Sonja Haller of The Arizona Republic reports about the considerable growth in the free classified marketplace in Phoenix which was started by the now worldwide famous craigslist.org. This story reports could just as easily have been written in Sydney or Melbourne where free classifieds are in in 2005. Yeah there are some rules but consumers seem to be embracing them.
I’m not a fan of FREE. It devalues the brand and the service you provide. However, with the craigslist model newspapers have had to come up with something which demonstrates them responding.
I’d rather see a response which offers a more valuable advertising proposition, something which makes newspaper advertising more meaningful than the online competitor.