by the Pew Research Center, online classifieds sites, such as Craigslist, is killing newspapers.
“Nearly half (49 percent) of Internet users say they have ever used online classified sites,” the Pew Center said in the report. In 2005, the percentage was 22 percent. One out of 10 Internet users visits an online classifieds service each day, up from four percent in 2005.
Not that this is big news but the Pew Center helps to illustrate just how devastating online classifieds has been on newspapers. A graph of newspaper classified ad revenue since 1980 to last year shows that the industry saw a high in 2000 with about $19.6 billion. Last year, newspapers recorded $9.9 billion. That’s a plunge in revenue of about 49 percent.
“In the world of online classified advertising, Craigslist is by far the most used Web site in the United States,” Pew said in the report. “In March 2009, classified sites averaged 53.8 million unique visitors, up 7 percent from February. Craigslist had 42.2 million unique visitors in the month of March.”
Meanwhile, Craigslist is going head-to-head with the state of South Carolina over the site’s sex-related ads. While Craigslist decided to revamp its ‘erotic services’ section, for South Carolina’s Attorney General, Henry McMaster, this was not enough of a change. Last week, McMaster announced that we would still file charges against the classified-ad site.
