Ideas for making money on Craiglist

1. What is Craigslist?

The History of Craigslist

The popular website, Craigslist.com, was created by Craig Newmark in 1995

as an email distribution list of friends, featuring local events in the San

Francisco Bay Area, before becoming a web-based service in 1996. It was

incorporated as a private, for-profit company in 1999 and has been

expanding to cover more and more different cities since then.

Craigslist founder Craig Newmark observed people helping one another

in friendly, social and trusting communal ways on the Internet via the WELL,

MindVox and Usenet, and felt isolated as a relative newcomer to San

Francisco. He decided to create something similar for local events.

The first emailed San Francisco event listings debuted in early 1995.

The initial technology encountered some limits, so by June 1995 new

software was installed to handle the expanding website better and the

mailing list "Craigslist" resumed operations. Newmark submitted most of the

early posting himself and they were notices of social events of interest to

software and Internet developers living and working in the San Francisco Bay

area.

Soon, word-of-mouth led to rapid growth. The number of subscribers

and postings grew rapidly. There was no moderation and Newmark was

surprised when people started using the mailing list for non-event postings.

People trying to get technical positions filled found that the list was a good

way to reach people with the skills they were looking for.

This led to the addition of a category for jobs. User demand for more

categories resulted in the list of categories growing and expanding.

Community members started asking for a web interface. Newmark enlisted

the help of volunteers and contractors to create a website user interface for

the different mailing list categories.

In need of a domain name for this, Craig registered Craigslist.org (as

well as Craigslist.com later on, to prevent the name from being used for

other purposes). Around the time of these events, Newmark realized that the

site was growing so fast that he could stop working as a software engineer

and work full time running Craigslist. By April 2000, there were nine

employees working out of Newmark's apartment on Cole Street in San

Francisco.

Newmark says that Craigslist works because it gives people a voice, a

sense of community trust and even intimacy. Other factors he cites are

consistency of down-to-earth values, customer service and simplicity.

Newmark was approached with an offer for running banner ads on Craigslist,

but he decided to decline. In 2002, Craigslist staff posted mock-banner ads

throughout the site as an April Fools joke.

In 2001, the company started the Craigslist Foundation, a section

501(c) nonprofit organization that connects people to the resources they

need to strengthen communities and neighborhoods. It offers free and low-

cost events and online resources to promote community building at all levels.

It accepts charitable donations and, rather than directly funding

organizations, it produces "Face-to-face events and offers online resources to

help grassroots organizations get off the ground and contribute real value to

the community.”

Since 2004, the Craigslist Foundation has hosted an annual conference

called Boot Camp, an in-person event that focuses on skills for connecting,

motivating and inspiring greater community involvement and impact. Boot Camp has drawn more than 10,000 passionate people since its inception. The

next Boot Camp event will be held on Saturday, August 14, 2010.

The Craigslist Foundation is also the fiscal sponsor for Our Good

Works, the organization that manages AllforGood.org, an application that

distributes volunteer opportunities across the web and helps people get

involved in their communities.

Craigslist Today

As of 2009 Craigslist.com has a staff of 28 people and makes most of

its money from paid job ads in cities like San Francisco, New York City, Los

Angeles, San Diego, Boston, Seattle, Washington D.C., Chicago, Philadelphia

and Portland, Oregon – and paid broker apartment listings in New York City.

The site serves over twenty billion page views per month, putting it in

33rd place overall among web sites worldwide and 7th place overall among

web sites in the United States, with over 49.4 million unique monthly visitors

in the United States alone .

With over eighty million new classified advertisements each month,

Craigslist is the leading classifieds service in any medium. The site receives

over two million new job listings each month, making it one of the top job

boards in the world. The classified advertisements range from traditional

buy/sell ads and community announcements to personal ads and erotic ads.

One of the most notable things about Craigslist.com is that it has gone

through very little aesthetic changes since 1996 and even for that time it's

extremely simple and basic.

Today there are a plethora of options for users to choose from as far

as which types of listings can be searched though or posted. Craigslist has

comprehensive for-sale listings with everything from cars to household

appliances. The website also has an extensive jobs/services section as well

as a classifieds section for social interaction.You can sell just about anything on Craigslist. People post ads for

everyday items, brand new items sold in bulk or used collectables. Craigslist

is renowned for being one of the primary online sources of local, affordable

merchandise.

Selling digital content is also possible on Craigslist, usually with the

help of a third-party website service for processing funds and delivering

content. In this respect Craigslist works as an excellent advertising system

wherein every poster gets at least a few minutes at the “top of the list” sweet

spot.

Lastly there are untold profits to be made by seeking jobs on Craigslist

or offering services. Craigslist has both employer-seeking ads as well as

employee-seeking ads. You can provide service to local people and get paid

per-job like a contractor, you can find local full-time and part-time jobs or

you can look for someone to do the work for you.

As you can see there are nearly limitless opportunities to make profit

from Craigslist.com. It's one of the most diverse websites for buying/selling

goods and services and it's completely free! All you need to do to start

profiting from Craigslist is figure out what you want to do (Sell junk, offer

your services or provide digital content) and figure out how to use the

website!