Obsession #45,987

Becoming passionate and obsessed with something (then, of course, moving on to my next obsession) is pretty normal for me. My latest involves selling goods and looking for goods to be bought (sorry honey!). No, this is not the beloved and ever so popular, fee laden eBay. In fact, it's called Craig's List. Odd name, neat history.

Craig Newmark observed people on the Net, on the WELL and in Usenet, helping one another out. In early '95, he decided to help out, in a very small way, telling people about cool events around San Francisco like the Anon Salon and Joe's Digital Diner. It spread through word of mouth, and became large enough to demand the use of a list server, majordomo, which required a name.

Craig wanted to call it "sf-events", but more knowledgeable friends suggested calling it "craigslist" to reinforce its personal and down-to-earth nature. He still finds it awkward that such a visible site is named after him, but he'll get over it.

Over time, people started posting items on the list in different areas, jobs, stuff for sale, and apartments, the latter in response to San Francisco's apartment shortage. Craig wrote software which could automatically add email postings to a site which became www.craigslist.org.

I suppose some of the things I like about Craig's list vs. eBay is the control you have over what you're listing. And the biggest PLUS to Craig's list is there are NO eBay fees, NO Paypal fees, etc. It's all local...basically an online garage sale!

Oh, and one more thing...Craig's list if FAR MORE than just selling and buying goods. You should check it out!