Technology – craigslist blog (original) (raw)

Archive for the ‘Technology’ Category

Ashes to ashes, CL to CL

April 13, 2013

The much-admired HemLoft, constructed near Whistler, BC from materials bought on craigslist, may be returning whence it came.

hemloft

As reported in the Globe and Mail, “Nearly four years after Joel Allen first decided to build a sleek, wooden tree house hidden away on Crown land in a forest near Whistler, the carpenter is taking it down. Within the next week, Mr. Allen will list the dismantled parts of the tree house, called the HemLoft, on Craigslist – the very site where he acquired most of his supplies.

Posted in Housing, People, Technology | Leave a Comment »

Legonaut, eh?

January 25, 2012

Enterprising Toronto teens launch Lego Man into near-space via weather balloon purchased from craigslist:

Posted in Metrics, Technology, Uncategorized | Comments Off on Legonaut, eh?

A2 Now Free to Love CL

July 28, 2010

As a long-time Ann Arbor resident, I enjoyed this A2 journalist’s paeon to CL, including this nugget:

Like a bottle of Kaopectate, you may not use Craigslist on a regular basis. But it’s good to know it’s there when you need it.

Hopefully this won’t spark a “run” on bismuth subsalicylate.

Posted in People, Philanthropy, Technology | Comments Off on A2 Now Free to Love CL

Sea Wall For Sale (Vancouver)

July 15, 2010

Stanley Park Sea Wall is for sale — no reasonable offers refused.

Free salmonberries included if you act now.

Get a jump on global warming!

Posted in Best Of, Technology | Comments Off on Sea Wall For Sale (Vancouver)

Mere Happenstance?

May 18, 2010

Here are the top 5 search providers, as ranked by Comscore for March 2010. Just for fun I’ve added % growth since January 2009, when Jeremy Zawodny(formerly at Yahoo) replaced craigslist’s old search architecture:

1. Google 13,996,000,000 19%
2. Yahoo 2,839,000,000 -5%
3. Microsoft 1,883,000,000 58%
4. Ask 719,000,000 11%
5. craigslist 685,000,000 38%

Wonder how CL would rank if we were actually in the search business?

Posted in Best Of, Media, Metrics, People, Technology | Comments Off on Mere Happenstance?

Deja Blumenthal

May 3, 2010

True to form, CT AG Blumenthal is once again indulging in self-serving publicity at the expense of the truth and his constituents — touting a subpoena on television and telling whoppers about craigslist “reneging” on promises — even before craigslist had been served with a subpoena.

As AG Blumenthal knows full well, craigslist has gone beyond fulfilling its legal obligations, far beyond classifieds industry norms, has more than lived up to any promises it made, and working together with its partners is in fact a leader in the fight against human trafficking and exploitation.

With his senatorial race in full swing however, AG Blumenthal won’t let the facts get in the way of a good photo op. Or as I heard while in his offices 2 years ago — “The most dangerous place on earth is getting caught between Dick Blumenthal and a television camera.”

Posted in Best Of, Government, Harrassment, Law Enforcement, Legal, Media, Metrics, People, Technology, Uncategorized | Comments Off on Deja Blumenthal

Shutting down CL personals

April 29, 2010

There is a “campaign” on twitter currently demanding that all of craigslist personals be shut down.

If you follow links supplied by the twitterers echoing this demand, you’ll find a couple of themes:

  1. They recognize that “declassifying” adult services ads would simply push them back into the personals categories, therefore you need to eliminate all personals.
  2. They believe casual sex, and sex outside of marriage, is happening in CL personals. Such sex is evil. Therefore CL personals are evil. Shut down CL personals.

This twitter campaign echos reasoning we have previously heard from Attorneys General, at least one of whom also essentially demanded that all of craigslist personals be shut down.

As reported in Wired, craigslist personals are the most used personals site in the US, dwarfing the total combined usage of match.com and eharmony.com and yahoo personals. CL personals are highly valued by craigslist users (and by the general public) who use them to find friendship, love, romance, companionship, entertainment, and yes, “casual encounters.”

The twitterers do have a point – declassifying “adult services” on a free classifieds board likely necessitates removing all personals categories (and probably services categories as well). Some of them point to eBay’s kijiji.com, kijiji.ca, and gumtree.com sites, which recently eliminated all personals categories, as a model to be followed in this regard.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, and we embrace all criticism as useful in improving our approach. But cynical misuse of a cause as important as human trafficking as a pretense for imposing one’s own flavor of religious morality (”casual sex is evil”) strikes me as wrong on so many levels.

We will continue to work with our partners in law enforcement and advocacy groups, and reach out to potential new ones, as we strive to do the best job we can in combating human trafficking, while preserving the full-fledged classifieds (complete with all of the free personals categories) that CL users (and the general public) want and deserve.

Posted in Best Of, Government, Harrassment, Media, Metrics, People, Technology, Uncategorized | Comments Off on Shutting down CL personals