Key phrase for me in this e-mail was "CraigsList itself is a for-profit", despite the fact that it was hidden in a parenthetical remark after lots of glowing praise... The "Craigslist Foundation" is not Craigslist.
According to the Wikipedia article on Craigslist: "The company does not formally disclose financial or ownership information. Analysts and commentators have reported varying figures for its annual revenue, ranging from $10 million in 2004, $20 million in 2005, and $25 million in 2006 to possibly $150 million in 2007" "It is believed to be owned principally by Newmark, Buckmaster, and eBay (the three board members). eBay owns approximately 25%, and Newmark is believed to own the largest stake." We put the name of a for-profit organization flashing across the top of the site... What you said: "In spite of huge web traffic, Craigslist is run with a staff of 32 and carries no ads, and Craig founded a non-profit organization, the Craigslist Foundation, to support other non-profits." seems like it is intended to distract the reader from the truth, which is that Craigslist is for profit and owned partly by corporations like eBay. Mark skype: node.ue On Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 1:21 AM, Erik Moeller <e...@wikimedia.org> wrote: > Just as a bit of general background for this thread: > > The Craig Newmark banner is currently running at 20% on the English > Wikipedia. It's a pilot to see how our audience responds to > endorsements and testimonials by third parties. (So far, it is doing > reasonably well, but not fantastically so; we will likely move on to > different messages soon.) We're not running a large endorsement > campaign this year, but we wanted to at least get some data on a > banner of this type to help us determine whether we want to run more > such messages in the future. > > We approached Craig and asked him whether he would help us with this, > and he generously agreed. We chose Craig because he represents, to > many people, a philosophy of the web that is comparable to ours. In > spite of huge web traffic, Craigslist is run with a staff of 32 and > carries no ads, and Craig founded a non-profit organization, the > Craigslist Foundation, to support other non-profits. (CraigsList > itself is a for-profit.) We're pleased that Craig has joined our > Advisory Board, and we're happy he agreed to this endorsement. That > said, any kind of personal endorsement can certainly polarize. > > If, in future, we decide to run more such endorsements, we'll likely > want to come up with a rich mix of different kinds of people with very > different backgrounds, both to appeal to different segments of our > audience, and to get a better understanding of the overall trends. > -- > Erik Möller > Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation > > Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate > > _______________________________________________ > foundation-l mailing list > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l > _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
