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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."
The news is that they think the recession is causing this thrift explosion. From the article:
So it seems the recession is more or less rescuing some classifieds sites while acting as a rocket booster for Craigslist. This meshes well with last week's info about Craigslist replacing MySpace as the top U.S. search term.
And from Hitwise's blog:
Market share of US Internet Visits increased 90% to the Craigslist Cities custom category year over year in February 2009 while visits to All Other Classifieds grew 22%.Visits to All Other Classifieds had been declining for most of 2008 with visits starting to increase in January and February. This suggests that the worsening US economy may be boosting visits to classifieds websites, and contributing to the recent up tick in visits to both Craigslist Cities and All Other Classifieds.
I'm not sold on their evidence. I don't see a huge jump since February of '08 in search popularity. Why do we do this with percentages? We break them down into categories and play the telephone game to distort them for the sole purpose of shock-and-awe reporting leading to ad revenue?
My work here is dung.
Yeah and this is the problem as I see it.
Craigslist made the economics of prostitution more decentralized so cops were busting fewer hookers even though the sex industry in a lot of towns was thriving with Craigslist. So the cops started to take notice when their revenue dropped off. In some towns over 50% of the revenue comes from fines levied against the citizens for non-violent crimes and anything that disrupts that will make politicians poke their local county sheriffs and police departments to do something about it. Look at your county coffers and see how much comes in from traffic tickets and criminal fines for my county it is nearly 30% of the revenue. Making so much of county and city budgets dependent on vice and traffic crimes has made it profitable to exacerbate problems that will encourage it while not directly encouraging it. -- See drug war, cheap alcohol and 1 second yellow lights.
We also had a massive decrease in violence against prostitutes and charges filed for pimping because craigslist made it far easier to go solo and be safe from crazies by filtering out them by email and phone before meeting. Sort of like speed dating, now these women are back out working for pimps and working the streets. This sort of action by the police community against sex workers is abhorrent and is bringing back old problems that were going away with Craigslist being used by escorts.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
I never had a bad experience buying from Craigslist. At first, I wasn't very sure about sending sellers emails using my personal email, but to this day, I have not had any massive spam increases (gmail filters them out anyway), nor any crazy stalkers bothering me. I've furnished my entire studio with craigslist, for about maybe $400 and that's because I decided to spend a little money. For that I got:
a. a super heavy and sturdy office desk with 3 drawers. It supports 2 21" CRT monitors and computer and receiver. Looks like it could take a lot more too. The seller offered to help me assemble it for free, which I took on his offer but decided to give him $10 extra for it. Total cost: $60.
b. a recliner. I was looking for a recliner to put my feet up. All recliners I saw for new were like lazyboy ugly craps, or some designer stuff that costs about $900 at least. I found an old school leather recliner for $30.
c. a dinner room table with 2 chairs. Fits my space perfectly. Cost $50.
d. a bed side table with 3 drawers. Nice looking dark wood and not some assemble it crap. Cost: $90?
e. two designer lamps. I springed for these and paid I think $200. These were brand new.
I also purchased:
a. 21" sweet CRT monitor for $10.
b. a nice road bike that fits me well for $600. The seller was really cool and gave me a whole bunch of stuff for free and even gave me some technical support after.
c. old clicky keyboard. New would've cost $85 but I got this one for $25. Turned out I couldn't use it and so I returned it. The seller gladly refunded my money.
d. nikon lenses.
I sold some computer memory through it and some other stuff. But generally I buy more than sell.
Some things I wouldn't use craigslist for:
1. personals. They are interesting/voyeuristic to browse, but you never know who is on the other side.
2. cars. too expensive to bring cash. I watched on this tv show this murder happened because the seller knew the buyer was going to bring lots of cash so they arranged to meet at a secluded place and murdered the buyer.
Some tips:
1. You know what they say: if it's too good, it probably is.
2. Don't meet at a deserted place late at night. Meet at a place that you are comfortable with and with lots of people around.
3. Don't give out personal information, ever.
Craigslist is also more useful in larger metropolitan areas. I used to live in a small town and hardly used it. But now I live in a larger city I use it a lot.
Craigslist + RSS is also a major win.