Every month, more than 9 billion people hit Craigslist.com for information about products and services. Alexa.com reported in December of 2007 the site had 10 million unique viewers. That is a lot of publicity. Each day, more than 500,000 companies and individuals post job availabilities. Imagine, the biggest and best place to find a job, and even post a resume!

There are community listings, real estate listings, even some erotic and “massage” type services are listed. Founded in 1995 and incorporated in 1999, Craigslist offered listings in just nine US cities. Since then, Craigslist has expanded to include more than 450 cities across the globe.

The company became popular mainly by word-of-mouth as more and more people started using the site to place their classified and other assorted ads. The reason for its popularity? Ads are cheap and get a lot of exposure.

Why the name? Craig Newmark, entrepreneur, founded the site, without knowing how large it would grow. His early designs were to simply create a classified listing for local and regional events. Little did he know how fast his service would grow.

One reason for its popularity now is its simplicity. Who wants to log online and search paper after paper for job listings? Instead of posting a job in a local market, advertisers can place their ads in a forum that reaches both a national and international audience! You can also search for items using a keyword search, greatly reducing the amount of time spent sifting aimlessly through irrelevant information.

As with any popular site, Craigslist has had its fair share of controversy, including pposition from some people opposed to the types of ads placed on the site. Some local newspapers have expressed fears that people would no longer turn to their local news listings for classified information, thereby reducing their subscriber base. Such is technology however.

Craigslist now offers forums and message boards for its members. Among the more popular forums on the “List” is the “Erotic” forum, (for users over age 18). Craigslist allows just about anyone to post information about anything they have to offer. It is also heavily policed because of this to ensure ads are legitimate and legal.

Despite the controversy, Craigslist.com has earned its reputation and status as a leader in Web 2.0 sites, receiving many awards, including Best Local Website in 2003 according to a reader’s poll and the Best Community Site by multiple agencies1.
Now that you know a little about the site, let’s take some time finding out how you can use Craigslist.com to make money. After all, that is why most people post ads in the first place.

Below are a few articles we’ve collected for your review and education:

Why Craigslist beat out Ebay
http://vator.tv/news/show/2008-06-19-why-craigslist-beats-out-ebay

Why Craigslist beat out Facebook
http://blogs.zdnet.com/micro-markets/?p=1338

Why Craigslist is winning—could Craigslist turn newspaper classified into ashes?
http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2006/01/why_craigslist_is_winning_1.php

Click here to view a presentation from Craig Newmark himself