Newspapers' Approach To Classifieds vs. Craigslist's

If Craigslist is killing the newspaper classified business, then it appears that newspapers’ real missed opportunity may be in failing to provide a sufficiently conducive environment for seeking and selling sex and love.

Reading this analysis by Compete (see chart below) was one of those "Doh! Of course!" moments (and, as a commenter on the Compete post points out, obvious to anyone who bothers to look at listing counts on Craigslist). Sex-related content has lead every technological revolution in media. Why should classifieds be any different?

To get a sense for how newspapers measure up again Craigslist, I checked out the personal ads on the New York Times, Washington Post, and San Francisco Chronicle. So what’s the big difference between web-native Craigslist and the newspapers’ online version of their print cash cow?

Craigslist is an open platform.

The Washington Post and San Francisco Chronicle required registration, clearly with the intent of legitimizing all participants in the personals marketplace. The Chronicle’s registration process is quite intensive, with minimum word requirements for describing yourself. The New York Times has this barrier:

To respond to an ad call: 1-900-226-7144 ($2.99 /min with a $2.00 connection fee.) Must be 18 years or older to call. Charges are accrued for each minute for the duration of the call. If you would like to pay via credit card: 1-866-423-7761 ($3.49 per minute)

On Craigslist you post for free, and respond for free by email — quick, easy, no friction.

The big question, of course, is this: Is Craigslist better because it has no bariers or standards, or worse? I guess it all depends on who you are and what you’re seeking.

Newspapers probably have the right positioning with their barriers to entry for personals — TRUST is the only reason to choose a familiar local newspaper brand over Craigslist. If you don’t want a newspaper acting as a filter in your quest for intimacy, you’d better be prepared to BYOFilter.

In any case, Compete also points out interestingly that Craiglist, for all its glorification, hasn’t cornered the classified market for everything:

Local news, business supplies for sale, real estate and web design are probably better off advertising somewhere else since they contribute less than a whisper to the overall site traffic.

Comments

[Brian Croner]

Means and motive drive business success. Don't go to charging people who don't have money. If somebody wants to hock some gear for a couple hundred bucks, don't charge them $50 to do it. That's the wrong guy to get the money from. If a guy or a girl needs some love (or loveplay), they're either going to a club, or something that may be more convenient. If the newspaper charges them to put the ad up, they're mostly just desperate for having gone through all that effort. It's really not worth it on their pocket or for their time. George Bush raped the economy so the Bourgeoisie could have all the money and the real people could only have debt, so the weakness a newspaper has is now they could only get advertisement money from corporations. And that's not so good, because the car industry is hurting. Those who have the most money are those who are the most lacking of merit- they got it from political corruption and corporate collusion. The dynamics of the market have changed radically, and so the typical market model of a newspaper is uncompetitive with the advantages therein one can realize from leveraging the power of the Internet. Simply put: don't charge the people George Bush stole the money from. Charge the top-heavy corporations and born-rich fools he gave the money to. That puts News Corp in a very awkward position, if you think about it.

If people want survive or reproduce, help them do it at the expense of the corporations. The corporations die very quickly without a few critical workers. Every corporation is dying for that one person they can depend on that lynch-pins them together. The people Bush stole the money from are the ones the corporations need. These people just want to survive and reproduce. Corporations hire morons from HR emphases in business schools who can't do anything. HR departments are loaded with idiots who are looking for a quick solution to cover up all the hiring of their buddies and tail jobs. Marketing departments are not strikingly different. HR needs to know the slaves better. The resume/university system does not work. Marketing departments need to know their customers better. The university system again does not work. From now on, money comes from the corporations. That's who you charge. True value and ability comes from the hard-working sandwich making girl behind the counter at Ralph's nobody notices. In today's world, for a successful business model to flourish, your base assumption must distinguish between money and merit. In your mind there should be little to no connection between value and money.

[C Brewer]

Duh. Sex sells. It is kinda interesting that lesbians are more unpopular than furniture, though.