A nice article by William Taylor in this Sunday’s NYTimes about ING Direct Bank and about the phenomenon that is “Craigslist.” I had never heard of Craigslist till this past summer, when my daughter was moving to New York and looking for an apartment or a share; I asked a bunch of friends for advice on what she should do, and a good half-dozen said: craigslist. While I wasn’t looking, it had apparently become the site of choice for just about everything, for just about everybody. Excerpts:
“Craigslist has a simple, unadorned Web site. But that is part of a forward-looking business strategy. Mr. Buckmaster said he reveled in what he called “the ironies of unbranding, demonetizing and noncompeting.” Together, they represent sharp departures from the commercialism on so much of the Web.”
“Craigslist has an unconventional approach to investing in its “brand”: it doesn’t do anything. “We never even use that word internally,” Mr. Buckmaster said. “We do zero advertising. We don’t have a logo. Now we’re told we have the strongest brand ever for a company our size.”
“The company also has a fresh approach to competition: it doesn’t compete. “We have no interest in competing with anyone,” Mr. Buckmaster said. “We’re just trying to create something as useful as possible. Yet we keep reading that we’re one of the newspaper industry’s deadliest competitors” for classified ads.
“Above all, Craigslist has a distinctive approach to economics: it keeps finding reasons not to charge customers. It imposes modest fees on companies that post job listings in Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York, and there is talk of charging real estate agents to list apartments in New York. Other than that, the site is free. Yet the company has generated healthy profits on revenue approaching $10 million a year, and eBay recently bought a minority stake.
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