MEDIA POST -- Dec 7 -- In what turned out to be a culture clash of near-epic proportions, Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster spoke to the investment community this morning at the UBS global media conference in New York. UBS analyst Ben Schachter asked Buckmaster a standard financial world question: How does the site plan to maximize revenue? The CEO of the online classifieds site answered as follows: "That definitely is not part of the equation. It's not part of the goal. I think a lot of people are catching their breath right now," responded Schachter, as the crowd absorbed Buckmaster's remarks. Buckmaster, on stage in jeans and a blazer, insisted that the company--which has emerged as a significant threat to newspapers and other companies that sell classified ads--doesn't especially want to make money. Schachter asked if the company considered Google AdSense ads. Buckmaster said "We've had the numbers crunched for us. The numbers are quite staggering [but] no users have been requesting that we run text ads, so for us, that's the end of the story."
Mark Brooks: Yup, that's Craigslist for you. But it's partly that sentiment that has cause them to grow so big. Anyone who knows Craigs knows the last thing he will ever do is sell out his community. He didn't create Craigslist, the community created Craigslist. Still, how's a l'il Adsense box going to hurt. Hmm. Just a little three ad section at the bottom. (It'll never happen, unless eBay finds a way to buy another 25% of Craigslist). Other Craigslist news.
