The Sad Plight of Craig and His List (Not)

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Talk about a high-class problem! How about this one, the sad plight of Craig (Craigslist) Newmark.

Imagine what it might have been like to be Dr. Kleenex. You invent a modern miracle, the cheap paper handkerchief, and suddenly you become the person blamed for America’s disposable culture, praised for a more convenient life, or both.

There never was a Dr. Kleenex, though–the product was created by a team of researchers at Kimberly-Clark laboratories in the 1920s. But there is a real Craig in Craigslist, and lately he is looking at life beyond his little list that happens to be the seventh-most-popular website in the United States.

It is also a site that is deeply tied up with the fate of newspapers–indeed, many in the newspaper industry blame the site’s founder, Craig Newmark, for the downturn in their classified-advertising business.

Then there was that old phrase about crying all the way to the bank. It’s an interesting profile, in The New York Times, called Craig (of the List) Looks Beyond the Web.