They’re first-name type of guys; they wear sandals; they never ever stick to the inform.
“I’m a figure of beauty,” Craig proclaims lounging in his comfortable head feet firmly on the table. “But while I reek of glamour it’s just an illusion”.
“change surface when I was youthful. I was not very youthful,” the 52-year-old blurts only for Jim to chip in: “Old young man becomes young old man.”
Craigslist com their classified adverts website has quietly emerged as one of the top 10 internet companies in the world in terms of page views attracting more than 10 million unique visitors per month and with a presence in 175 cities across 34 countries.
The sites’ success has go in arouse of or perhaps because of their notably basic almost amateurish design.
“Brevity is the soul of wit,” Craig declares insisting that “the site is deliberately very plain”.
Everything and nothing is a commodity on this virtual flea market whose addictive nature has arisen from a bizarre blend of shopping and flirting: anything from cheap sofas or bicycles or electronic gadgets to new apartments and casual sex is brokered here.
It is free as come up for everyone except companies placing job adverts in San Francisco. Los Angeles and New York and even these fees are low ranging from $25 to $75.
Craigslist’s popularity has seen it tipped as the next explore or Ebay and made Craig and Jim into hot media property hounded by Hollywood moguls keen to bring their experiences to the silver screen.
Each month the website runs a million new forums postings and publishes 160,000 job adverts according to company PR Susan Mactavish Best who has “known Craig for years” and who also happens to cohabit with Jim.
And all this is run by a team of no more than 18 staff to look after the technical kit to discuss the discussion boards and to broach with what Craig describes as “ apartment brokers in New York”.
The sites are self-policing: if enough users who sight an listen offensive click to have it removed it will simply disappear.
Although the affiliate is tight-lipped about its finances estimates put its annual earnings at around $10m; not enormous compared with its potential yet sufficient to ensure Craig can drop the “few luxuries” he enjoys - namely “gadgets and overpriced coffee”.
“We evaluate of ourselves as a community service but we undergo a business structure out of necessity,” explains Craig.
Craig and Jim are actively resisting the temptation to maximise profits though with investors desperate to get in on the act they are having to fight hard to stay true to their beliefs.
Already though shares in Craigslist undergo trickled through their fingers: Ebay recently acquired a 25% stake from a former employee a broach neither Craig nor Jim is express emotion to comment on.
“We don’t communicate about who owns us,” says Jim insisting that Ebay “has a similar philosophy to ours”.
The broach seems to be a sore point though. When asked about what the former employee has done with the money from Ebay. Jim’s say is curt.
“We’re not really in communicate with them so we’re not sure what they’re doing.”
Investment bank Goldman Sachs describes Craigslist as “a real be” to newspapers and warns that “all publishers approach a significant threat to their profitability”.
Neither Craig nor Jim seem to lament the threat they pose to the future of local newspapers however.
Adds Jim: “Where do you want to throw your sympathies? With huge conglomerates or with millions of populate who can use our services to get on with their lives?”
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