Yet another sign that our cozy little town is, in fact, big-city material: the notorious online swap meet (and meat market) Craigslist has finally come to Char-lottesville. The popular online classified site is the brainchild of Craig Newmark, who started the service in 1995 in the San Francisco area. Five years later, Boston got its own Craigslist, and since then the site has taken off
in more than 190 cities worldwide. Newmark attributes the site’s enormous success to its personal feel, simplicity (read: butt-ugly HTML aesthetics), and lack of annoying ads.
Now Charlotesvillians can use Craigslist to find housing, jobs, services, and almost any conceivable item for sale: tickets, jewelry and yes, even free stuff! (Anyone else foresee a plethora of overpriced Dave JPJ tickets in Craig’s future?) Right now, though, our version of Craigslist is new, so the listings are pretty sparse. Plus, the site’s got some pretty stiff competition from the far-better-designed free classifieds on C-VILLE.com (cough-shameless plug-cough). But, if past experience is any indication, Charlottesville’s Craigslist should soon be swarming with bargain hunters.
In addition to rentals and rock show tix, the site also offers discussion forums and personal ads. But a word to the wise: Beware of those ads. As the site warns upon entry, some portions of the personals section (like, say, “casual encounters”) are explicit—and, boy, they’re not kidding. (Hey, “m4m 28”— the hotel cleaning staff is not going to appreciate your planned rendezvous.) Please, take my word for it: You should make Craigslist personals your last (and by last I mean after cold-calling numbers from the phonebook) resort for finding your soul mate.
And one more thing: The “rants and raves” section doesn’t even come close to The Rant. So don’t even try it.—Ashley Sisti
hotlink – Charlottesville.craigslist.org