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Quixotic Craigslist (Still) Not Out to Make Money

In today's new media world, Craigslist President and Chief Executive Jim Buckmaster sounds nuts, writes Louis Hau of Forbes.com. With a massive user base (47th on the Web) that brims with monetization opportunities (including advertising), he and other members of the Craigslist board have no intention of making any more money.

Yep, they're from Northern California.

Thus, Buckmaster's appearance at the UBS Global Media & Communications Conference last week wasn't met with derision so much us bewilderment. First of all, what's a guy who represents a company that doesn't care about making more money doing at a media conference that's precisely about making money? Second, why was invited to speak? Writes Hau: "Buckmaster calmly discussed a business model which, by any rational standard, is completely insane."

Oh, and by the way, the (mostly) free online classifieds site is crippling newspapers and trade publications that rely on classifieds revenue for a large chunk of their revenue. It's almost an unfair business practice, Hau says.

Read the whole story at Forbes.com »

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