Hookers and eBay, shares and cops. If Craig Newmark and Jim Buckmaster, had an attorney on staff with them, would that have prevented questionable legal moves by the founder and CEO of the world's most reliable housemates and hookups platform?
While former Yahoo database engineer Jeremy Zawodny might prefer FriendFeed to Twitter, he'll be commuting to the offices of Craigslist from his home in San Jose. He was recruited via email by CTO Eric Scheide while still at Yahoo, and met with founder Craig Newmark and CEO Jim Buckmaster before leaving Sunnyvale for the Inner Sunset. He'll help maintain and expand the company's ever-growing MySQL database. Because the last thing someone trying to sell a baby needs is for a PHP mysql_fetch_array() call to fail when posting their ad. (Photo by David Weekly)
Fresh out of journalism school? Have experience writing, editing, and proofing business to business communications? Adept at Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook, Adobe InCopy, Lexis-Nexis and other publishing applications? We just found you the best job ever on Craigslist! You can be a copy writer of marketing manuals for American University in Washington D.C. You'll be "responsible for writing, editing and proofreading a wide range of print and online materials including content for our web site, emails to students, and other marketing materials." Oh, and also—you will be a security guard. No joke! "The security guard spends most of the shift seated at the reception desk, and there will be very minimal security duties. Practically the entire shift you will be able to focus on writing copy – you'll just happen to be wearing a uniform." Sadly, you don't get a gun. [Craiglist via FishbowlDC via DCeiver]
A high-finance, tax-free, low-self-esteem business opportunity awaits one lucky C-lister next week in Santa Monica, where the producers of the independent film David and Fatima are sparing no expense to attract interest in their theatrical premiere. Or perhaps they're sparing a minor marketing expense, maybe a publicity fee and possibly a professional celebrity wrangler charge (but that's it!) by going straight to Craigslist with the Limited Time Offer you'll find after the jump. Tighten your shoulder straps, Tara Reid — you're wanted back on the red carpet!
"Did your tattoo say 'free wifi'?" asks a 21-year-old Craigslister of a girl he saw on the L train, adding that he "would really like to know."
In the biggest sting of its kind, Cook County police have made 76 Chicago-area arrests using Craigslist's Erotic Services section as their dragnet — the fourth such sting in an 18-month-long investigation. In an interview with CBS 2 Chicago, Sheriff Tom Dart accused Craigslist of operating "a free advertising network for prostitutes and pimps."
This just in: Deals advertised on Craigslist may not be as fabulous as they appear. Just ask the 12 New Yorkers who responded to an ad on the site offering discounted iPhones in bulk, thinking they were in for a steal, which they were—just not in the way they expected. After showing up to conduct the transactions in locations that scream you're about to be robbed!—deserted corners of Flatbush and Flatlands—the naifs were robbed at gunpoint by four teenaged hoods. In one case, the four made off with as much as $2,000 in cash. Of course, if you want to buy your iPhones in bulk and sell them for a hefty profit, you don't have risk life and limb. Even if you hit the Apple store and pay $399 for the first-generation model, you'll still generate a nice return when you offload them to a Russian plutocrat for $700 a piece.
You know a Craigslist ad is running spectacularly afoul of social decency when the fourth paragraph contains a vehement explanation of why it does not violate fair housing laws. But the disclaimer in this ad is surely not necessary, since no Craigslist reader, no matter how heartless, would begrudge a "sweet... perfectionist" 20-29-year-old female who "takes direction well" the chance to live in a "FREE $2000 APARTMENT." All you have to do is put in 14-hours of work per week and please your landlord/boss, a "rich, single, heterosexual guy" with "more $ than time." Duties include cooking, cleaning, laundry, back-walking and various other uncomfortable forms of touching. Click the thumbnail for an image of the full ad. [Craigslist]
Meet Ed Shepp! He's looking for a home in "a safe part of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, Jersey City or Hoboken." A cheap home. Like, cheap. "Like seriously cheap, like under $700." As we learn from his Craigslist posting, he's friends with Tionna, for one! (Our popular erstwhile advice columnist, Tionna Smalls.) He is adorable, dragging out all his media and tchotchkes for digicam show-and-tell! In an effort to be servicey, we procured a roommate reference for him, straight from Ms. Tionna herself:
This charming 21-year-old aspiring actress needs an apartment. BUT! She's tired of living with immature college students and hard-drinking young adults. She'd like the refined company of a wise elder, you see. So she'd like to move in with "a nice elderly person." Preferably one with a rent-controlled apartment! Is this real? Cajun Boy? (Click to see the entire ad, in case it's deleted.) [Craigslist]
Because we at Defamer are fully committed to bringing together fans of seminal '80s teen comedies and Star Wars geeks in possession of both a Darth Vader mask and a burning need to get laid (of which there should be no shortage), we now pass on a personals ad, salvaged by a sharp-eyed Defamer reader before being snatched from the ether by an unseen hand and replaced with the dreaded "flagged for removal." It read:
"Free, popular and easy to use," says the Riverfront Times, Craigslist is "as close as America currently comes to the decriminalization of sex work." As part of an investigation into Internet prostitution, the St. Louis alt-weekly newspaper got on the same page with women in the trade who run client/escort message boards. Along with doing the usual decoding of acronyms (GFE, anyone?) and explaining what you get for $300 an hour, they got an earful from sex workers about where to get your start as an online escort. Valleywag readers won't need to even guess.
