craigslist honored

Filed in archive Entrepreneurship on September 6, 2004

Source: sfsu.edu


The New York Times honors the success of craigslist.org.

"That is not to say craigslist has been a financial disaster. Far from it. Jim Buckmaster, the chief executive of Craigslist and Mr. Newmark's right- and left-hand man, said the company's revenues approach $10 million a year, although he declined to offer more specific numbers. And the partnership with eBay, a very profitable Internet company, raises the question of whether the site's grass-roots values are at risk. Could Mr. Newmark be on the road to taking his list to the bank...

The foremost lesson would be about community and how to sustain one online. Craigslist started in 1995 as an e-mail newsletter that Mr. Newmark sent to friends informing them of San Francisco cultural events. As interest grew, the newsletter became an online flea and job market and an essential community bulletin board.

As investor-backed Internet companies began to surge in the late 1990's, Craigslist remained the tortoise. When the dot-coms fizzled, Craigslist was celebrated as an antidot-com, achieving - despite its lack of business plans, profit projections and tchotchkes with logos - the kind of mass acceptance that high-tech investors clawed for."