Jowy Romano

Craigslist vs Facebook

On February 20th, I found out that one of the rooms in my apartment was going to become vacant at the end of the month.  With little more than a week’s notice, I scrambled to post a listing on Craigslist and I also cross-posted the link to my Facebook profile (along with a status update on the matter).

About a week has passed and I’ve been shocked by the number of responses to the ad.  I was surprised to discover that I did not receive a single response from Craigslist.  On the other hand, the one response I did get was off of Facebook.  The results have left me weighing the usefulness of the two sites.

If you asked me a week ago, I would have said Craigslist would be considerably more useful for filling my vacant room.  Now, though, I realize the beauty of Facebook for the same task.  Not only can I post a public classified ad, I can also post status updates and links to the 900+ family members, friends, acquaintances and colleagues on my friend list.  So not only do I have a great number of people to read my ad, they are all people I know!  By the way, the person who responded and who is now officially taking the room is a friend from college, George Agathos.

Some people have poo-pooed me in the past for having so many people on my Facebook friends list.  What’s the point if I don’t keep in touch with all of them?  I had a tough time responding to that question until now.  This is exactly the reason.  It’s not that every single person on my list is a close friend.  I am essentially building a directory of hundreds of old friends and all the people I’ve met since I joined the site in 2003.  With the ever-expanding boundaries of Facebook there will be more and more applications for my directory in the future.

[Check out some of George's Projects at GRG Ventures]

Tags: Craigslist, Facebook

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