It’s no secret that print media has been in a downward spiral for several years now, and the newspaper business in particular is suffering. Some within the newspaper publishing industry see Craigslist.org as the real enemy.
Craigslist has expanded phenomenally since its launch back in the 1990s, and the online classified ads site remains the seventh most popular web site in the United States, with similar popularity in many countries abroad. By offering most of its classified postings free, Craigslist has garnered a huge community online, and has seriously cut into the classified ads revenue of local newspapers around the world.
Overall, classified advertising in American newspapers declined by 16% last year, causing a huge loss of profits to publishers. And even though Craigslist is not the only online classified ads site, as one of the most popular in the world, it is sometimes seen by newspaper publishers as the cause of their declining profits.
In reality, many web sites are cutting into newspaper profit margins. Consider Monster.com, the online employment ads service, for example. Monster provides job and résumé postings online, and makes it easy for a job seeker to search for positions around the country, or in fact, around the world.
The ease of use of sites like monster.com has attracted more and more users, leaving the newspaper classifieds struggling to fill space. Sites that deal in used-car classifieds also cutting into local newspaper advertising profits, and there are many other examples of this phenomenon.
Still, Craigslist.org seems to get much of the blame for the newspaper industry’s woes. What Craigslist has done right is to create a responsible grass-roots community, making it easy for users to get in touch with each other for a variety of reasons, including meet ups and cultural activities, job postings, relationship matchmaking, and many many more.
It is the community aspect of Craigslist that makes it a real threat to American newspapers. Just a few decades ago, a local newspaper would often be seen as the “hub” of the community. But with Craigslist expanding at an astronomical rate into mid-sized and even small towns, the Craigslist community is quickly replacing the local paper as the online “gathering place” for local residents.
Craigslist is now a billion-dollar, publicly traded corporation, despite the fact that they only charge a modest fee for a few of their services — most notably, help-wanted ads for upscale jobs in large metropolitan cities.
Still, Craigslist has managed to keep their grass roots ethos and sense of community, providing dozens of free services for local residents, and a way to connect with their fellow citizens. At the end of the day, isn’t that exactly the role that local newspapers used to fill?
Craiglist is getting used by spammers, more and more elaborate in their spamming techniques.
As such, some people are getting tired of having to plow through the Craiglist mess to get to the relevant classifieds they’re basically looking for.
Comment by Claude Gelinas — July 4, 2008 @ 8:39 am