Good news for Second Life! Israeli legislator Zahava Gal-On has been so taken in by the illusion of sex offered in fake online worlds that she's proposing mandatory five-year jail terms for the operators of "virtual brothels" — websites "offering women for sale," she says. If only! Sites like Craigslist, The Eros Guide, MyRedBook, and The Erotic Review advertise real sex for hire, but law enforcers prefer to log on to track down working girls, rather than take the sites offline for pimping. If Gal-On took a moment to understand the economics of virtual vajayjay, she'd see her concerns were misplaced.
Steve Outing, a former editor at the Poynter Institute and self-described "new-media visionary" Christopher Ryan have started a blog to brainstorm ideas for new classified advertising business models. While quotes from the likes of new media pundit JD Lasica assert "Craig Newmark of Craigslist is not the devil incarnate," the level of obsession is evidenced in the site's popular categories. One cure for the classified ad revenue decline fever suggested? More Seesmic! [ReinventingClassifieds]
A Vancouver couple listed their week-old newborn for sale on Craigslist for $10,000, prompting a horrified user to call the police. When the cops arrived, they found the tyke breastfeeding and the parents claimed it was a hoax. Which didn't stop the authorities from confiscating the baby. Susan MacTavish Best issued the by-now boilerplate statement that reads "Misuse of Craigslist for illegal purposes is absolutely unacceptable to us." Those kooky Canadians just hate the free market. When they aren't unjustly subverting self-interest with their free health care, they're criminalizing the trade in human babies. Once Peter Thiel builds his Objectivist paradise at sea, expect him to make another fortune on PayBaby. (Photo by Badr Naseem)
Aww! The weekly hipster kickball saga in Williamsburg is bringing people together, sort of. A sad Craigslist poster implores a certain cute with bangs to stop showing up on game days: "you're far too distracting." (Click to enlarge.)
So, what does James Michael Tyler, the actor who played "Central Perk" manager Gunther on Friends, have to say about our Cash-Waving Craigslist Dater? "It's continually astounding how deep and wide the cultural divide can seem at a distance. It is equally affirming to recognize that the chasm may be breached by a few well placed words of wisdom." Possibly the most random quote ever to come into existence. [Animal NY]
Are some people just naturally assholes, or do they work really hard at it? Or are they so clueless that it automatically makes them assholes? What if you're looking for a "chubby" female "writer" who can make "$," via Craigslist, to co-author a new fitness book? "The authors will track their process and share their thoughts through journals and blogs."
Click to viewMoral of this story: if you're digging yourself into a hole, stop digging. Yesterday, we got a tip about a self-described "Mr. Right" on NYC's Craigslist, who posted a personal ad with 30 pictures of himself, several of which feature him waving a stack of $20 bills. We put up a few of his photos and chuckled. But he was upset! So he called up the Gawker offices to voice his grievances. He charged us with fraud. He threatened to "punch the fucking guy whoever did this" and "fuck him up." And he warned us, "I'm ten times smarter than these people, cause I"m gonna record it right now." So are we! You have to hear it to believe it. Remember, kids: Craigslist is a public place. Click to listen to the highlights. (To refresh your memory, three of his moneymaking personal ad photos are below):
