Competition
Nov 25th, 2005 at 9:06 am by Susie
Should be interesting:
NEW YORK Saying U.S. newspapers “are afraid to talk truth to power,” Craigslist founder Craig Newmark hinted that he’s about to launch a major online journalism project within the next few months that will copy the successful “wisdom of the masses” approach to classified advertising and apply it to journalism.
Newmark made his remarks before the Oxford University business school earlier this week, and the British newspaper the Guardian reported the details of his speech on Tuesday.
Craigslist.org has become one of the 50 most-popular sites on the Internet thanks in large part to a community that has arisen around free classifieds. But the free classifieds model Craigslist has helped popularize has also hurt newspapers and cost industry jobs, a fact Newmark owned up to in his speech.
Craig Newmark ought to look into buying the Knight-Ridder papers in Philadelphia, the Inquirer, Daily News, and the Northeast Times. They are conservative enough already, and we should not let them fall into the hands of right-wing wackos.
How does Craig’s List make enough money to support all of its operations?
I know that the staff is small, around 14 and they charge for some classifieds in some cities [I think right now LA and NYC]. But beyond that, I’m assuming an assload of venture capital money.