Whether Craigslist ventures into community journalism, it would be hard for those of us in the media business to dispute his success in the area of classified advertising and how it has affected newspapers big and small.
Unlike much print advertising, Craigslist is free in most cases and its ads from men seeking women to cars for sale are seen by millions.
As websites go, the Orange County version of Craig's List, at http://orangecounty.craigslist.org, is not pretty. No great design. Just simplicity like Google. Hence its great success, I believe.
But even still, can Craigslist, which is a big, big online giant, really fly low enough here in the local community to compete against us, even in the classified advertising area?
Well, I performed an experiment, albeit a very, very unscientific one, that gives me doubt that Craigslist can really compete with us.
A couple weeks ago, my wife and I agreed that the puppy that we were given as a gift was just too much for us to take care of. It was not that we didn't like it or that it wasn't a good dog, but with three children under the age of 7, we could not give the puppy the time and attention it needed. It wasn't fair to the puppy, really.
We didn't want the puppy to end up at the animal shelter, not that there is anything wrong with that, so we decided to place an ad and hope that a well-meaning and loving family would get the dog.
I placed an ad in two places: Craigslist online and in the Daily Pilot classified pages, both under the pets section. For Craigslist I listed my e-mail address. For the Daily Pilot ad, I listed my mobile phone number. I was really curious to see which would get the greatest response.
The next day it was a slam dunk. About five e-mails right off the bat from the Craigslist ad. The next day, about three more.
And what about my phone? Dead silent.
Talk about worried. Were classified print ads really that dead?
