Craig Newmark: Craigslist isn't a media menace

I find Cragslist to be an interesting thing because I haven't personally used it myself but people around me have and it seems to be an easy way to sell or buy things you may be looking for. It's ability to draw revenue from newspaper I think is more relevant than Newmark was eluding to. The ease and access that this public ad space allows for draws the revenue that the newspaper used to have whether he wants to own up to it or not. I think another issue with Craigslist is the recent trend of prostitution on Craigslist.

I have to second what Newmark himself said in this article. I don't think craigslist is taking that much revenue from Newspaper classifieds - in my experience, much of what people buy and sell on Craigslist would not go in a normal classified ad in the first place. Often the money that it would cost to buy the ad in the paper is more than the item is worth in the first place. If anything, I would say Craigslist is more in competition with ebay than with the newspaper classified section. As Newmark says, niche sites, niche papers, and online news sites are probably a bigger threat. And as he also goes on to say, "if you're under pressure from wall street to make a 20 percent profit margin, you're following the wrong path." Good seed.