For most of the sessions at the WeMedia conference in Miami recently, Craig Newmark tucked himself away so far back in the auditorium he was almost in the lobby. I have a sneaking suspicion that for at least some of the time, he was carrying out some Craiglist customer service, or, at the very least, trying to edit his Wikipedia entry.
Most people didn't realise he was there until he was asked who would be behind "the Craigslist for news", as if Craigslist has become a byword for a killer business model.
"Well it won't be us," he said.
It's fair to call Craigslist a web phenomenon, and it is now the 38th busiest site in the world according to Alexa - whose rankings no-one really believes but everyone seems to use anyway.
Like many of the most disruptive business phenomenons, Craigslist began life as a small-scale solution for a personal project: In 1995, Newmark had just moved to San Francisco and needed a service about local events. The posting service eventually mushroomed into job postings, then property to rent and every other typical classified listings area. Every ad is completely free to post and to read, although the site did introduce fees for property adverts in New York and LA, at the request of its users, after some problems with rental scams.
Today there are dedicated Craigslist services for more than 450 cities worldwide.
The kindest thing to say about the design is that it is unassuming, but then good design is supposed to follow function, as they say. Despite its appearance, it took the news industry by surprise and whatever the true financial impact on the news industry, it's the philanthropic approach that is really the killer concept.
Both Newmark and his CEO Jim Buckmaster believe that the priority for the site should be to provide the services and improvements its readers ask for. That might sound like a common principle for a service provider, but it also means that for now, because they believe there is no appetite for advertising among its users, the site will remain advertising free.
I recall a memorable conference not so long ago at which news executives were aghast when Buckmaster confirmed Craigslist's objective is not to maximise revenue for the site. They are apparently quite well-off enough the way the things are, and the users are happy enough too.
Speaking truth to power
Newmark didn't plan to make this kind of impact on the classified industry, so it's hardly surprising that he says the same about news. But he does have an equally philanthropic interest in journalism, and has consequently donated a modest amount of his own money in Daylife, a news start-up site with input from citizen media's head prefect Jeff Jarvis, amongst others.
His financial support for the project was "microscopic"; tens-of-thousands-of-dollars of his own money that he says is meaningless in business development terms. But though the project is entirely separate from Craigslist, there was some inspiration from by the classified site.
"As a customer service rep at Craigslist, we see a lot of scams and disinformation," he said. "Mostly these are petty scams related to property and rentals, and we take those real seriously. But in context, those are thousand-dollar scams when there are scams originating from Washington for millions of dollars, and billions of dollars missing in Iraq.
"As a citizen it is up to people's goodwill to do something about that - but what can we do when conventional protest doesn't work? It means that when the press stands up to this kind of thing that's a really big deal."
Being an amateur and a dilettante, he said, the solution was to speak to the people who know that he does: Jeff Jarvis, Dan Gillmor, Jay Rosen and Fabrice Florin.
"Reforming journalism in the US would enable us to better speak truth to power. That is something we need more of, especially in Washington."
The comfort factor of newspapers
Another of the things he believes Daylife is trying to do is recreate some of the comfort factor of reading a printed newspaper.
"Newspaper is a very comfortable media and we enjoy it, if we're in the right age range! But we do need a style that creates the right feel and comfort for us. Daylife is doing a good job of that, as well as working with Fabrice at Newstrust to incorporate news sources that includes trust metrics."
While that comfort factor is so far limited on screen, it won't be long before web content is far more mobile and he pointed to Polymer Vision's new device with a roll-out, flexible screen.
"It's just the first product rather than the finished thing but it shows what will happen. Paper is too expensive to print and deliver, so we're going to need new ways of delivering news online."
The mythology of Craigslist
Newmark is well known for his addiction to customer service and has said that he spends around 40 hours week responding to Craigslist's users. There can't be many executives of organisations as influential and as envied as Craigslist whose business cards read "founder and customer service manager", but then listening to users could very well be a major reason for the site's success.
Newmark said his priorities for the site are typically functional: incremental improvements with internal systems, better spam blocking tools and new languages. That's a hint at expansion that could give newspaper editors more cause for concern.
But how does he feel about the kind of attention Craigslist gets from the industry? Craig is variously spoken of as their nemesis, or as a great business idea that plugged a demand newspapers had missed.
"A lot of the reaction is based on mythology," said Newmark.
"Sometimes it is flattering, but otherwise I don't care. My concerns are more like getting ISPs to help us more, and dealing with evildoers."
Craigslist is not the industry's biggest problem
Peter Zollman, founder of US research specialists Classified Intelligence, told me that it is almost impossible to quantify the impact of Craigslist on the newspaper advertising market. The most detailed research, Zollman said, was carried out by Rob Cauthorn in San Francisco at the end of 2004. He looked only at recruitment ads in the Bay area, but estimated the net impact for newspapers losing advertising to Craigslist was in the region of $50-65m each year.
"We do affect newspaper ad revenue, but far less than we are credited for," said Newmark. "Newspapers have far bigger problems, like losing readers and falling profit margins. Their biggest problem is the loss of trust among readers because of their failure to speak truth to power. That's an advantage bloggers have, because they often do have that courage."
Where the blogging model is to publish and check later, he said, the model for mainstream, professional journalism is to report, fact check and then publish.
"I can't emphasise enough that while I'm excited about citizen journalism and blogging, there's no substitute for professional journalism."
