etc) that lead absolutely nowhere. They have no technical support and do not respond to emails.
I like the idea of craigslist, but I fear that the site is going to collapse under the weight of its own success unless they start engineering some practical, scalable solutions to the problems of spammers, scammers, as well as legitimate users.
I thought cashier's cheques were guaranteed by the originating bank? Last time I made one they took the money out of my account, then handed me the cheque. I no longer had the money, I had a note guaranteed by the bank. I could hand this to someone else and they would get the money from the bank, not from me. Does anyone know if NZ banks have this issue?
It's a fallacy with US banking, both cashiers cheques and bankers drafts are as useless as regular cheques for guaranteeing payment. Both can be bounced by the originating bank for a variety of reasons. Cashiers cheque are generally more dangerous as your account can be credited earlier, as required by federal law, than when the clearance occurs so you account can appear in credit but later in debit.