Craigslist Clone

Ventura IT provides custom development of “”Craigslist clone”” web sites, classifieds sites, portals, and other complex web applications.

Our “”Craigslist clone”” runs on php/mysql using the very latest, fastest, and most secure web development technology. In fact, we use the same technology for our “”Craigslist clone”” and other web development projects as Facebook, Microsoft, Google, and many of the largest companies and sites in the world!

Craigslist started as an email list of San Francisco, California events, started as a hobby by Craig Newmark in early 1995. Craigslist provides a collection of online resources, including classified ads, forums, and various email services, local classifieds and forums for more than 550 cities in over 50 countries worldwide which are community moderated, and largely free. More than 50 million each month us Craigslist, including more than 40 million in the US alone. Craigslist users self-publish more than 30 million new classified ads each month. On Craigslist you can find jobs, housing, goods, services, romance, local activities, advice.

Our “”Craigslist clone”” web development expertise will give you the chance to start a similar service in your own home or office! Imagine the power you will have owning your own fully custom web based “”Craigslist clone””!

Craigslist contains more than 2 million new job listings each month, 10 million new images per month, 100 million user postings in 100 topical forums. Craigslist is run by 25 employees in the Inner Sunset neighborhood of San Francisco. Craigslist supports its operations by charging below-market fees for job ads in 10 cities, and for brokered apartment listings in the city of New York.

There are over 500 Craigslist sites in all 50 US states, and over 50 countries in all areas of the world.

Are you thinking of starting your own Craigslist? If so we can provide the web development, programming, and design for your “”Craigslist clone.””

What you will need to develop your fully customized classifieds web site or “”Craigslist clone””:

A solid idea for your “”Craigslist clone”” that is well outlined ON PAPER that you can email to us.
Between $5,000 and $10,000 for an average “”Craigslist clone”” that has most of the same features of Craigslist but on a smaller scale. You will need between 8 and 16 weeks to complete this type of “”Craigslist clone”” project.
Between $25,000 and $50,000 for a completely custom classifieds web site that is built according to your specifications. You will need more than 16 weeks for this option.

The Craigslist Story

Craigslist is the brainchild of Craig Newmark, and has become one of the most popular sites on the Internet. Started in San Francisco in 1995, Craigslist is perhaps the ultimate site for classified listings. It offers job advertisements, personal ads, ads for cars, pets, home supplies and a plethora of other choices. The website is built around communities, and Craigslist now offers sites in 450 cities and countries throughout the world. Financial information about the nonprofit company is not disclosed, but business experts believe Craigslist is worth over 10 million US dollars (USD).

The site serves over nine billion page views per month, putting it in 47th place overall among web sites world wide, ninth place overall among web sites in the United States (per Alexa.com on August 21, 2008), to over thirty million unique visitors. With over thirty million new classified advertisements each month, Craigslist is the leading classifieds service in any medium. The site receives over two million new job listings each month, making it one of the top job boards in the world. The classified advertisements range from traditional buy/sell ads and community announcements, to personal ads and even erotic services.

It started as a free email list that tracked art events, job listings, and apartment rentals in San Francisco. Nine years later, craigslist serves 45 cities and has 5 million visitors a month. Now a Web site, it’s still mostly free, which may account for the loyalty of craigslisters, who turn to it for everything from finding dates to selling cars and, oh, “”lickable boots.”” Craigslist.org brings in about $7 million a year by charging Bay Area companies for job listings. (This summer it began hitting up New York and Los Angeles employers, too.) But there’s a lot of untapped potential – 100,000 new listings a day – and that’s making would-be buyers salivate. Wired talked with Newmark about the “”Halliburton crime syndicate,”” his crusade against unscrupulous apartment brokers, and his superhuman ability to resist the pull of filthy lucre.

Craig Newmark began the service in 1993 as a series of emails, sent to friends, about local events in the San Francisco Bay Area, before becoming an online service in 1995. After incorporation as a private for-profit company in 1999, Craigslist expanded into nine more U.S. cities in 2000, four each in 2001 and 2002, and 14 in 2003. As of September 2007, Craigslist has established itself in approximately 450 cities in 50 countries.

For the most part, posting and reading ads on Craigslist is free. The revenue made from Craigslist is generated by people posting job ads at significantly below market rate. As of 2004, job ads for large businesses cost 75 USD in San Francisco and the surrounding Bay Area. In other cities and countries, job ad postings cost 25 USD. To post an ad in the “”gigs”” section of the want ads is free. Craigslist does not post banners ads, preferring to earn money only through job posting revenue.

