What is craigslist?
To say that craigslist.org is a simple site with a long list of blue links on a white background would be only a mere graphical description. This is because with local classifieds and forums for 450 cities worldwide Craiglists.org is a community. There are lists here that stretch from Goods right up to romance and from advice to jobs onwards to erotica and personals. Few things exist that one does not find in a Craig list and there are five billion page views per month to vouch for the fact. With fifteen million people using the site every month, craigslist.org stands at # 7 spot among other English language sites like Yahoo, Google and eBay.All this with a current staff of just 23 people!
At its start, Craig Newmark posted various listings on the website from events to information about Internet developers and programmers within the city. The increasing number of users on Craigslist allowed for the most qualified IT workers to be found. Nearly 4 years after its start, Newmark quit his regular job and dedicated himself to Craigslist entirely. Soon after, in January 2000, Jim Buckmaster joined Newmark as the CTO and lead programmer.
To do this he had to first create a mailing list and for this he started soliciting business cards from everyone he knew. He did that and by early 1995 the first posting had started, though Newmark had to suspend the postings for want of a better technology since the one he was using at the time was not good enough. June 1995 saw Craig list resuming operations after the new software Majordomo had been installed. The early postings were submitted by Newmark himself and were aimed at software and internet developers living and working in San Francisco.
Since its start, Craigslist has received many awards:
- NYPRESS: 2003, Best Local Website, by Manhattan Reader’s Poll
- Webby: 2001, Best Community Site, by the Academy
- Webby: 2001, Best Community Site, by the People’s Voice
- PC Wordl : 2006, Best Product (3rd place)