Craig Newmark gave a talk at SXSW Saturday March 13 "The site ain't about me." Half a billion page views per month arond 4 million unique visitors per month Alexa: around 128th biggest in the world 23 cities job postings in SF sole source of revenue Forrester Research "most efficient job site"

Charge job posters in SF Bay area for job postings. Recruiters, considering NY and LA. State of the web People increasingly media saavy "Human voice" vs. "Corporate voice" AOL, MSN, Yahoo dominating net A few small alternatives to big media

New trends Blogs Social Software Electoral Process changing Legislative Process changing Moveon, consumers union, Dean campaign You can go to consumers union site and vote on things. They do mass email campaigns to state or federal officials. They do pay attention if the officials thing you're a constituent. http://escapecellhell.org The mundane is what really seems to matter in our lives. Trust Culture culture of trust, earned again every day high quality postings I take it personally Privacy, due process, law enforcement issues Community feedback results in changes Excellent customer service

Customer Service customers great at helping each other out first line wants to do it right, need management support almost all disgruntled customers help you out engaged with customers, not "black hole" Community Self Moderation "falg for review" in ads automatic removal with enough flags democratic responsive hundreds of emails, phone calls per day

Getting 1.8 million ads per month Starting to use Social Networking Technology. Forum self moderation Problems: Scammers fake cashiers' checks fake air tickets deposits for nonexistent apartments real estate address harvester money wiring scams offshore operators

Problems Spam screen scraping / address harvesting spam sent to posters anonymous email relay email address obfuscation call spammers, get many small ones to stop flame bating in forums people try to start fights personality fights Problem: brokers in NYC brokers posting general apartments section people in NYC want them in their own section working on it ... work in progress I call them to discuss it Also unethical brokers, apartment list vendors Big deal in Manhattan.

Trust Treat people like you want to be treated Earn trust again every day Moral compass? The Accidental Populist Craig Newmark mailto://craig@craigslist.org http://cnewmark.com/echo.chamber.ppt Justin Hall: what happens if you get hit by a bus? orchid, friendster, etc doig social networking and are you headed there? "Casual encounters is great stuff" - Justin Hall "If I get hit by the N Judah, other people are doing all the specialized stuff. Onlpy the customer service people would be overloaded . . . not a big deal." Social Networking - trying to locate most esteemed people. Looking at orcut and http://friendster.com Orson Scott Card and Bruce Sterling talk about societies run like that, by people with the most esteem. Site has been up 9 years. Molly Steenson, whose Maxi changed Craigs life, asked about the next 8 years. Getting requests from Madrid and Paris. London "toothing" look that up, bluetoothing Adding image hosting. Want to have Craigslist where it fits in with cities culture.

Re-emergent democracy in the US And "idea whose time has come"? Dean campaign Ferment in blogosphere Lots of smart and eloquent writers People of good will connecting via net ? Echo Chamber people preaching to the choir? votes? results? In trenches interact w/ tens of thousands of indvididuals some need medication line workers more in touch than management massed of people disillusioned with corporate culture and with govt, given up Trust works

You kids, get off my lawn Time to do something not as smart or eloquent as bloggers ... no time yet four experiments underway 311 customer service for local govt increased transparency and improvement increased job satisfaction and respect for city line workers eventual "reinvention of government" accountability / threat to middle management Mideast Peace OneVoice for moderates on both sides http://silentnolonger.org Westbank microfinance http://jazoor.org Personal efforts to get kids eye exams and glasses

effective email campaigns you fill in advocacy form for/against bill including address conventional poltics? everyone gets a place at the table Dean? Kerry? SF Democratic Clubs? (no personal interest in office) Party at frog design, Congress at 8th on West side. 804 Congress http://isismultimedia.com