I find Craigslist fascinating. It is the perfect example of a game-changing company. Not to be a Luddite, but Craigslist has something to do with the sorry of state of newspaper finance–one of the games it’s changed!
Stef, in the midst of looking for a job, has been scanning Craigslist. If you haven’t looked for a job in a while, it’s a ‘don’t miss’ spot.
Today she saw something that looked interesting. On the Craigslist posting was a link asking her to click to apply. Instead of the link taking her to the job listing’s particulars she ended up on a page promising her more info on this and other jobs if she paid to join the site.
Basically the company making the posting was using Craigslist to bring traffic and revenue to their site. That doesn’t seem right. I can’t imagine that’s how Craigslist was meant to be used, so I wrote them. Actually, I wrote to Craig himself via Twitter.
Craig is Craig Newmark. He could be fabulously wealthy… if he’d only ‘monetize’ his website. That’s not who Craig is.
Craig doesn’t run Craigslist. He does handle its customer service. I tweeted.
geofffox @craignewmark My daughter, looking for job. http://bit.ly/uyqb5 has “apply now” button which leads to pay site. Is this Kosher on ur site?
I used each of my 130 allowable characters! A few minutes later Craig responded
craignewmark @geofffox doesn’t sound right, will take a look.
I don’t know Craig, though we’ve traded tweets in the past. I tried to help him with a weather problem while he was flying from New York City. I suspect he is the customer service guy because he understands how important customer service actually is… and because his name is on every page.