Craigslist revamp in the works?
BetaBeat has reported that Craigslist is seeking engineering help with what would seem to be a redesign – and it’s doing so with a Craigslist ad.
Clues as to what the plain-as-can-be classified portal might have in mind are in the job description:
Senior UI / Usability / Front End Engineers at craigslist.org (financial district)
Date: 2012-05-16, 7:39AM PDT
Senior UI / Usability / Front End Engineers
* develop new products and features;
* optimize internal team tools for efficiency and effectiveness;
* integrate new front-end technologies wherever appropriate; and
* solve interesting tech issues at billion-page-view-per-day scale.
“it feels like newspaper classifieds.”
Prostitution ads: Record visits, $3.2 million sold
Traffic to U.S. websites that publish escort and body-rub ads hit a record in March, while five of those sites sold at least $3.2 million in online prostitution ads during the month.
March revenue from online prostitution ads increased 2 percent from the previous month and 8.6 percent from March 2011, according to estimates by the AIM Group, and it was just $60,000 short of the record set in January.
There were 6.1 million unique visits to 22 tracked sites, according to Compete.com. That’s a 6.3 percent increase compared to February and a 23.1 percent increase from March 2011. That’s the highest total since AIM Group began tracking prostitution-advertising statistics in August 2010. For comparison, Craigslist, the world’s largest classified advertising site, had 62 million unique visits in March. Continue reading
Emma the new Craigslist? No — not yet
Prostitution-ad revenue up 9.8 percent from year ago
Online prostitution advertising generated at least $3.1 million in revenue in February on five U.S. websites, an increase of 9.8 percent compared with the same month last year, but a drop of 3.8 percent from a record high in January.
Nearly 80 percent of the revenue was attributed to Backpage.com, which generated at least $2.5 million from the sale of online ads for escorts and body rubs in 23 U.S. cities. February prostitution-ad revenue at Backpage.com increased 36.5 percent compared with February 2011, but was 3.8 percent lower than in January, according to estimates by the AIM Group.
During the last 12 months, prostitution advertising in 23 U.S. cities generated at least $36.6 million, the AIM Group estimates. More than two-thirds of that amount — $26 million — was generated by Backpage.com, a general classifieds site owned by Village Voice Media. Continue reading
Sites set combined record for online prostitution-ad revenue
Five websites that carry prostitution advertisements in the United States set a record with combined revenue of nearly $3.3 million during January. The total was up 1.4 percent from December and 3.3 percent from January 2011.
It’s the highest combined revenue total since Craigslist stopped selling advertising for escorts and other adult services in September 2010.
About 70 percent of the revenue was attributed to Backpage.com, which generated at least $2.6 million from the sale of online ads for prostitution and body rubs in 23 U.S. cities. January’s revenue at Backpage dropped 1.9 percent compared to the previous month, according to estimates by the AIM Group.
However, Backpage’s January revenue was 23.5 percent higher than the $2.1 million estimated in the same month last year. Part of the increase can be attributed to rate increases that took effect near the end of 2011. Continue reading
Yet another ‘Aw, I’m just Craig’ q-and-a
By Peter Zollman
We’ve got a category at the AIM Group we call YACLWs — “yet another Craigslist wannabe.” Today we’re officially adding a new category: “Yet another ‘Aw shucks, I’m just little ole me, Craig Newmark’ interviews.”
This week’s offender is Inman News, a site we generally admire tremendously. Yet the ridiculous, for-no-apparent-reason Craig Newmark interview this week on Inman News is just silly. Or stupid. Or really, offensive, since none of the important questions that could have been asked of Newmark were asked.
Inman, a real estate site, plopped the interview down on the site without explanation about why it felt it was worthwhile, why now, why Newmark instead of Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster (who actually runs the site, which is Continue reading

