Craigslist meets the capitalists
Fascinating piece in the New York Times here about a culture clash between Jim Buckmaster of Craigslist and a bunch of Wall Street suits. (Link courtesy of Russell Davies.) Buckmaster was speaking at a conference and took questions from the audience, which was bemused to learn that despite the much-touted billions being paid for the likes of YouTube and MySpace, Craiglist is less avowedly interested in earning megabucks than in providing a good service for its users. ‘Monetising’ the site is ‘not part of the plan’.
How about running AdSense ads from Google? Craigslist has considered that, Mr. Buckmaster said. They even crunched the numbers, which were “quite staggering.” But users haven’t expressed an interest in seeing ads, so it is not going to happen.
The piece has sparked a lot of debate at the NYT link above. Interesting to see that views are split between supporters of Craigslist’s modest approach to profit generation, those who think they’re just dumb, and those who are just too cynical to believe that they just plan to make their billions some other way.
If Craigslist are genuine, it’s another example of a world in which advertisers will be increasingly unable to ‘spam’ consumers with unwanted messages. Which can only be good news for those of us who believe in trying to make communications that do more than just pollute people’s lives with irrelevant noise.
