I ran accross this story which explains that Craiglist earns about $20 million annually according to CEO Jim Buckmaster.
I've also read that Craiglist receives about 23 million unique visitors a month. So, according to a recent Business 2.0 article on the "return of web eyeballs_ and one that valued one unique visitor at $38 from the perspectives of the average value of unique visitors of those web firms that had been purchased. This would place CL at about $874 million in value.
For all of those who are still under the impression that Craiglist is a poor nonprofit organization, this should serve as a wake up call.
I remember having just such a conversation with a woman about two years ago. She tried to convince me that CL was this poor little activist firm. "Why do you insist on this view?" I asked. "Well, it's a Dot.org for starters," was the answer I got.
Ooo Boy. Meanwhile, the staff of 18 continues to run the most efficient machine on the Web.
I am in awe of CraigsList. It's destroyed the newspaper classified ad business by presenting a simple website that offers most services for free. A web site with no glitz, no special features, a plain text design.
ReplyDeleteI also like the fact that Craig seems very humble with all the attention. He calls himself a "Customer Service Rep". There's a great podcast with him and Jim Buckmaster from IT Conversations. http://www.itconversations.com/shows/detail330.html
As far as valuation goes, eBay bought 25% of CraigsList a few years ago (from a former employee), but terms were not disclosed. InfoWorld reported: "EBay does not expect the purchase of the Craigslist shares to impact its financial guidance for the third quarter of 2004, the San Jose, California-based company said. EBay in April reported first quarter net income of US$200.1 million on revenue of $756.2 million."
http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/08/13/HNcraigslist_1.html?B-TO-C
To me, it seems unlikely they paid anywhere near 25% of $874 million or that last statement couldn't be true.