June 28, 2006 4:00 AM PDT
Craigslist's Craig Newmark--no more Mr. Nice Guy?
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Martin Sorrell, chief executive of British media and advertising company WPP, warned traditional media companies to beware of destroyers of traditional business models, according to a report published last week in The Financial Times' online edition. Sorrell singled out Craigslist, according to the newspaper, when he asked the Times: "How do you deal with socialistic anarchists?"
Craigslist as a killer of newspapers is "more mythology than truth," Newmark said. The site is having an effect, but newspapers have bigger problems, with falling circulation stemming in part from the public's growing distrust of mainstream media, he said. Newspapers themselves, he said, are dropping the ball when it comes to responsibility: "Newspapers fail to speak truth to power," he said. The media outlets Newmark praises are decidedly new school: television's "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" and the satirical Web site The Onion.
Consumer rights fight
Still, nothing fires up Newmark more than a fight over consumer rights.
For example, he resisted charging for apartment listings in New York, Li said, until becoming convinced that it was the best way to discourage unscrupulous real estate brokers there from posting "bait-and-switch" listings or repeatedly adding the same listing to the site so that it would remain among the most current ads. When customers perform a search on Craigslist, the company's policy is to display the most recently posted listings first.
Another hot spot has involved Net neutrality. Telecommunications and cable companies have hinted that they may charge companies that eat up more bandwidth than others. Net neutrality proponents, including Newmark, want every Web site to be treated equally, and don't want big businesses acting as gatekeepers. In the end, it's consumers who may end up paying the price. Craigslist has become a poster child for neutrality proponents after Cox Communications recently blocked access to the site. Cox, owner of cable and newspaper operations, blames an unintentional systems glitch for the problem. The problem is still unfixed after more than 100 days and that's made conspiracy theorists of some in the neutrality camp.
And then there's the accusation that Craigslist violated the Fair Housing Act by letting people post discriminatory rental ads. The company is fighting these accusations and last week got a hand from Google, Amazon.com, AOL and Yahoo. According to the National Law Journal, the companies filed a brief in the U.S. District Court in Chicago, saying that ruling against Craigslist could harm the future of many online service.
Still, such charges must hurt someone like Newmark deeply, Li said.
Newmark doesn't belong to any minority group and readily acknowledges that his family was not among the poorest in his New Jersey hometown. Nonetheless, he says he shares an affinity with marginalized groups after growing up a nerd, complete with pocket protector and glasses held together by electrical tape.
"The nerd people as a nation are my people," Newmark said. "That means I can identify, to one extent or another, with people who are left out or disenfranchised. I've never been disenfranchised all that much. I'm speaking a little bit out of turn, I know. But what that means is I know I need to pay attention to people who are seriously left out."
And this goes hand in hand with Newmark's basic philosophy on life and business.
"If you want to be successful try to do the right thing," he said. "In the short term you can succeed by screwing people, but it doesn't work too well long term."
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28 comments
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Wake up you greedy monoplistic over bearing newspaper publishers. Times are hard for the little business person. Offer fair and competive services or get out of business!
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Exactly right. Justice is something individuals do because it doesn't exist in nature. Whether or not he is more moral than his critics, he takes responsibility for his actions. That is a quality of the enlightened. Nations and corporations are abstractions; abstractions don't act. People do.
Good on Newmark.
This works rather well for Craig - by the way, BIG THANKS Craig - and, from my point of view, is an admirable and desirable thing to do.
However, what do we do when people subscribe to this philosophy have no morals - or at least morals that don't match our sense of morality - and, therefore, from our perspective, follow a broken moral compass.
- Bryan
<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.BryanCFleming.com" target="_newWindow">http://www.BryanCFleming.com</a>
True...I am in Phoenix, have Cox, and Craigslist has never been blocked.
Is that anything like when I was a kid I would just stare at my
little brother until he would yell to mom "MOM..! He's staring at
me!"
It's just a post... If you don't want to read it, you ignore it!
Quite frankly, it you wrote to me and said someone was stalking
you through C.L., I'd have a good laugh at your expense.
I think commerce is a great thing and I have nothing against large commercial entities on the web.
However, it is clear that more traditional media powerhouses and those with older business models feel threatened when ordinary citizens can just about meet them at level.
The world is evolving. Either get with it or get out. Rupert Murdoch saw the light with MySpace. Apple saw the light with iTunes. Apparently, some of the world doesn't.
Furthermore, those who critizice Craig for allowing discriminatory housing listings are barking up the wrong tree. If there is a blatantly discriminating real estate or rental ad, the victim's complaint should be with the poster and not the web service.
Post at your own risk. Respond at your own risk. It's like life. It's what makes Craig's List beautiful. Let's not take away our own freedoms, folks. Once we lose them, we won't get them back. If you can't handle a site like Craigslist, the newspapers will be very glad to have you back.
But he also has an odd way of pursuing his social agenda through Craig's List. He seems to pick and choose his sides, and his side seems to always leave people that are looking for legitimate work out in the cold.
He cants a lot about doing the right thing, but at the same time ... Craig's List allows employers to post ads asking for people to work for virtually nothing. This has turned the entertainment and writing jobs/gigs sections into sewers in Los Angeles.
Everyone's complained, Craig's List does nothing, seems to regard people that are looking for legit work in the Business as beneath contempt. "Craig" seems to side more with people who want to pay people for working fourteen hours a day on their short film with "copy, credit, meals" and not with hardworking people that need to make a paycheck to get by.
Not to mention the un-justified flaggings, random blockings, and other nuisiances. Craig's List seems to draw in nuts and scam artist, and drive out legit users.
Ultimately Craig's List is like Ebay. A slice of petty corporate fascism tarted up to look like the consumers best friend. Sure I'll use it until something better comes along. But I won't cry if it goes away either.
Also, be wary of the word "Legit." If the employers are in fact doing something illegal, I hope the law catches up with them. If they are simply bucking tradition, then what they are doing on CL is just as legit as the old way - even if you think it's unethical.
There's also a gazillion scams out there. I'm amazed that it's possible to police the site at all, and I'm incredibly impressed at the extent to which they are able to. I hope that they keep up the good work and that Craigslist and other such sites NEVER go under.
I just can't fathom why with so many things these days, consumers want to blame the wrong party...usually the one with the bigger pockets. It's the real estate agents and landlords who are discriminating. It's buyers and sellers who are scamming. CL is just the means. If someone hung up a scam flyer on a coffee shop bulletin board, would you sue the coffee shop?!
I'm all for anything that levels the playing (for-keeps) field when it comes to us Davids vs. those Goliaths - may they fall on unoccupied soil.
All the Best,
Joe Blow