As of 2007, Craigslist operates with a staff of 24 people. Its sole source of revenue is paid job ads in select cities – $75 per ad for the San Francisco Bay Area; $25 per ad for New York, Los Angeles, San Diego, Boston, Seattle, Washington D.C., Chicago, and Portland, Oregon – and paid broker apartment listings in New York City ($10 per ad). A $5 charge per erotic services listing was added in November 2008; the site intends to donate resultant revenue to charity. Craigslist suggests that the fees are intended largely to deter illicit activities, by requiring posters to create information available for subpoena.

The lowered rate for posting want ads has made Craigslist a proverbial thorn in the side of more traditional companies offering classified ads. Newspapers, in particular, have attacked Craigslist on numerous occasions for posting advertisements that might be construed as endorsement of illegal activities. Craigslist sections that sell puppies, for example, were part of a lawsuit suggesting Craigslist illegally endorses puppy mills or the sale of outlawed breeds. The San Francisco Chronicle sued Craigslist for this purpose, but the suit was dismissed.

It is true that Craigslist does seriously undercut competitive newspapers through its classified ads. This is especially the case for ads other than jobs. A person wanting to sell a sofa, a car, or rent property, saves a lot of money by listing on Craigslist instead of in a newspaper. In fact, they pay no money for doing so, whereas they would pay quite a bit to a large city newspaper.

In December 2006, at the UBS Global Media Conference in New York, Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster told Wall Street analysts that Craigslist has little interest in maximizing profit, instead preferring to help users find cars, apartments, jobs, and dates.

Those who use Craigslist, which reports over 5 billion page views per month, have learned to be cautious about advertisements posted there. While most job ads are legitimate, personal ads, housing rentals, and for sales ads can be phonies, meant to gather people’s personal information or lure them into danger. Jobs in the gigs section are often “work for free” opportunities, or scams advertising great jobs if one will take a course or pay a fee for job listings. It’s reasonable to use Craigslist with a great deal of caution, and certain areas of Craigslist sites are reserved for adults only. People using restricted areas must register with Craigslist, and inappropriate postings can be flagged by other viewers.

Lack of moderation on Craigslist postings are perhaps the primary reason why this Internet giant is criticized. There are currently only 10 Craigslist employees, and moderating the more than 500,000 job ads posted each month would be a very significant undertaking. This would not even include moderating all the free ads and postings generated by users. Many users take it upon themselves to flag postings, or to write comments on other posts that seem to abuse the free exchange offered by Craigslist.

The company does not formally disclose financial or ownership information. Analysts and commentators have reported varying figures for its annual revenue, ranging from $10 million in 2004, $20 million in 2005, and $25 million in 2006 to possibly $150 million in 2007. It is believed to be owned principally by Newmark, Buckmaster, and eBay (the three board members). eBay owns approximately 25%, and Newmark is believed to own the largest stake.

Some caution should be observed when using Craigslist because no moderation exists on the site. You should be wary about giving out personal information like telephone numbers or addresses. If you answer a personal ad and arrange a meeting, do so in a public place. If you plan to respond to a “for sale” ad, go with several people to pick up or view the items for sale. If a job ad asks for a resume, do not include personal information until you verify the company’s existence. Avoid “too good to be true” ads, because they usually are.

Having observed people helping one another in friendly, social and trusting communal ways on the Internet, the WELL, and Usenet, and feeling isolated as a relative newcomer to San Francisco, Craigslist founder Craig Newmark decided to create something similar for local events.

With caution, Craigslist can be an excellent site for searching jobs or for finding just about anything. Also, Craigslist has numerous forums for people seeking information about new cities they may be visiting or moving to. Some users of Craigslist devote time to “watchdog” blogs so that other users can check out the claims of Craigslist ads prior to responding to them.

The first postings debuted in early 1995. The initial technology encountered some limits, so by June 1995 majordomo had been installed and the mailing list “”craigslist”” resumed operations. Most of the early postings were submitted by Newmark and were notices of social events of interest to software and Internet developers living and working in San Francisco.

People find that the “ads” that offer solutions to problems – rather than a straight “sales ad” get more attention. You do have to re-post every week, but that isn’t that big of a deal for the exposure you can get. You can only post the same message in one area under your state. The most popular aspect of Craigslist seems to be the job posting and if you are trying to buy or sell something. If you have a business you are trying to sell something, and to list it is free.

Newmark says that Craigslist works because it gives people a voice, a sense of community trust and even intimacy. Other factors he cites are consistency of down-to-earth values, customer service and simplicity. After first being approached about running banner ads, Newmark decided to keep Craigslist non-commercial. In 2002, Craigslist staff posted mock-banner ads throughout the site as an April Fools joke.

In 2001, the company started the Craigslist Foundation, a § 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that helps emerging nonprofit organizations get established, gain visibility, attract the attention of potential donors, and develop the skills and knowledge required for long-term success.

It accepts charitable donations, and rather than directly funding organizations, it produces “”face-to-face events and offers online resources to help grassroots organizations get off the ground and contribute real value to the community””.