photo by: flickr/bartheq

i’m here in san diego attending the CSCW (computer-supported collaborative workspace) conference and listening to the keynote speaker cory ondrejka, the cofounder of second life. second life is the crazy online alternative reality.

so cory just shared a story about craig, the founder of craigslist. he showed a picture of craig standing next to this really high uppity guy from the ny times with like a bajillion pulitzer prizes. to the ny times guy, craig was like a baby seal… totally harmless, soft, cute and fluffy. however, in just a short time, ny times classifieds lost a huge, huge sum of money while craig’s list grew to be the largest classified ad medium in the world.

craiglists’ ceo told wall street people that craigslist has “little interest in maximizing profit, instead preferring to help users find cars, apartments, jobs, and dates.” wow what a concept. just helping people for the sake of helping people, not to make money. just sharing for the sake of sharing, not to make money. it really is a paradigm shift in this day and age i think.

so what do we learn from craigslist? as cory put it, ny times… “don’t f*** with baby seals.” love that.