Reporter: So how did it happen that you created Craigslist?
记者：是什么促使你创立Craigslist网站？
Newmark: The effort started in 1994 when I was at Charles Schwab, working then on overall security architecture. But I also saw people using the Internet and figured it was going to be important eventually for anyone in the brokerage business. So I started evangelizing that at Schwab. While I was looking around at the Internet, I saw a lot of people helping each other out and thought that I should do something, too. So in 1995，I began to e-mail a bunch of friends about art and technical events in San Francisco. Over the months that followed, people kept asking if I could add the occasional job posting and listings for things to sell, too. Then I said, “Let’s add apartment listings, too.” It was all done through a very simple E-mail, a cc: list. This is the sort of pattern we still have today—people suggest stuff to us, we do what makes sense and then we ask for more feedback. I left Schwab around the same time I began Craigslist. Soon I went freelance and had a lot of fun, while working on Craigslist as a hobby. One milestone was hit in the middle of 1995. At thatpoint,Iwas sending my e-mails to about 240 people,but thelistat that point had gotten around to friends of friends as well. At 240 addresses, though, the cc: list mechanism broke. Then I had to use a listserve. I was going to call it SF Events, since it was still mostly events, but friends told me that they already called it Craigslist, that I had created a brand unintentionally and that I should keep calling it that because it was personal and quirky. The thing just kept growing. Later on in 1995, I remembered that I was a programmer and that I could turn code into HTML, so to do instant publishing. It suddenly occurred to me that I could write code and that I could make Craigslist into a Web site where the code would do most of the work for me.
纽马克：那是在1994年，那时我还在 嘉信理财，负责总体安全架构。但是我 看到人们使用互联网，觉得互联网将在 经纪人生意上大有作为，于是我开始在 嘉信理财宣讲这个观点。我在互联网上 到处看到人们互相帮助，于是我想我也 可以做点事情。因此，在1995年，我 开始通过电子邮件向朋友们传达旧金山 地区艺术展和科技活动的消息，几个月 后，人们问我可不可以加点临时职位发布，或者求购消息，于是我说，干脆连 房屋租赁消息也加上算了，那些都是通 过简单的电子邮件抄送列表进行的。现 在我们依然保持着这种形式——人们向 我们提出建议，我们将一些行得通的付 之于行动，然后寻求更多的反馈信息。 我大约在创建Craigslist的同时离开了 嘉信理财，我成为自由职业者并享受到 极大的乐趣，将Craigslist作为一种兴 趣来做。1995年中期是一个里程碑，那 时我向大约240个人发送电子邮件，但 那些列表也在朋友的朋友中传播。可 是，240个地址的抄送列 表机制崩溃了。我不得 不使用列表服务，我准 备叫它SF事件，因为它 毕竟还是一个事件，但 朋友们说他们都称之为 Craigslist,我无意中创造 了一个品牌。我应该一 直用这个名字，因为它 是私有且奇怪的。一切 都在继续发展。1995年 后期，我想起我是个程序员，可以写超 文字标记语言，我可以将这些列表即时 发表，忽然间我觉得我可以编写一些代 码，可以把Craigslist做成一个网站，在 网站上代码可以替我做大多数工作。
Reporter: Was making the move from the listserve to a Web site a big transition for you?
记者：从列表服务到网站是一个大转变 吗？
Newmark: Not much at first. People started using the site, but the mailing list was still the big deal then for users. In a sense, back then it was not much different than it is now. At that point, the mailing list was still more popular than the Web site, but I have no idea when the crossover occurred. I’m guessing in the early 2000s.
纽马克：一开始不是。人们开始使用这 个网站，但那个时候，大量的人们在使 用邮件列表，从某种意义上讲，在那个 时候，二者之间的差别不像现在那么大。那时邮件列表仍然 要比网站流行，我也不 知道真正的转换是从什 么时候开始的，我猜想 大约是2000年初。
Reporter: You began this on a whim. Was leaving your job at Schwab a risky thing or are you a person who doesn’t have such fears?
记者：你心血来潮做这 个，那么离开嘉信理财 是一次冒险吗？或者你 是不是一个对此并不畏 惧的人？
Newmark: The first three years of Craigslist I ran this by myself and it somehow built critical mass. At the end of 1997, there were three milestones hit: hitting a million page views a month; then the folks from Microsoft Sidewalk wanted to run banner ads on the site. And at market rates, that would be all the money I needed to live. So I figured, hey I’m an overpaid programmer, I don’t need the money, and many banner ads are pretty dumb, so I decided not to run them. And the third milestone, [occurred when] a few people approached me about running Craigslist on a volunteer basis. I tried that in 1998，where we would all work together on a volunteer basis. We tried it，but it failed. Things just didn’t get done. It just started slowly dying.
纽马克：头三年我自 己做，那时是最关键的时刻，1997年 底，遇到三个里程碑，第一，月浏览量 超过100万；第二，微软想在Craigslist 上放条幅广告，从市场的角度，那些钱 正好可以帮助我发展下去，但转念一 想，我写程序赚得已经不少了，我自己 并不缺钱，而且那时的条幅广告都是 无声的，于是我决定不放广告；第三 个里程碑是，几个人找到我，要义务 加入到Craigslist的运营中，我1998年 尝试那样做，那时我们都是义务去做， 我们努力了，但失败了，那样行不通。 Craigslist开始露出衰亡的迹象。
Reporter: How did you not suffer the fate of many businesses that make unsuccessful changes, then never recover their initial momentum and eventually shut down? Why did Craigslist survive that tumultuous period of experimentation?
