Craigslist: A Site for the Ages
From hiring a new employee to finding a car, a home, or even a missed connection, Craigslist does it all. Whether it’s seeking a community to immerse yourself in or a discussion about different lifestyles, this site is an online marketplace for anything you could dream of. What started as an email distribution list to alert people of upcoming local events soon became a website with various sections devoted to classified ads. With so many categories ranging from A-Z, Craigslist makes it possible for any type of audience to use its services and find just what they are looking for.
At First Glance
Just a quick look at the homepage of Craigslist is enough to overwhelm a person who is unfamiliar with the site. This overview floods the page with all of the different categories of postings that users create. While the site is popularly known for postings that involve selling or buying items, Craigslist’s online community of discussion forums have grown tremendously throughout the years. There truly is something for everyone, and the homepage undoubtedly demonstrates that.
The homepage is incredibly powerful because since it introduces all of the services it offers upfront, there’s no trying to figure out what the website does. If someone asks what Craigslist does, a better question would be to ask what does it not do? People are not just able to create postings for services they offer, but are also able to view these postings and connect with the sellers easily.
The Listings
Upon clicking on the “For Sale- Cars+Trucks” section, you are shown the most recent postings in this category. While the design might not be something to write home about, it gets the job done. There are no pop-up ads to distract you from what you came for, and is overall direct in showing the audience the listings. If this layout does not work for you, however, there are additional ways to filter and display the posts.
The posts could be displayed with the following views: list, thumb, gallery, and map. Results of the search can be filtered with a variety of criteria such as the make, model, and odometer of the vehicle. There is also an option to filter by distance so that you are only shown vehicles that are being sold near you. This filtering is definitely a strength of Craigslist, because it provides a direct and useful way for the audience to immediately find what they are looking for.
With the way that the listings are set up, Craigslist encourages its users to explore. While you might begin your search looking for a specific make, model, or year of a car, it becomes simple for that search to evolve into something else. By the end of your search, it is possible that you’ve become interested in a different vehicle entirely by the way that the site displays its listings.
The Descriptions
While the perfect description might be difficult to find, there are certain limitations that exist when viewing the listings of items being sold on Craigslist.
Since sellers are the ones responsible for describing the items they sell, potential buyers can encounter both excellent, fair, and poor listings. Above is an example of an excellent listing — detailed description of the vehicle, information about the location, hours, and ways to contact the dealership. This type of description encourages its viewers to potentially purchase the vehicle if it aligns with their interests.
On the other hand, some listings might look more like the one shown above. A simple line giving only the make, model, and year of the vehicle along with the mileage. It describes “driver side damage” and while the post includes pictures of this damage, it does not detail how it might affect the vehicle overall. This post encourages the potential buyer to reach out to the seller since the vague description might not include all of the information they need to make a decision about purchasing.
Is It a Scam?
Like most online services, it is important to be cautious when using Craigslist to purchase, communicate, or meet up with people met on the site. With so many different categories available, it is easy for people to become victims of scams or violent crimes.
As a precaution, Craigslist includes a link offering tips for its users to apply when buying from sellers on the site. Although a listing might look authentic and the seller sounds like they just want to get rid of an item, it could be a scam.
Additionally, Craigslist offers a separate set of tips for people who are meeting users they met online through listings or in forums. These two pages concerning the safety of users encourages them to be cautious anytime they meet with sellers to avoid becoming victims of crimes.
Though these tips are super helpful, there have been cases where violent crimes occur as a result of the listings posted on Craigslist. A popular case involved Philip Markoff, appropriately nicknamed the “Craigslist Killer”, who used the site as a tool to find potential victims while living a double-life as a medical school student. Markoff would answer listings by women who offered erotic services under the “personals” section and he would then kill them when they met at hotel rooms.
Craigslist On the Go
Like most popular sites, Craigslist has its own licensed app for those unable to access the desktop site. While both versions contain the same categories of forums and items for sale, their organization is a stark contrast.
At first glance on the mobile app, users are less inclined to be overwhelmed like it might occur on the desktop site. Where the desktop version throws all of the different sections and categories at its audience, the app effectively simplifies the homepage. Users are asked to pick their location(s) and the results are catered to show listings nearby. On the app’s homepage, users can choose their desired category and are then taken to the sections within.
The mobile app does a great job of listing the categories in alphabetical order and including a shortcut on the righthand side to save time for its users. They are also able to switch categories with ease via the sidebar.
This organization encourages users to explore the different categories since they could easily find new things they might interesting. The use of the mobile app might seem more appealing to audiences that prefer to swipe through listings rather than click through them like they would need to do if using the desktop site.
Again, the design of the listings isn’t anything spectacular, but the mobile app version also gets the job done. It is direct and provides viewers with the item, the picture, and the price of the book — the most significant parts that a listing needs.
The Impact of Craigslist
For some, Craigslist might just be a website used to sell or buy items online. For others, it is so much more than that. It is a place for communities, relationships, and friendships to form with the use of its discussion forums. There is a whole category dedicated to “missed connections” where a person creates a post about a person who caught their eye, but were too afraid to make a move. There are other categories created solely for receiving help on childcare where people can write tips for new parents who might need help getting the hang of things during the first couple of months. In essence, the limits of Craigslist appear to be nonexistent since there are no boundaries as to what a user can do on this site. When using the mobile app and the desktop site, it is apparent that the two forms offer contrasting designs and organization methods. However, they offer the same listings and the same opportunities for discovering new things when exploring the various categories. Observing the popularity of the site throughout the years, I don’t think there will be a time where Craigslist will go out of use. There are far too many needs that it meets for its users who want to sell, meet, or learn and losing a website like this would also mean losing those chances to educate and learn in a variety of ways.
