Pew Center illustrates how Craigslist is killing newspapers
It's tough to compete with free.
The use of online classifieds sites, such as Craigslist, has more than doubled in the past four years, according to a study published Friday by the Pew Research Center. At the same time that Web classifies are on the rise, the classifieds business that newspapers once depended on has collapsed, the Pew Internet & America Life Project found.
"Nearly half (49 percent) of Internet users say they have ever used online classified sites," the Pew Center said in the report. In 2005, the percentage was 22 percent.
One out of 10 Internet users visits an online classifieds service each day, up from four percent in 2005.
Not that this is big news but the Pew Center helps to illustrate just how devastating online classifieds has been on newspapers. A graph of newspaper classified ad revenue since 1980 to last year (at bottom) shows that the industry saw a high in 2000 with about $19.6 billion. Last year, newspapers recorded $9.9 billion.
That's a plunge in revenue of about 49 percent.
There's no question either that Craigslist dominates Web classifieds.
"In the world of online classified advertising, Craigslist is by far the most used Web site in the United States," Pew said in the report. "In March 2009, classified sites averaged 53.8 million unique visitors, up 7 percent from February. Craigslist had 42.2 million unique visitors in the month of March."
(Credit:
Pew Research Center)
Greg Sandoval covers media and digital entertainment for CNET News. He is a former reporter for The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. E-mail Greg, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/sandoCNET. 
Really sad even in best of time they would not hand out new computers but makes everyone use shabby old ones.
It's OS 9, MS Office 2001, IE 5 for the foreseeable future here :(
Too often, companies overspend on unneeded technology, and underspend on where it's needed. Buy the latest for page laoyouts and invest in an online classifieds site.
I can crap out an article on a type writer then scan it into file. I don't need a brand new iMac to get the job done.
However the need for a local portal to tell you what all is going on in your area is very real. Newspapers are ideally suited to fill this role. They have done it very poorly.
Local news is still difficult to find online.
Below amounts are in billions:
Year, National, Retail, Classified, Print Total, Online Total, Print and Online Total
2000, 7.653, 21.409, 19.608, 48.670, 0.0, 48.670
2001, 7.004, 20.679, 16.622, 44.305, 0.0, 44.305
2002, 7.210, 20.994, 15.898, 44.102, 0.0, 44.102
2003, 7.797, 21.341, 15.801, 44.939, 1.216, 46.156
2004, 8.083, 22.012, 16.608, 46.703, 1.541, 48.244
2005, 7.910, 22.187, 17.312, 47.408, 2.027, 49.435
2006, 7.505, 22.121, 16.986, 46.611, 2.664, 49.275
2007, 7.005, 21.018, 14.186, 42.209, 3.166, 45.375
2008, 5.966, 18.769, 9.975, 34.740, 3.109, 37.848
Now you will notice that they integrated the internet into the amounts in 2003 and ever since they were increasing, with the exception of the recent market crash where it only dipped by 1.8%. The newspapers were still making more money than they did in 2000 until 2007 when their retail section and classified took a hit but online still grew 18.8%. Now, someone go kick these researchers and get them back to working on meaningful data and not ignoring data for the sake of pushing some agenda.
There is no intent to say Craigslist has done anything wrong. Craigslist's business model is simply destroying the traditional classifieds ad model. I worked for newspapers for 10 years. I have plenty of friends on the business side of newspapers. They most certainly do miss that classified money. The simple truth is that they haven't been able to compete with Craigslist in classifieds and blogs on the journalism side. I'm pretty sure that's not good or bad. That's business.
The newspapers' PRINT CLASSIFIEDS are the victim of changing technology and citizen reading habits. How many people even read a daily newspaper these days? I suppose in that vein, the Pony Express was also the "victim" of the telegraph and telephone. I daresay that wasn't such a bad thing for the general public.
