from Silicon Valley Daily, June 13, 2001

Craigslist Looking for New Revenue Streams

The dot-com doldrums have hit the most popular community site for the San Francisco Bay Area. Craigslist, which offers free classifieds in just about any imaginable category, says it is seeing a decline in revenue and asking for user input on new fee services.

Craigslist gets revenue entirely from job postings. But with the layoffs and closing of Internet firms hitting the Bay Area this year, the number of jobs listed in the site has dropped dramatically from a high of 9,000 per month to 4,000 most recently. Even though the site raised its job posting fee to $75 last September, revenues are down significantly. Meanwhile, free postings such as apartment listings and personals have skyrocketed tenfold to 120,000 per month this year.

Some of the fees the site is considering charging are: 1) charging businesses $100-200 month to access resumes; 2) charge $5 for personal ads; 3) charging landlords $10 for apartment listings; 4) providing classified services to media companies through a revenue sharing program.

Craigslist is seeking input from users on new fees via a community forum on its site and will shortly determine what it plans to do. The site currently employs 20 people and says it does not plan any layoffs.