It is interesting that the real reason why craigslist succeeds is not mentioned. IMHO, it's because of being like a *local* classifieds, free, and without word limits.
Also, the local dating, I suppose.
I dont think it was unique either. In 1994, when I was a outsource programmer at a Dallas telco, there was a hugely popular newsgroup on the company intranet where people bought and sold stuff, told each other of local events, and was a kind of meeting ground.
I tried to get my bosses at other places where I worked at, to do this - but the fears of legalities always killed it.
Just the data: Cragslist survived because it was not *greedy*. The founders recognised that community matters and only charge small fees for placement. CL as a team are also pretty smart because they cannibalised newspaper listings. CL saw the market before the newspapers & seized it.
From memory CL currently runs on about USD20 Million / year gained form paid adverts. No fancy designs, just the data.
Indeed, it has been widely noted that craigslist's authenic feel (hyped by the .org TLD) and community fostering ruggedness has created a cult-like following. It seems that their lack of graphics, change, and heavy UI development has kept the installed user base, well, installed, and growing.
'... lack of graphics, change, and heavy UI development ...'
this is also a cheapskate way of concentrating on the development & lowering costs. Such cutting edge (performance wise) technology reminds me of the Mercedes Benz silver cars ~ http://tinyurl.com/2ufx36 ~ so called because they stripped back the paint to save pounds to enter Le Mons. In this case stripping back graphics to allow good scaling.
