24 hours on Craigslist

Wired news has a very interesting post:


For people who have successfully used the online überclassifieds marketplace known as craigslist to buy something, sell something, get a job, find a date or anything else, there is often a sense that they're in on a secret.
In part that's because of craigslist's rudimentary design -- no graphics, and simple text layouts that look like they could have been done by a 12-year-old.


But as Michael Ferris Gibson's new film, 24 Hours on Craigslist -- currently playing at the San Francisco Independent Film Festival -- demonstrates, there are a lot of other people in on the secret as well -- and their secrets may well be a tad more salacious than yours.
Gibson's film chronicles the outcome of more than 80 craigslist postings from a single day: Aug. 4, 2003. Ferris' eight film crews -- all found on craigslist -- followed people's stories from the beginning, in some cases mere minutes after midnight on Aug. 4, until the conclusion, sometimes days later.
Along the way, we're introduced to a bizarre cross section of craigslist users in search of the most mundane things -- think roommates and band members -- to the truly weird. And everywhere in between.
There is no question that craigslist, with more than 1.7 billion pageviews a month and a presence in nearly 100 cities worldwide, has changed the way many millions of people buy and sell things, meet people, and look for jobs and places to live. Yet at its core, it is just a classifieds service, and in many cases no wilder than what you might find in the ads in a New York or San Francisco alternative weekly newspaper.

Complete story at: http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,66530,00.html

www.24hoursoncraigslist.com adds:

In 1995 craigslist.org was born: a free, down-to-earth and uncensored bulletin board that revolutionized the ease and speed with which people could communicate, exchange goods and services, and create community. Primarily focusing on housing, jobs, items for sale and personal ads, the site soon became a hub for San Francisco's wired community.

2003. Craigslist is big. Really big. Over 1/3 of all Bay Area internet users utilize craigslist on a regular basis. Outside of the Bay Area, craigslist has spread to 31 cities across the globe, with no sign of slowing. In San Francisco alone, the site receives over 23,000 posts daily, with page views close to 29 million daily. With no advertising, no commercialization and only word-of-mouth promotion, craigslist has become a phenomenon. And it's still free.