First of all, Craigslist defines itself as an online community with many entities. It is made up of internships, accommodations, erotic, personals, services, community, gags, pets, sale / trade / wanted, resumes, jobs, and various other forum categories. However, Craigslist originally served the San Francisco Bay Area for the sole purpose of posting social interest notices for software developers and the Internet. Over time, as word of mouth spread, Craigslist became what it is today: a multi-million dollar company.

In the early months of 1995, Craig Newmark founded Craigslist. Between 1999 and 2007, the company experienced most of its growth and success. Rather than listing in a single city in 1995, Craigslist acquired nine more US cities in 1999 and 2000. Four more cities were added between 2001 and 2002, and fourteen more cities were added in 2003. By the time September 2007 rolled around, Craigslist had changed; then it had reached 450 cities in 50 countries. Like a logarithm in a mathematical equation, Craigslist was growing exponentially. Despite the continued expansion of the website, Craigslist still operates with a staff of 24 at its headquarters in the Sunset district of San Francisco.

Many people wonder how a classified ad website like Craigslist makes money. Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster told UBS in December 2006 that they had little interest in increasing their profits; Its main objective and focus is to help subscribers and guests find work, housing, vehicles and dates. In addition to this, the website claims that the majority of your proceeds will go to charities. To answer the question of how Craigslist makes money, it relies primarily on paid job postings in select cities within the United States. They charge $ 25 per ad for job openings in Portland, Oregon, Chicago, Washington DC, Seattle, Boston, San Diego, New York and Los Angeles. Craigslist charges $ 75 for job postings in San Francisco. Additionally, in November 2008, they issued a $ 5 fee for erotic services.

So how popular is Craigslist? For starters, the Craigslist website experiences more than nine billion page views per month. Because of this, it has been listed as the 47th most popular site in the world and the 9th most popular site in the United States. Not only is it ranked as one of the most popular sites on the internet overall, it is the number one leading classified service on the web. There are over thirty million new classifieds and two million new jobs every month! Financial and property information on Craigslist is largely unknown because the site executives keep it disclosed. However, it is estimated that in 2004, Craigslist revenue reached $ 10 million, $ 25 million in 2006, and possibly $ 150 million in 2007. It has also been said that Craig Newmark owns most of Craigslist, but Jim Buckmaster owns The next. the largest share, followed by eBay, is around 25%.

There are only a few things that can be attributed to the immense success of Craigslist, according to Craig Newmark. He says his site gives ordinary people a voice and a sense of trust within the Craigslist community. He believes that people will feel more comfortable buying or selling a product or service on a website that allows it to be published in an individual’s city. Additionally, Craigslist is built on honest values ​​and standards, excellent customer service, and most of all, simplicity. Its simple format and simplistic design allow a comfortable and welcoming environment for both customers and visitors. Additionally, the non-commercial nature of Craigslist also attracts people to post to the site. When Craig Newmark announced on his blog that eBay had bought 25% of the company in August 2004, many customers feared that it would eventually become an eBay-like site. However, to this day, Craigslist remains non-commercial (including advertisements) to suit its customers.

Despite all the success and triumph that Craigslist has suffered, there have been failures, problems, criticisms and lawsuits. In 2002, Craigslist was sued because it put a disclaimer on “men seeking men,” “erotic services,” “casual encounters,” and “ranting and raves.” Craigslist wanted to make sure that people under the age of 18 did not have access to these sometimes explicit, adult-only pages. However, there was no disclaimer on ‘women seeking men’, ‘men seeking women’ or ‘women seeking women’. This caused an uproar with many clients and now, today, a disclaimer is placed in each category in the personals section, as well as other odds and finals categories.

In February 2006, Craigslist was sued by the Chicago Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights under the Act for allegedly allowing its users to post discriminatory housing ads in Chicago. In September 2006, many websites alleged that Craigslist’s ‘Casual Encounters’ categories had been compromised by fraudulent advertisements to obtain personal information about individuals. One of the most alarming scandalous situations occurred in September 2007 when a Minneapolis woman pleaded guilty to running a child prostitution business through Craigslist. A Michigan woman was caught using Craigslist to hire a murderer to murder a romantic rival in February 2008. In April of this year, a couple was convicted of placing an ad on Craigslist inviting the public to bring items for the a man’s house in Oregon. to cover up his own theft of his home. Also in April, eBay sued Craigslist to “safeguard its four-year financial investment.” They claimed that in January of that year, Craigslist executives diluted eBay’s economic potential by more than 10%. Craigslist filed a counterclaim with eBay in May 2008 alleging that eBay had harmed and caused possible harm to its “fair competition.” In May 2008, in Vancouver, a British Columbia couple tried to sell their week-old baby on Craigslist, but the duo claimed it was just a joke. They are still being investigated.

Aside from all this negative public scrutiny, Craigslist has maintained its popularity and the number one spot for classified advertising online. To create a more secure site, they announced in November 2008 that they will filter prostitution ads by mandating that those who post an ‘erotic service’ ad must provide a valid phone number and credit card number. Additionally, a Craigslist ad can be flagged and removed if a Craigslist representative or even a fellow customer finds the ad inappropriate or against company guidelines.