When the Kansan launched hawkchalk.com we were expecting this. We knew that not only did we have to beat craigslist but that with Facebook‘s reach to KU students, they could be a dominant player in the field as well if they entered the market.
The week after the planning meeting last March in which we discussed this, Facebook launched its “Flyers Board” on which students could place ads within their own network for $5 / day. In the year since, I’ve never seen more than 4 or 5 posted to KU at a time, and they’re usually from student groups and election campaigns.
Since it’s launch in October 2006, hawkchalk has grown to over 1,200 registered users from KU, and has helped students find jobs, apartments, subleases, etc. Clearly, students don’t want to pay for classifieds, but when they’re free, they’ll jump all over them.
Facebook does not currently have the means to match our ability to distribute students’ classifieds for free in our print edition (20,000 or so students read our paper each week), but they can still do some damage. Everything Facebook has created recently, they’ve created well, with attractive and intuitive interfaces. I have no doubt their classifieds product will be strong.
In one more week, hawkchalk will no longer be my project, so I can’t speak for its future, but I hope the Kansan gives it the resources to keep growing into a great product that will keep being a reliable resource for KU students, and will keep students involved with the Kansan. I think we’ve got the right guy to lead the way.
Thanks to Patrick for the link.
Facebook's free classifieds have officially arrived!
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