Craigslist is an innovative and centralized network of online communities designed for help online users in a variety of ways. Craigslist gives users all over the world a  place to sell unwanted junk, find a roommate, post their job resume, search for singles, even sell their house. When does this variety become too vast? As business students, we’ve heard the “loose your focus, loose your shirt” strategy for years.

Ironically, Craigslist has chosen to focus on being general. With 10 billion pages viewed per month at 450 craigslist sites in all 50 states and over 50 countries, it is safe to say the site is extremely successful in spite of its seeming lack of focus and dull web design. This level of exposure is the key to Craigslist’s success.

My personal experience with Craigslist has been one of mixed feelings. I was faced with task of hiring and intern last summer, and my boss instructed me to post an ad on Craigslist. The site was very clear and simple to navigate. Within a week, I had about 20 responses. The problem was the applicants were terrible. While I think that Craigslist is a good place to post a resume, I am skeptical of the perceived level of quality taken on by job seekers. And, this perception can transfers to any of the offered services on Craigslist.

Linked In has three times the number of registered users than any other professional networking site on the Internet. But do these numbers automatically mean that Linked In provides a better service than the next networking site? I have read several reviews on the value of the website. And surprisingly, its praises are not being sung throughout the web as I would have expected. The general consensus claims an invasion of privacy. Linked In works with Outlook to install various features to your system, including collecting contacts from your received mail, uploading your current contacts list. These are innovative and interesting features, however problems can arise when contacts are collected from junk mail or your contact lists would rather not be bothered. Simply put, Linked In attempts to extract as much information from you as they can. All the while proclaiming they are protecting your privacy. But the key data which drives the business is your connectivity to others. Even if you give them every ounce of information you have, how realistic is it that you will respond to a request from someone four degrees away?

Basically, if you are not desperately searching to find a new job, hire staff or consultants, or sell products to specific industries, Linked In is a waste of your time. And, how many people professionally network just for fun? That being said, the most successful businessmen are not going to be looking to hire from the site. They seek a level of quality that cannot be conveyed through a website. I don’t care how popular it is. There just doesn’t appear to be enough economic value in the relationships facilitated by the social networking websites.

Recently, I wrote two posts, one on FriendFeed the other on PicLens. Just for kicks I decided to let the companies know that I liked their product/service (…proservductice?) and I had written a post about them. I wasn’t expecting a shoutout on their blog or being added to some list, I just wanted to let them know I liked what they do enough to write a post raving about them.

Instead, what I got were two great examples of how companies should interact with bloggers. Here are their responses…

Great. Thanks, Blake.

Feel free to add your trackback and link to our new blog at blog.cooliris.com.

Kind regards,
#### & The PicLens Team

——————————-

Hi Blake,

Thanks for the email, and for taking the time to write a post about us!

- ### (FriendFeed)

——————————-

This is exactly what companies need to do. Engage and participate in the conversation. How easy is it for a company to give a simple thanks to a blogger who liked their prod/serv. enough to spend time writing a post about them?

Honest, impartial and critical, are what makes the posts we do here so much more trustworthy than a sponsored review. They can be much more valuable to a company than something they hired someone to write. The company essentially gets free advertising and legit promotion. It is the least they can do to give a simple thanks, yet most companies are so removed they miss out on some great opportunities to encourage discussion of their offering.

Recently Megan wrote a great post on PageOnce. Shortly after, someone from the company posted thanking her for writing the post and gave a link to access the private beta test.

A while ago I wrote a post on a great online storage solution, Humyo. I told the company about the post and they asked if they could forward it to their PR department and said they would hook me up with premium features to test. For a while, I was on page 1 of Google for “Humyo” and almost first for “Humyo Online Storage”. If I had written about how bad the service was, that could have had a serious impact on their company. If one of the first few results on Google for you is negative you’ve got a problem! Yah think?

Now it may be easy and necessary for these solely internet based companies to keep tabs on what is being said about them on the net, but what about companies primarily offline? I think that they too need to join the conversation or risk losing a significant opportunity. It is not hard to setup a Google alert for your name and see what people are saying (good and more importantly bad) about your company (or you).

Two lessons here:

1. Bloggers (words) have power both to build a companies reputation and destroy it.
   
2. Companies need to participate in the conversation online and not be silent.

What examples (good and bad) have you seen of companies joining/ignoring the conversation?

Update: Shortly after I posted this, PageOnce visited again (evidenced in the MyBlogLog widget in the sidebar) it shows what a close watch they keep on what is being said about their company. Props guys!

<Start Rant>

Apple iPhone 3G

It would be helpful to have some actual information “from the source” rather than a bunch of analysts telling us it will be here in June. For that matter, now the rumor mill has a specific date – June 9. Come on guys quit reporting rumors and stick to reporting what is actually known. And Apple, it would be nice if you would make some sort of comments on your new products.

Mario Kart Wii

Same old graphics, same old characters, new and revised levels and vehicles, worse controls… I’ll stick with Double Dash for now thanks. Then again it took me about a week to get accustomed to the Double Dash controls when it came out to, so what are first impressions worth anyway?

Twitter

Twitter, here is what I think about you: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/4/23/. WARNING: link contains offensive language, but an appropriate Twitter comic.

</End Rant>

This comes by way of a great feed I’m subscribed to: TechCrunch.

StartYourTube is a new site that allows you to start your own “tube” or video site. It allows you to  have a full powered video site on your own domain. You are also entitled to 60% of the ad revenue.

Rather than me tell you what it’s all about, go to this great post on TechCrunch.

This is a great example of a low-cost/no-cost service or API that new startups can take advantage of. Internet entrepreneurs can now do just about everything for free using open source code or APIs being rolled out by the big players: Google, Yahoo, YouTube, Flickr, Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, digg.