Craigslist and its Business Model

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Case Details:

Case Code : BSTR340
Case Length : 26 Pages
Period : 1995-2009
Pub Date : 2009
Teaching Note :Not Available
Organization : Craigslist, Inc.
Industry : Online Classifieds
Countries : USA; Global

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This case study was compiled from published sources, and is intended to be used as a basis for class discussion. It is not intended to illustrate either effective or ineffective handling of a management situation. Nor is it a primary information source.

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Introduction Contd...

This represented a 23% growth over the estimated revenue of the company in 2008 and was more than ten-fold the revenues it had generated in 2004.⁷

Experts felt that this was no mean feat for a company believed to follow a laissez-faire business model and one that claimed to be a "relatively noncommercial" entity with a "service mission".

Founded in 1995 by Craig Newmark (Newmark), Craigslist, based in San Francisco, was an online community featuring free online classified advertisements related to jobs, housing, sales of a variety of products and services, gigs⁸, resumés, and discussion forums.

As of May 2009, Craigslist offered local classifieds and forums for 570 cities in 50 countries worldwide. It generated over 20 billion page views per month and as many as 50 million users visited it each month. These included more than 40 million in the US alone as of March 2009. Craigslist employed 28 staff members. Over one million new job listings were posted on its site each month, making it one of the top job boards in the world. As per the rankings given by Alexa Internet, Inc.⁹ (Alexa), Craigslist ranked 24th in the list of the top 500 sites on the web as of May 2009.¹⁰...

Excerpts >>

7] Brad Stone, "Revenue at Craigslist is Said to Top $100 Million," www.nytimes.com, June 9, 2009.
8] A gig refers to a job, usually in the music and entertainment industry. The term can also be applied to contract work in the IT industry.
9] Alexa Internet, Inc. is a California-based web information company which ranks websites based on tracking information of users with the help of the Alexa Toolbar.
10] www.alexa.com/siteinfo/craigslist.org

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