I always knew that Craig Newmark’s Craig’s List had some very frustrating aspects. But I kept saying to myself, “It’s free, how can I complain?” Sure you couldn’t repost very fast because you’d get an error that Craig can’t type that fast, and sure, it wasn’t that elegant of an interface for your customers, and sure any ruthless competitor could flag your ads for any reason, and sure there were tons of spammers and junk mailers that hit on your ads. But there were lots of phone calls so that I could sell things. For three years, Craig’s List was my marketing vehicle for selling furniture, lamps, accessories and other bobbles. It drew people to my websites and I grew way to dependent on it as my sole means of marketing my things.
Then one day, I decided to open a store. That decision cost about $7,500 to get started. On the same morning that the movers were getting my things into the store, I tried to log onto my Craig’s List account only to find that it had been put on hold. My sole sales vehicle was gone. Here I was just laying out a small fortune to open my store and Craig’s List is gone for me. They gave no reason. All over the Internet people theorize why it happens, but nobody knows for sure and Craig’s List isn’t talking. Is it something a ruthless competitor did? I may never know. Rumors say its a Craig’s List bot that got me for who knows what reason. Today I use eBay’s classifieds. It is so far, much better than Craig’s List in every way, but it’s so new that few people know about it. Not only does it not have all the faults found in Craig’s List, but it is more elegant for the end user with numerous add-ons like Facebook postings. I just wish people would hurry up and shop there. The deals should be better because for now, there are probably more sellers than buyers. Perhaps if enough people move to eBay classifieds, Craig’s List will get its act together and at least tell folks why their account gets put on hold. For me, it is a reminder not to keep all my eggs in one basket. You never know when the Internet will fail you in one way or another. Be prepared for chaos. It is always right around the corner
Of course there’s always a payback for the energy we put into the universe as apparently Craig now thinks that his own business is threatened by an external force. This was scene at the top of the Sacremento Craig’s List page on January 15, 2012.
★ ☆ ★ ☆ ★ ☆ ★ ☆ ★ ☆ ★
STOP SOPA & PIPA
HR3261 & S968 are
threatening CL and
the rest of your
Internet. Most of
the web sites you use
strongly oppose these
bills. Find out why, and
how you can help put
a stop to this madness
before it's too late!
Sometimes, as Yahoo might attest to when it lost ground to Google, “the bigger they are, the harder they fall.” Well Craig, what comes around seems to go around. What do you think? Email me so I can send a Haiku back to you, buddy!
