Craigslist has been disrupted • Hacker News Board

Re: Craigslist has been disrupted

#11

Post by aresant » Fri, Apr 01, 2011, 10:31 PM UTC

As a business in 2010 CraigsList derived an estimated 53% of their revenue from job listings, 30% from adult ads, and 17% from rentals.

The adult ads went out the window which is going to hurt them, a LOT, in terms of both traffic and revenue.

So the more material question is has CL's largest revenue category - job's - been disrupted?

I was able to dig up this graph of job mention volume and it appears that CL, in their most important category, is gaining velocity, not slowing down:

http://www.jobgoround.com/tools/craigslist-job-trends/ (set to one year)

and http://www.simplyhired.com/a/jobtrends/trend/q-Craigslist

Reference for percentage of revenues: http://www.ere.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/Craigslist-201...

Re: Craigslist has been disrupted

#12

Post by turar » Fri, Apr 01, 2011, 10:31 PM UTC

Funny, seems that the author of the image in the article only uses "adult" and "rants and raves" categories on Craigslist. :)

Re: Craigslist has been disrupted

#13

Post by dman » Fri, Apr 01, 2011, 10:33 PM UTC

gnu grep disrupted, folks using new fangled Google instead. Craiglist is a great, stable design that works with a uniform interface to do common transactions that occur in most peoples lives. Can they be outpaced within a vertical? Sure, but their USP lies in the newspaper classifieds that they sought to displace originally. Until someone else comes up with a better catch all for real life transactions that is more economical and convenient, I wouldnt consider craigslist disrupted.

Re: Craigslist has been disrupted

#14

Post by georgieporgie » Fri, Apr 01, 2011, 10:34 PM UTC

nir wrote: post #8

>"I don't think Craig's a bad guy, but he's harvesting $50M a year into his pockets and not improving the site" Not sure about the definition of "improving the site" here. I'm thankful to CL for not building gratuitous UI, or half assed "social" element, or "tweet this post to your social graph". Instead they work on improving the content by fighting certain types of abuse, having the founder do customer support and…

Not sure about the definition of "improving the site" here.

How about some sort of reputation system? And decent moderation? As it stands, CL is a great way to (not) meet flaky people, and to have your posts taken down on the indecipherable whims of a few obsessive users.

I've gotten one job, bought a few things, sold one motorcycle, and gave away most of my possessions via CL, and it was consistently an awful, frustrating experience.

Re: Craigslist has been disrupted

#15

Post by rhizome » Fri, Apr 01, 2011, 10:34 PM UTC

nir wrote: post #8

>"I don't think Craig's a bad guy, but he's harvesting $50M a year into his pockets and not improving the site" Not sure about the definition of "improving the site" here. I'm thankful to CL for not building gratuitous UI, or half assed "social" element, or "tweet this post to your social graph". Instead they work on improving the content by fighting certain types of abuse, having the founder do customer support and…

Craigslist runs something like 50MM ads every month without a leak of personal information and a user-driven moderation system, all the while fending off myriad abusers for whom free (or nearly free) advertising isn't enough and think Craigslist should be their personal global spam shitbucket.

When the only thing people have to criticize you for is your appearance, I think that says a lot.

Re: Craigslist has been disrupted

#16

Post by rhizome » Fri, Apr 01, 2011, 10:36 PM UTC

georgieporgie wrote: post #14

nir wrote: post #8

>"I don't think Craig's a bad guy, but he's harvesting $50M a year into his pockets and not improving the site" Not sure about the definition of "improving the site" here. I'm thankful to CL for not building gratuitous UI, or half assed "social" element, or "tweet this post to your social graph". Instead they work on improving the content by fighting certain types of abuse, having the founder do customer support and…

Not sure about the definition of "improving the site" here. How about some sort of reputation system? And decent moderation? As it stands, CL is a great way to (not) meet flaky people, and to have your posts taken down on the indecipherable whims of a few obsessive users. I've gotten one job, bought a few things, sold one motorcycle, and gave away most of my possessions via CL, and it was consistently an awful, frust…

It always takes more than "a few obsessive users," and there is a flag help forum on Craigslist to help explain how your ad might have trammeled your area's standards.

Re: Craigslist has been disrupted

#17

Post by carlosag » Fri, Apr 01, 2011, 10:37 PM UTC

I completely agree with Josh that there is a gap in functionality that needs to be filled. I often hear the argument that I should be grateful for this free online service... Poppycock! My attention on the internet is worth something. Especially for such a profitable industry as classifieds.

If I'm looking for a house on the internet I want to be able to zoom into a certain area on a map and click 'refresh' to see all the relevant rentals with little pins on the map. This is not rocket science. Craigslist has a rich database and could make it far more useful and user friendly. There is something to be said for simple and minimalist design. Craigslist, however seems 'not designed' at all with little regard for making things easy to find or relevant.

Re: Craigslist has been disrupted

#18

Post by phlux » Fri, Apr 01, 2011, 10:37 PM UTC

nir wrote: post #8

>"I don't think Craig's a bad guy, but he's harvesting $50M a year into his pockets and not improving the site" Not sure about the definition of "improving the site" here. I'm thankful to CL for not building gratuitous UI, or half assed "social" element, or "tweet this post to your social graph". Instead they work on improving the content by fighting certain types of abuse, having the founder do customer support and…

There is a strong difference between UI and UX, for example, when looking through postings for stuff for sale, or places for rent - filtering by HAS IMAGE is really the only way Ill look at an ad - yet there has NEVER been a way to expand and see images.

The FLAG FOR REMOVAL is and has been abused for YEARS. The fact that an apartment or for sale posting gets flagged then immediately nobody else can see it has been used to effectively block competition in the buyers market. They should simply have a ticker to how many flags a post has been given.

Posting has been built upon, but made very cumbersome. And shows that they employ mediocre critical thinking when developing the UX.

Sure, the site is amazing, its a gem of the valley and I use it daily when looking for work, stuff, places to live, and weekly/monthly otherwise. But to defend this is the same as Quora trying to convince the world they have incredible design, which they dont.

The fact that sites like padmapper can even exist proves that CL is broken in certain areas.

Everybody likes the site, but everyone is also constantly defending poor design as if its some sort of hipster notion that we just wouldn't understand.

Re: Craigslist has been disrupted

#19

Post by bigwally » Fri, Apr 01, 2011, 10:45 PM UTC

Dealing with Craigslist in NY I found it to be full of scammers and spammers.

Buying from people listing on craigslist is very much a buyer beware experience. Plenty of bait and switch. And my personal favorite "It's currently in pieces, you can pay me and take the pieces away. All the pieces are there but you have to pay cash first."

Craigslist has a lot of room for improvement and it would great to see useful changes made.

Re: Craigslist has been disrupted

#20

Post by protomyth » Fri, Apr 01, 2011, 10:46 PM UTC

What's wrong with just being a stable place? Why does everything have to evolve? Craigslist works fine for a lot of people. It is familiar, doesn't hog bandwidth, and doesn't leak personal information like a sieve. Sometimes a hammer just needs to keep being a hammer.