Craigslist, as one of the leading Internet advertising services in the world, has become a likely enterprise worth $ 150 million a year. Craigslist's roots history is surprisingly modest, given its considerable success today. In 1995, Craig Newmark created this online service for the San Francisco Bay Area. The first publications were not impressive; they consisted of notifications of social events that were of interest to Internet developers who lived and / or worked in the San Francisco Bay area. These initial publications were debuted in early 1995, but, like all new technologies, the system encountered some disruptions and limitations. In June 1995, software was installed, Mayordomo, and Craigslist resumed its work.
In 1999, Craigslist was incorporated into a private commercial company, which led to its expansion into nine additional US cities; four more in 2001 and 2002 and 14 in 2003. By September 2007, Craigslist has reached an impressive 450 cities in over 50 countries! However, many things happened in the early 2000s, which is explained by its success. The main contribution to the expansion of Craigslist relied heavily on word of mouth. By this method, the number of postings and subscribers increased exponentially.
Interestingly, only 24 people work on Craigslist at their modest headquarters in San Francisco. Craig Newmark attributes the victory of Craigslist to its simplicity, honest values, exceptional customer service and assured quality. For example, people feel more comfortable posting an online ad in their own community compared to publishing an ad throughout their state or, in some cases, the entire country.
Craigslist’s main source of income is paid advertising in selected cities. These cities include: San Francisco Bay, Los Angeles, San Diego, Boston, Seattle, Washington, Chicago, New York and Portland, Oregon. Craigslist charges $ 25 for advertising for all cities, with the exception of San Francisco, which charges $ 75 for advertising. More recently, in November 2008, Craigslist added a fee of $ 5 for erotic service listings. According to Newmark, despite the high incomes of Craigslist, the revenues that the site makes are likely to be donated to charities.
Now, to some disturbing statistics from Craigslist. It is posted as the 47th most popular website. Worldlike the 9th place website in the United States, and Craigslist serves over nine billion page views per month! Perhaps one of the most common publications in Craigslist is job ads. About two million new job listings are published monthly on the website. This fact alone makes Craigslist one of the best online ad platforms in the world!
Despite the fact that Craigslist does not disclose its financial or property information, recent studies show that their annual income since 2006 has more than quadrupled! It was reported that Craigslist earned about $ 20-25 million in 2006 and probably exceeded the unprecedented $ 150 million in 2007. As mentioned earlier, the owners of Craigslist are widely unknown, but suggested that eBay owns about 25%, and Jim Buckmaster, CEO of Craigslist, and Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist, owns the largest share.
As you can see, the popularity of online ads is huge more than one. Not only does a classified ad site, such as Craigslist, make a huge amount of money, people who advertise also win. Companies such as Craigslist have proven that products are more often sold when they are published on the Internet, because additional information is provided along with the product. In addition, images and videos may accompany a product or service that is sold. Newspaper advertising is a thing of the past. They are not as accessible or convenient as online advertising.
They usually cost money and are limited in description and quality. It also takes more time to publish an ad in a newspaper than an online ad. Ads on the Internet are published immediately; There is no filing process that spends time. In addition, they are usually free if the option of selected ads is not selected. In general, newspaper ads are not as effective or practical as online ads.
