Okay, again it’s not strictly on-topic, but following my principle of writing about IBMers, past and present, here’s a fascinating article on Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist. Craig is an ex-IBMer, so I count that as enough reason to write about it.

From

New York Magazine: A Guy Named Craig: “How a schlumpy IBM refugee found you your apartment, your boyfriend, your new couch, your afternoon sex partner—and now finds himself killing your newspaper.”

Craigslist is (a) where young urban people conduct much of the traffic of their lives, including renting apartments, finding lost pets, and getting laid in the middle of the day, and is (b) thereby destroying classified revenues for big-city newspapers, which are already in crisis, and so it has become (c) the symbol of the transformation of the information industry. Rocked in a Bay Area cradle of left-wing values, Craigslist has built a huge national community by word of mouth. The site is free and without advertising (with the exception of help-wanted ads in three markets), and it gets more than 3 billion page views per month (10 million actual users a month), ranking it seventh on the Net, not so far behind Google and eBay.

Interestingly, the article touches on some important points. Craigslist has succeeded for many reasons, only one of them because it is free to end-users (and not full of adverts either!). The site is fast, uncumbersome, and easy. There is also a significant community feeling to the service - it’s built for the community, not for a corporation.

Indeed, apparently there are reports that Craigslist is killing off newspapers by removing their main source of revenue - community advertising. That has an interesting implication for blogging - given that there is an argument about bloggers killing off mainstream journalism (which I personally don’t see happening, but I agree that it is definitely changing journalism). If newpapers are being attacked from two angles - removing their income stream, while also removing their readership - then surely this sounds the death-knell for newspapers? Note that this does not necessarily means the end of media companies - they will (and already have) moved online and embrace the new technologies. Media magnates will continue building their wealth. But the days of the print newspaper are surely numbered.

(found via JobThread blog)