Caught up with Craig Newmark, founder of craigslist immediately after his panel organized by iWantMedia today in Manhattan.
He told me that while his company has had "an effect on newspapers," the notion that it has killed newspapers is "urban legend."
New York Times media columnist David Carr was on hand at the event. After I spoke with Newmark, I asked David if Craig killed newspapers. He said the list shot their "back-end off" but didn't blame Newmark.
If you haven't watched one-hour the panel, check it out. Great to watch Nick Denton and Wall Street Journal Deputy Managing Editor Allan Murray go at. Newmark is a hoot. This was shot at the NYU TV studio and streamed via Livestream. It is running in a realtime loop here (scroll down the page to see the player.)
Congratulations to Patrick Phillips, founder of iWantMedia for putting together such a superb program and doing such an ace job at moderating.
You can find my blog post on Beet.TV
And c'mon--you have to love a place where a person can post that they have free dirt after a landscaping project and then have people respond to get the free dirt because their landscaping project requires more dirt.
For years, if you wanted to sell something, you bought an expensive ad for a tiny bit of print at the back of the newspaper. The ads were unindexed and haphazardly organized under categories. You had to scan the entire section in hopes of finding something you wanted to buy. You then had to phone the number and make arrangements.
Craigslist is free, available online, and provides an email address. The best ads include full color photos, and apartments are linked to google maps so you can calculate the distance from your perspective home to your work, friends, favorite bar, etc.
The real question is: why would anyone pay newspapers for their expensive and ineffective services?
C'mon man don't sound like a Republican. I got out of News Ads Sales years ago, but even back then they were ALWAYS talking about how you were KILLING them in Classifieds revenue. Don't run from it. You did Millions of people a great service, nothing to be ashamed of.
It also generated a liquid marketplace for real estate where you can truly compare lots of properties efficiently.
I haven't used any other services, but read Best of Craigslist ads from time to time, which provided copious amounts of amusement.
Craigslist was a slashing of the arteries of newspapers ie ad revenue. I was in newspapers and classified ad sales disappeared in months.
Without ad revenue how do you have an "vibrant" press?
"If Craig hadn't someone else would have" is the dumbest arguments I've heard and totally besides the point. "If I hadn't slept with your wife someone else would have" "If I didn't give out those subprime loans and failed to verify income, someone else would have." Craiglists helped to kill newspapers, he decided to pull the trigger. He saw a chance and took it. Own up to it. Does that make the death of newspapers his problem, no it does not.
Now let's not forget
1. Times change and so does technology. Newspapers got caught flat footed. Sometimes things go away.
2. Newspapers had a big problem in connecting with new readers and proving their worth to advertisers. In fact ad revenue media wide is down.
Ultimately the media owners are to blame. They sacrificed their effectiveness and duty to profit. They threw out true journalism in favor of synergy. They abused the trust given them, not in truth telling, but in providing fair value for their service. Newspapers could survive if they weren't required to make their owners enough money to buy their way into power. It's not so much that newspapers are failing, it's that they are failing to make some people rich.
even if you DID kill newspapers, so what. they suck. most newspapers are only good for lining bird cages. they're all biased, rarely report the truth, and get your fingers all black. (ha)
craigslist provides free classifieds to the public. i think it's one of the BEST services on the internet. don't ever change. (please)