Let's also not forget a few other details: 1) eBay is a HUGE factor: they have taken-over a massive degree of commerce activity, including many transactions that might formerly have been listed in newspaper ads. 2) Many newspapers have their own online classified departments.
The newspaper industry, like the music industry, needs to learn how to adapt to new technological realities and provide a service that people still want.
Businesses have no right to expect their oldtime business-models to continue to be lucrative forever. If General Electric can adapt to nuclear power and if Kodak can adapt to the era of digital photography, surely the newspapers can find a way to fit into the "new media landscape" or else, like the Pony Express, we just may not need what they're selling any more.
For craigs list to survive they need to do this. Yahoo, MSN, etc. try but fall short. Newspapers can easily plug into this niche nad kill off all the competetaros by leveraing what they arleady do well into the internet.
Your observation makes no sense. Why would Craigslist need to add expensive, mostly non-profitable newsroom operations to survive? It's already profitable just selling ads.
I don't expect to get the weather report and sports scores at Amazon.com, just as I don't expect to find a used couch at CNN. Nor do I expect to see an endodontist giving root canals at the place that rotates my car's tires.
Many newspapers do function as a homepage for the local community (events, news, weather, restaurant reviews, local sports, etc.).
If you note from your graph, they were making much less money off of classified ads in the past, yet those were 'good old days' for the papers.
Ultimately, the reason papers are in such bad shape is that, once you take the classifieds out, there's nothing left that people want to pay for. The state of journalism in this country is *atrocious*, and it reflects in lower sales. If papers were actually doing their jobs, as opposed to acting as propaganda machines for a certain political party, people might find value in them. But so long as they exist soley to echo copies of press releases and push their agendas - all while claiming to be objective purveyors of the truth - they are doomed and their relevance is over. People can find all that for free online - they dont need to be paying for it. What people want is good, relevant, un-biased information from newspapers - and that they'd pay for, if it was available.
The newspapers have made their beds. They can sleep in them now.
Amen to the that. When coming up in school we were taught that reporters were just supposed to REPORT the news and not include their opinions....
boy has that changed...
I get my news online for free, where I have reading choices from newspapers across the country or, for that matter, the world. If an article is important enough to me, I can print it out myself. An added advantage is that I don't have to pile up tons of newspapers, bundle them, and lug them to special recycle bins for disposal (which costs me plenty in taxpayer dollars as it is).
they call themselves an auction - but they're a cross between auction, classified, and worldwide marketplace for counterfeit and stolen goods.
I find more of what I'm looking for on ebay than on craigslist
costs less to list there than at any newspaper
Local news is still difficult to find online.
Since most of the news in dailies papers is syndicated material that is widely available online I don't see how traditional newspapers will persist even as online publications. If people don't feel that the online "newspaper" tells them anything useful or unique happening in their community than than they probably aren't going to visit the site and no visitors equals no money. In that respect the loss of some local newspapers may not end up being a huge loss in that the meager amount of the paper dedicated to local events could probably be replaced by a blog employing a few freelance journalists with a fraction of the budget.
Bottom line though, the papers could have implemented systems like Craigslist to compete if they were so worried about it... they didn't.... they lost it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wl1HsZpKAdQ
http://www.beatyourprice.com
Free local and regional classifieds
I have always heard bad things about it and people complaining of bad interface, not user friendly, difficult to search through and dubious ads.
I particularly know americanlisted.com and liked it. The one can search for ads in its local neighborhood area, all over US. I found such a feature exceptional good and convenient.
DEB@WEB
I have always heard bad things about it and people complaining of bad interface, not user friendly, difficult to search through and dubious ads.
I particularly know americanlisted.com and liked it. The one can search for ads in its local neighborhood area, all over US. I found such a feature exceptional good and convenient.
DEB@WEB
- by savvyTom October 28, 2009 7:26 AM PDT
- Do you have a lot of experience with http://www.americanlisted.com/ ? What makes them better than Craigslist ? I have not tried them yet but the interface is neat.
- Like this Reply to this comment
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