Posted on: Tuesday, September 2, 2003
BYTE MARKS
Craigslist founder considering Honolulu
By Burt Lum
San Francisco is by far one of my favorite cities. If there is any reason to be there, count me in.
It's a city for your senses, with neighborhoods to satisfy the most divergent tastes.
In San Francisco, some things stay the same, while others always seem to be in a state of flux.
One area of town I enjoy is the Haight. This is the section of Haight Street from Ashbury Street to the entrance to Golden Gate Park. You can find everything from great restaurants to psychedelic head shops. Sadly, one of my favorite clubs, the I-Beam, is gone, torn down to make room for apartments.
My reason for being at the Haight, among others, was to meet up with Craig Newmark of www.craigslist.org.
The site is a portal for people to post messages to community forums, seek jobs, list personal ads, find housing and more. I did an article back in July about it, never realizing its regional popularity. The article I wrote resulted in a bunch of e-mails asking me when Craigslist was coming to Hawai'i.
Being the conscientious writer that I am, I made it my mission to find out.
Craig graciously agreed to meet me at his morning hangout near the Haight, at a coffee shop called Reverie. After a bit of chitchat and insight into Craigslist, he told me what has to happen for expansion.
In his words, the two sites highest on the priority list are Honolulu and Las Vegas.
When it will happen, he said, depends on demand and his staff.
His service has only 12 employees, so the shortage of help often means the highest priority on his list is tackling the latest crisis on hand.
But he's all for expansion, provided Honolulu wants it. That means people who want the site to include Honolulu should make their desires known by e-mailing Craig at craig@craigslist.org.
I also want to mention hooking up with Allen Leong, formerly of Nueva Vida, who is now working at Amoeba Music, www.amoebamusic.com.
He's looking the same, playing music as a sideman and sporting some really long hair. ;-)
Reach Burt Lum at www.brouhaha.net.
