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Craigslist’s Billion Dollar Question

Craigslist is lauded by users, and feared by newspapers, job boards, and the classified industry. I’d like to join in the adulation too, and would if Craigslist/Winnipeg wasn’t a ghost town.

So, from way outside the Bay Area, the big question that I’m asking is:

Can Craigslist grow outside of its core markets without changing its business model?

Craigslist may be well-entrenched in its strongholds, but to live up to the fears of the print industry, the hopes of the Craigslist fanbase, and Craig’s own philanthropical goals, it will need to find success outside of a few urban oases.

Fortunately, I have a way to answer this question: the Craigslist Tracker. Every night, I’m going to add the number of listings from cities for which Craigslist had a dedicated subsite on April 3rd. Over time, I’m going to aggregate and chart that data to see where Craigslist is growing, where its stagnating, and where its shrinking - and then mash it up with other data (population), and start drawing conclusions. In the meantime, you can follow the excitement in Times New Roman glory.

Now - please take note: this is not a Craigslist attack or slam. This is (I hope) a valid perspective from someone for whom the 1000-pound Craigslist gorrilla hasn’t materialized and revolutionized my life; I’m wondering if its going to, or if its going to be someone else, or if I’ll be squinting through newspaper classifieds for the rest of my life. Given the abyssmal quality of online classifieds around here (arrrrghhhhh) (gaaack) I’m sincerely hoping Craigslist takes root. I think the results of this study may be of interest to the print industy and other classifieds sites as well.

The other note I’ll make is the arbitrary “billion” dollar question. Billions are, of course, unimportant to a company that eschews the profit motive. A less catchy title might be “Craigslist: Will it become the dominant venue for commerce outside of its present, core markets?”

That’s it. Follow along, and stay tuned for updates.

EDIT: I also wanted to add that while I find Alexa stats inherently sketchy, I found this 3 year graph of Craigslist interesting. I assume that the downward slant is the same overseas weighting issue that’s similarly aggravated other North American focused sites, but it was interesting nonetheless.

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2 Responses to “Craigslist’s Billion Dollar Question”

THE CRAIGSLIST REPORT: April, 2007 - Massive Growth « TechFold | May 3rd, 2007 at 2:25 pm

[…] is a juggernaut. I used to doubt its power, but that is no longer the case. For the last month, I’ve been been tracking listing volumes […]
jeff | December 17th, 2007 at 12:43 pm

I don’t understand why Craigslist doesn’t have better filtering capabilities. There are hundreds of thousands of ads posted on the web site every day but to sift through those, even if you are just looking for a car or something, is impossible. I came across a site Metromole.com, but it doesn’t have many posts yet. Hopefully it will take off, I’d much rather use that site.