craigslist’s serious business credibility failure
Sometime ago a voiceover friend gave me a tip on how to monitor craigslist.org through my Google reader. He threatened me with certain harm if I dared share this tip with anyone and, as I promised I wouldn’t, I won’t.
You have Google, you don’t need me.
I wanted to monitor craigslist.org because I was always hearing about voice over jobs on the site. If you’ve been on the site you know you’d have to click through every city and some drill down menus before you get to listings. This, to me, was an unworthy time suck.
So with the unmentioned tool, I can now receive these postings into my reader. The only problem being that for the past two to three months, the jobs posted have either been low to no pay or geographically prejudicial.
Therefore, for me, craigslist.org went from being a time suck to time waste. That’s like going from bad to worse.
If craigslist.org is going to be a cheap floozy of a classified ad site, so be it. On it, you can find crappy voice talent jobs, many other lousy jobs, hookers (allegedly), murders (allegedly) and antiques ((allegedly)).
Clearly, based on the web site’s success, there is a market for this schlock. But it comes across as being less than a bargain and more like an on line junk yard with the occasional treasure found.
Am I being an elitist? Is this just me being bitter about crappy voice jobs on craigslist.org? Did I go in expecting too much?
It’s just that I saw such potential for the site and it makes me feel a bit disappointed. We should all want to aspire to buy more than cheap crap on line, shouldn’t we?
You’re absolutely right, Peter, it’s a giant waste of time. I set up my own way to automatically crawl CL for certain keywords relating to voiceover some time ago, and it seems the only things up there are podcasters with a budget of $25 and grad students who want you to voice their animated projects for free or beer.
I even tried submitting posts to the “services offered” type section and all I got in response is people teaching shady sounding voiceover classes offering me a spot in their “exclusive” training program.
CL is great for finding an apartment, or a used couch, but not for professional VO work, IMO 🙂
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I couldn’t agree more about how odd Craigslist is. I’ve used the site for many things…but it’s clumsy and kludgy and hard to navigate for general busines purposes.
I’m simply amazed that no one has come in and stolen this market away from them by doing it right, and doing it as a legit moneymaking site.
Hi Adam,
I might agree on the couch IF it was fumigated but I would really think twice about the apartment and no way in hell would I look for a roommate for an apartment on there!
Thanks for visiting, you’re always welcome here.
Best always,
– Peter
Hi Chuck,
Actually you brought up a great point I didn’t even think about although I have noticed how cumbersome it is to navigate. Clumsy is a great word for craigslist.org.
I can’t figure out either why they haven’t made fixes.
Thanks for your insight.
Best always,
– Peter
I don’t see CL as a giant waste of time. I’ve used CL for about 8 years for many things:
One VO gig ($300) – I rarely ever answer any VO leads as 95% are crap.
Furniture (bought and sold)
Concert tickets
Two roommates (separate living spaces)
And more.
Yes, it can be a major waste of time …. but it can also be quite useful. I’ve yet to get ripped off on CL, which is more than I can say for eBay.
Hi Dave:
It’s awesome that you have had such great success with craiglist.
I think for certain items, there may be some value in the service but as you noted, one of those items is NOT voice over.
Thanks for reading the blog, its appreciated!
Best always,
– Peter