eBay’s online classified service, Kijiji, has made its U.S. debut. For the past two years, Kijiji has operated overseas but is now available in about 220 U.S. cities, said eBay spokesman Hani Durzy.
The auctioneer is up against an Internet icon in the privately held Craigslist. The 21-employee company operates on a shoestring budget, is well-entrenched in every major U.S. city and founder Craig Newmark is beloved by users for his reluctance to commercialize the site.
Since 2004, the year eBay bought a 25 percent stake in the San Francisco-based Craigslist from a former employee, the auction site has held a seat on the company’s board of directors. “We’ve learned a lot from Craigslist,” Durzy said. “We think this market has room for several classified services.”
Most articles/blogs about this entry warble about an apparent conflict of interest.
At least one industry analyst thinks this is just another nail in the newspaper coffin. And…
Craigslist is growing too fast to give a damn, frankly. And, as everyone has mentioned by now, eBay is 25% owner of Craigslist and they also have a board seat. While Craig Newmark might not say so, one day, he’ll get tired of being the CSR extraordinaire at Craigslist and want to sell. Trust me, it’s a matter of time. He won’t sell to Microsoft, nor to Yahoo!, nor to Google.
He’ll sell one day, and it will be to eBay.
I know the anti-profit crowd loves the guy… but he should find a revenue stream more powerful than what he has now. He should stay the course and avoid being the crass strip-mall quality site that other sites are…
Of course Craigslist does charge companies for placing job ads (or so I understand).
This reminds me of the stories about Microsoft in the 1990’s. They would talk to companies about buying them and after doing their due diligence they would say no thanks and release a competing product. It worked for Microsoft maybe it will work for eBay. At least eBay bought 25% before stabbing Craig Newmark in the back.
“Kijiji, has made its U.S. debut. For the past two years, Kijiji has operated overseas but is now available in about 220 U.S. cities,…”
So, what is Canada… chopped liver? Kijiji has been here for a few years!
Does it have anywhere near the number of Hookers that CL has?
“Kijiji” is too reminiscent of “Vijayjay” … which will either guarantee total success or total failure, I’m not sure which, but almost assures it some exposure on The Soup
#4 – Maybe eBay could subsidize them?
I thought everything browser was owned by Google?
I’m sure the SEC will be investigating. If eBay has a seat on the Board then there would be a conflict if they bought or opened a competing service. That is unfair competition.
#4 – Where and at what cost?
“We’ve learned a lot from Craigslist,” Durzy said. “We think this market has room for several classified services.”
You’ve got to be kidding me. Multi-Billion dollar monster sized ebay has learned a lot from Craigslist? Like what, not charging people? Was that a hard lesson that took ebay a long time to comprehend correctly?
Does this also mean that Kijiji is also going to be loaded with ads looking for lolitos?
#11 – I didn’t really like lolitos until they came out with the BBQ flavor.
mmmmmm… bbq lolitos…
#12 & #13
And they say I’m the perverted one.
“founder Craig Newmark is beloved by users for his reluctance to commercialize the site”
He’s also loathed by this user for his reluctance to make any functional improvements to the site, like better search features and smarter methods to catch fraudsters and spam. And there seems to be a high concentration of flakes among Craigslist posters, earning it the nickname Flakeslist.
Considering HOW big, CL is….And it IS enormous…
And that Moderation, is abit SLIM…
Its a freeForAll Newspaper style, want Ads…
Its Cheap simple style is IT…And its world wide.
YOU take care of yourself…Just as with a News paper.