Craigslist is My Crack

I’ve known about Craigslist for a long while, even visited a few times, but I didn't discover it until a few days ago. I don’t know what’s different now. Did I just need a new addiction? As these things go, this is a fairly healthy one. With very little effort on my part, I can check on the price of cars in Vancouver, the job market for Internet engineers in Orange County and the availability of rental apartments in Bangalore. And as you can tell from that tasting, there’s very good information -- street-level information -- about a lot, lot, lot more. It’s a fun exploration both for writers and for those just naturally curious about... stuff. I’m both of those things, so it’s a fairly tough combination for me to resist. Sometimes I don’t try very hard. (To resist it, that is.)

I didn’t know -- until just now, today -- that there actually is a Craig. Craig Newmark, who started the outfit back in 1995 and who now seems to direct a lot of his energies into saving the world from the powers of evil, which is a very cool thing to do. These days Craigslist itself is run by a small team, headed up by Craigslists’ president, CEO and programmer, Jim Buckmaster and who seems like he might be just as socially concious as he-who-put-his-name-on-the-list.

It’s fun to run into a company offering up technology that not only works, but that does so with old school Internet spirit. It’s possible I’d go on some more, but it just struck me to go see what’s happening in the arts community in Sydney. Maybe follow that up with the real estate market in Edmonton. And then...

There are more fun Craigslist facts here.