I could not help how ironic it is to read the NYT covering eBay’s launch of Kijiji in the US:
“This is going to be our classified ad play in the United States,” said an eBay spokesman, Hani Durzy. “We look at it as competition to Craigslist and other platforms. But we think there is room for competition.” Mr. Durzy said eBay was planning to keep its stake in Craigslist.
EBay plans to attract users to its new site by buying advertisements on search engines and by ensuring that listings appear in unpaid, or natural, search engine results. There are no plans to direct eBay traffic to the site, Mr. Durzy said.
Craigslist’s chief executive, Jim Buckmaster, said, “One of the beauties of viewing our world through public service goggles is that there is no need to worry about what other companies are doing.
“Many companies offer classifieds, but since we don’t concern ourselves with considerations such as market share or revenue maximization, we don’t think of them as competition, or as a challenge to Craigslist.”
Indeed. But the truth is that both Craigslist and eBay will be larger in a few years, this is really a challenge to the newspapers, who have yet to demonstrate an open and successful classifieds solution.
Related:
- Kijiji more about newspapers than eBay
- Why do newspapers suffer from inertia?
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