Their Head A Splode!

There was a great article in the times on Craigslist–

Hey all- I think you’ll love this article; I certainly love Craigslist– but I also think there is something to their strategy that the bankers aren’t getting: If they “monetized” their product more effectively, they would likely lose customers. If they had done it early, there would have been a dozen copycat sites trying to compete with them. And when there are duplicates of online social network resources, everybody loses. The value of a social network increases with the square of the number of users (says Metcalfe’s “new law” for social networks.)

Their strategy, I believe, is actually more sustainable in the long run. No one can undercut them, and there is only ever one craigslist, which makes it tremendously more valuable than it would be if there were two. Read the article below (and the one linked above), and all of this will make more sense. Oh, and if you didn’t get the joke in the title, you can go here.

Full text here

Craigslist Meets the Capitalists


