Q & A with Craig Newmark

Craig Newmark

I couldn’t in good conscience have a Bay Area expat blog without mentioning craigslist sooner or later. So I decided to email Craig Newmark himself for a few questions.
There is a French translation of the following Q&A.
Photo: Laughing Squid. License Creative Commons.

Question: You’ve been talking for a while about “citizen journalism.” Could you explain what you mean by that, and how you see it put into practice?

Craig : It has a lot of meanings, but loosely, it has to do with people who want to do some reporting without the context of a professional news organization. On the upside, a citizen journalist will be able to print something a newspaper will fear to publish; on the downside, fact checking occurs after the publication.

Q : Some have been worried by the fact that in 2004, eBay acquired 25% of craigslist through a former craigslist shareholder. Has eBay’s investment changed anything in the way craigslist is run? Have you gotten support from eBay, for instance in terms of bandwidth or hardware, or have some ideas been exchanged?

C : eBay has helped us a little with fraud prevention and handling, but mostly the news is that there’s no news. We fund all our own tech stuff, not much exchange of anything.

Q : Craigslist has been so successful in the online ad market that you’ve been accused by some of harming local newspapers’ bottomline by taking business away from them. What’s your answer to that?

C : We’re a very minor effect, the papers have much bigger problems, particularly that paper might be too expensive a medium.

Q : You have your own blog. Any plans on podcasting audio or video anytime soon?

C : Nah, it’s all self indulgent on my part, spare time, no big deal.

Q : You now have your own entry in the Internet Movie Database since 24 hours on craigslist came out. Do you have any plans to play somebody else than yourself in the future?

C : No, I have enough difficulty playing myself.

Q : What are some of your favorite spots to relax in the City?

C : Not sure what “relax” means, but I do like to hang out at Reverie cafe (Google Maps), a coffehouse in my neighborhood.

Q : Craigslist is a major success throughout many metropolitan areas in the United States. You have created dedicated entry points for cities outside the US, but for now craigslist is still in English. Any localization plans?

C : We do plan to support multiple languages, but don’t know when.

Q : Any plans for a Baghdad craigslist?

C : None, but I’d like to do that, in part, to support the troops.