Craigslist revenue flirting with $100 million, report says

If your children ask you what profession they should go into when they grow up, tell them "relative non-commerce."

You see, according to a study in the Classified Intelligence Report, a publication of the AIM Group, a media and Web consultancy organization, Craigslist's 2009 revenue is projected to rise above $100 million.

The New York Times reported that the AIM Group regards the conclusions of its study, which show a projected 23 per cent revenue increase over last year, as "conservative." AIM Group counted how many paid ads there on Craigslist in a given month and then calculated what this might mean on an annual basis.

It believes that 80 percent of the revenue will come from recruitment ads--the Craigslist site claims there are more than 1 million new job listings every month--and most of the remainder from real estate ads in New York.

Let's assume that the AIM Group's report is vaguely accurate. Such potentially large revenues can be contrasted with newspaper classified advertising, which is plummeting like the jowls of an unhappy judge--down 29 percent, according to the News Association of America.

Craigslist founder, Craig Newmark

(Credit: CC Andrew Feinberg/Flickr)

However, these revenues come from a company that proudly explains its dot-org URL with these words: "It symbolizes the relatively noncommercial nature of Craigslist, as well as our service mission and non-corporate culture."

How relative is Craigslist's noncommercial good nature? Might it drive the company to donate much of the profit to come from such a large potential revenue to, say, the unemployed of San Francisco?

After all, Craigslist claims only to employ 28 people, all housed in one modest building. So one cannot imagine its overhead is impossibly great.

Or might the money be used to enhance the strength of the Craigslist Foundation? In its mission statement, the foundation says it "is looking at building a platform for civic engagement."

This seems, at present, a high-minded concept in search of some lower-brow practicality.

Craigslist describes the notion like this: "Imagine a place to learn, share ideas and connect with like-minded individuals. Whether through localized needs matching or taking the pulse of policy at any level, we want to help inspire and connect people and communities on all levels to become active and engaged."

If the revenue projections prove accurate, might they provide a financial foundation for a new form of corporate impetus aimed at bringing people together to actively look after the world around them? Craigslist's is, as the company says, a service mission.

It will be interesting to see just how much of its profits the company will choose to put behind its mission to serve.

[geebocom]

Or what about adding additional staff to help monitor new submissions? ;)

[popoffjack]

Soon to be swallowed up by google

[Voice_Of_Logic]

Proof that riff-raff, like sex, sells.

[pjk0]

Another annoying, corporate-lackey perspective from Chris the clueless.

Clue #1: Running one of the most highly-trafficked websites in the world costs money. I would actually venture to say that CL's ratio of staff-per-website-hit is probably one of the highest around. That does not mean that they don't have the same costs that any other high-trafficked website operator has, ie servers, bandwidth and other infrastructure.

Every so-called journalist that tries to conflate the decline in print newspaper advertising revenue with the popularity of craigslist is a myopic bonehead that either A) doesn't understand the cultural forces and shifts going on and what contributes to them and/or B) is so stuck in capitalist group-think that they immediately blame the non-profits whenever they notice some capitalist idiots mismanaged themselves into irrelevance.

The fact that you almost never hear these people bring up the impact eBay has had on worldwide commerce is conspicuous proof of this mentality. eBay annual revenue is over 100 times craigslist. (assuming the $100M CL figure is true) Why not pick on them, especially since they have been trying undermine craigslist for years now, after their malicious and secretive "investment" that got dropped in their lap?

[squished]

To answer your question why not pick on Ebay... because Ebay doesn't claim to be a .org which implies non-commercial or not-for-profit. Now who looks clueless?

[pjk0]

To answer that silly peripheral issue: A) Craigslist did adopt that domain back in the days when the then .org registrar and people in general really did expect it to mean something and CL was a much smaller, local, hardly profitable enterprise. B) In the intervening years 2 things happened: 1) .org domains are now registered by anyone, because neither ICANN nor the .org registrar give a leap about who registers domains in that TLD, and 2) craigslist grew organically due to the fact that they provided a mostly free service that millions of people cherish and rely upon - and along with it, their revenue (and costs) grew as well.

Some people will go to the ends of the earth looking to blame the blameless. With all the evil organizations and individuals screwing up and destroying all manner of things in this world, one would think people could save their distaste for those who really deserve it, rather than those who have benefitted most of us as hugely as Craig and craigslist have.

[kojacked]

+ 1000000!

People need to stop the hating and start solving problem, educating, and growing and not playing Sean Hannity all day long.