Dear Craigslist: An open letter from ReinventingClassifieds.com
Posted by Sarah Schewe on July 15, 2008 at 10:00 AM
While not blaming Craigslist for the sorry state of the newspaper classifieds, Steve Outing, of ReinventingClassifieds.com, writes an open letter, challenging the company to find ways the newspaper industry and Craigslist can mutually benefit each other. Below follows an edited version of Outing's letter:
What can Craigslist do? I hope this open letter succeeds in making you open to having some conversations with the newspaper industry about how to work together.
Allow local newspapers to scrape Craigslist ads...Allow the local newspaper(s) in the cities you serve to include Craigslist ads -- just from that city... in with their own classifieds. Ads from Craigslist would include the Craigslist brand and drive traffic back to the local Craigslist site; (and)...with a reinvigorated newspaper classifieds section, a newspaper could sell contextual display or banner advertising around it (which might support hiring back some of those lost journalists).
Allow consumers to place ads on Craigslist via newspaper websites. If a newspaper classifieds customer wants to place an ad via the paper's online ordering system, permit them to also post it to the local Craigslist site as part of the process... While most ads coming into Craigslist this way will be in no-fee categories, some will be for the few categories that Craigslist charges for. A newspaper site could collect that money, along with the fee paid for newspaper print/online placement, and send it to Craigslist, minus a commission... that makes using the newspaper classifieds more relevant, it's also a revenue source.
Add links on Craigslist to newspaper website classified sections.
Add a news component to Craigslist. ..."Effectively, we're a flea market, and flea markets I think are more about socializing than about commerce." Craigslist represents a huge community in each of the cities it serves, and members of that community know a lot about what's going on. It makes sense to add "news" to the Craigslist community, and tap that valuable local information resource that is the many Craigslist users. So how about letting the local newspapers in your served cities help with that?
Source: ReinventingClassifieds.com
What can Craigslist do? I hope this open letter succeeds in making you open to having some conversations with the newspaper industry about how to work together.
Allow local newspapers to scrape Craigslist ads...Allow the local newspaper(s) in the cities you serve to include Craigslist ads -- just from that city... in with their own classifieds. Ads from Craigslist would include the Craigslist brand and drive traffic back to the local Craigslist site; (and)...with a reinvigorated newspaper classifieds section, a newspaper could sell contextual display or banner advertising around it (which might support hiring back some of those lost journalists).
Allow consumers to place ads on Craigslist via newspaper websites. If a newspaper classifieds customer wants to place an ad via the paper's online ordering system, permit them to also post it to the local Craigslist site as part of the process... While most ads coming into Craigslist this way will be in no-fee categories, some will be for the few categories that Craigslist charges for. A newspaper site could collect that money, along with the fee paid for newspaper print/online placement, and send it to Craigslist, minus a commission... that makes using the newspaper classifieds more relevant, it's also a revenue source.
Add links on Craigslist to newspaper website classified sections.
Add a news component to Craigslist. ..."Effectively, we're a flea market, and flea markets I think are more about socializing than about commerce." Craigslist represents a huge community in each of the cities it serves, and members of that community know a lot about what's going on. It makes sense to add "news" to the Craigslist community, and tap that valuable local information resource that is the many Craigslist users. So how about letting the local newspapers in your served cities help with that?
Source: ReinventingClassifieds.com
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