Newspapers Don't Know Craig
from the competition?--what's-that? dept
Despite all of the evidence that Craigslist represents a real challenge in competing for revenue that used to go to newspapers, it turns out that most newspaper editors have never heard of Craig Newmark or Craigslist — and many seem to disregard the idea that an amazingly popular site of (mostly) free classifieds could possibly compete with them. However, the situation might get even worse for those newspapers, as Craig has indicated a few times that he may start competing with them even more, by launching a “citizen journalism” project related to Craigslist.
Comments on “Newspapers Don't Know Craig”
Can't have it both ways
Craigslist can’t be proud of being a word-of-mouth-only exclusive site among geek chic types, then expect the rest of the world to magically know about them.
Some are aware..
While I value Poytner.org’s opinion and view it as a very reputable source, I find this very hard to believe and somewhat disturbing. I work for one large New England newspaper, and have relationships with many other online newspaper publishers. All of us are very aware of the threat of craigslist to the classifieds listings.
While, I’m sure that there are a number of smaller papers out there that are not familiar with Craig Newmark and “his list,” I’m sure that someone in the chain of command does.
For instance, if you were to ask the Top Executives at the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle if they were familiar with Craiglist, the answer might be no. But I’m sure that someone at Gannette is very aware of the company that is slowly stealing their classifieds revenue.
Newspaper are slow, short-sighted and very bureaucratic, yes.. But I this is really shocking.
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i’ve never used craiglist – but i find it amazing that 1 guy can control such a big market online when its easy to make a classified site these days.
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Brandon, did you attend RIT?
I spent 4 years at RIT and talked with a lot of people at the Rochester D&C, while good reporters, I think a lot of them are finding it hard to keep up with the internet.
But for other papers, I notice there is a certain arrogance about their field and that they feel untouchable.