Trailing Edge Technology

There’s a very interesting article on the Wall Street Journal that looks at Craigslist and wonders why Craigslist does so well when it seems to do everything wrong when it comes to business rules:

There are no banner ads on Craigslist, just the postings of its users, most of which are put online free of charge. CEO Jim Buckmaster takes some pleasure in calling Craigslist a "trailing edge" technology company. Its Web site is stubbornly minimalist and text-heavy, with row after row of blue underlined hyperlinks and nary another color or graphic in sight. One industry analyst has estimated that Craigslist could generate 20 times that $25 million just by posting a couple of ads on each of its pages. If the estimate is to be believed, that’s half a billion dollars a year being left on the table. What kind of company turns up its nose at $500 million?

The secret of their success, they say, is that everything they do is for their users.

WSJ.com – Zen and the Art of Classified Advertising