thanks Google! (well... it's not really gone...)

EVEN MORE: they guy is actually running one of those "ad sites" people get suckered into while claiming to be "his blog" (has that in the url -- pretty sick) ; if you know how to make him stop... I'd appreciate it! thanks! :) D.

MORE: unfortunately, it's back, first name was Stephen (not John) -- please ignore his site, I really don't like what he's doing...(although it was a bit flattering, it's pretty pathetic when you think about it)-- again, I thought "the omniscent Google" just picked up on it somehow... D.

I was both flattered and annoyed: a "craigslist alternative" by a guy named John something somehow managed to show up in the Google blog search as "craigslist criticism" -- as the second hit, after my blog, when searching for "craigslist criticism" (I didn't know if he was violating something or it was just one of the loopholes): it's gone now...

Delia

P.S. I am not associated with and I do not endorse any "craigslist alternatives" (I've been keeping some otherwise welcomed comments off this blog because it looked like they were attempting to promote specific "craigslist alternatives") D.

is Kijiji a real threat?

I doubt it...-- they would need something attention grabbing to get enough traction (and just being quiet on when and how they are going to monetize... is just not going to get them there).

Craig appears to have done a whole lot more than that: made people believe he was never going to monetize, kept the truth hidden for a long as he could AND managed to have most people believe he didn't monetize even when anybody who cared to look into it would have found out otherwise... (plenty of people just took his word or rather what appeared to be his word for it and acted accordingly); and the blunder still works to this day -- who would have guessed?

Delia

Google could be a serious competitor but ONLY if they were to treat it as a long term non-profit project (like Google Earth, for instance -- buys good-will without bringing direct profits). But would they ever do it that way? They would if they were smart -- there is just no way to catch-up otherwise... as far as I can see... D.

Larry&Sergei versus Craig

a comment to a Google related entry on Dan Gillmor's blog:

re: “For now, Google is taking no commission for brokering ad sales, though it intends to do so later. Such finer points of how a business relationship might work between newspapers and Google have yet to be worked out.”

Dan:

This is what I was talking about… Larry and Sergei are upfront about it (this is a business move and the players’ expectation is that Google will look after its financial interest, not necessarily nickel and dime everything but even if they don’t start by charging there is no suggestion that Google is not in it for the money).

Now, it *seems* to me that if this would have been one of Craig’s enterprises it would have STARTED something like this:

“We just want to help folks out, ok? How much money does a guy need, anyways?” (“just trust our fabulous moral compass and … no! I’m not gonna tell you how much I will *profit* from this down the road — that just confuses me silly!” – well… It should! It certainly doesn’t make any sense to me, either…)

Delia