记者：很多企业因为不成功的改变无法 恢复最初的动力，最终导致关门，你是 如何从那场危机中生存下来的？
Newniark: Well, when I’m committed to something, I’m committed. Then at the end of 1998，some people approached me and helped get me out of denial about what was going on and then I made Craigslist into a real company in the beginning of 1999. I did a mediocre job at best，because I，m not very good at it in terms of the business end of the operation. I had the first ideas about it, but most of what we do is based on what people in the community suggest. Fortunately, in 2000 I hired a guy named Jim Buckmaster. He’s turned out to be a natural manager and he does a great job with it.
纽马克：嗯，当我承诺了某件事的时 候，我就会全力以赴。1998年底，一些 人找到我，帮助我打消顾虑，告诉我该 做什么。于是1999年初我把Craigslist 变成一个真正的公司，我顶多就是做到 不好不坏，因为我不懂经营，只是有个想法，但不 知该怎么实 现，那时我 们只是根据 社区用户的 建议去做。 幸运的是， 在2000年 我雇到一个 他是个天生叫吉姆巴克马斯特的人，的经理人，把事情做得非常好。
Reporter: Is it crazy to say that it's an accident that you created this site?
记者：可以这样说吗，你是意外地创建 了这个网站？
Newmark: In a way, this site is a happy accident. We built critical mass and made things happen just by doing what feels right. That statement reflects the first five years of running it. Then, when Jim took over, he made it operate much more smoothly. We’re on a very firm footing right now.
纽马克：某种意义上，这个网站是个可 喜的意外。在关键时刻，我们只是根据 感觉去做，你的说法对Craigslist前5年 来说是对的，但自从吉姆接管经营，他 把整个公司运作得很顺利，我们现在有 非常坚实的根基。
Reporter: Tell me more about that footing. How does the company make money?
记者：能不能告诉我们那根基是什么？ 你们怎么赚钱？
Newmark: The idea is that we’re a community service. Almost 100% of the site is free, but we do charge for job postings in 11 cities. We charge for brokered apartment listings in New York.
纽马克：这个概念是，我们是一种社区 服务。网站几乎是100％免费的，但我 们在11个城市对招聘广告收费，我们 也对纽约的房屋中介广告收费。
Reporter: Why only in New York? I mean, in Seattle, San Francisco and other places, you’d make money.
记者：为什么只是纽约？我的意思是， 在西雅图，旧金山或其他城市，你照样 可以赚钱。
Newmark: I understand, but the apartment brokers who we charge asked us to charge them because they figured it would cut down on the perceived need to post and repost the same places and they figured it would get rid of some of the scammers. The principle behind this一in 2000 I asked a lot of people, “What’s the right way for us to pay the bills, and maybe do better than that?"，People told us to charge people who already paid too much for less effective ads. Specifically, the consensus was it was OK to charge employers and recruiters and to charge apartment brokers and real estate agents. And so we’ve done that, but only a little.
纽马克：我明白你的意思，但纽约的房 屋中介主动要求我们收费，这样可以防 止人们大量发布重复消息，也为了将一 些诈骗分子挡在外面。对于这背后的原 则——在2000年，我问了很多人，怎 样收费最好，人们告诉我，向那些在传 统广告上花了很多钱却收效甚微的人收 费，具体来讲，大家一致同意：向雇主和招聘人员，房屋中介和房地产代理商 收费是合理的，所以我们这样做了，但 收得很少。
Reporter: And this makes enough money for the company to survive and for your 25 San Francisco-based employees to get their paychecks?
记者：这点钱够一个公司生存吗？或者 说，够你向你的25个旧金山雇员发薪 水吗？
Newmark: Right. It ain’t bad. We just do what feels right and plug away.
纽马克：够了，而且还不坏。我们坚持 不懈地致力于那些我们感觉是对的事。
Reporter: So you founded Craigslist. but you aren’t an executive? Why is that?
记者：你创立了 Craigslist,却不是执行 官，为什么？
Newmark: Inside the company, my job is customer service. Jim is a much better CEO. And my skills are not management skills; however, I’m a really good customer service representative. I’m part of a customer service team and we handle things like cases of abuse from users of the Web site.
纽马克：在我们公司，我是个客户服务 人员，吉姆更适合做CEO。我的能力不 在经营管理，但我绝对是个好的客户服 务代表。我是客服团队的一员，我的职 责是处理一些网站被客户滥用的事情。
Reporter: OK, so here you have Craigslist at your disposal. How do you use Craigslist? Do you buy things or list things for sale?
记者：好的，你有自己的Craigslist,你 怎么使用Craigslist,你也在上面买东西 或发布商品吗？
Newmark: Once in a while I do all the above. I do so a little gingerly because it kind of feels like a conflict of interest because when I do that I have to disclose who I am. That isn’t a conflict of interest, but it still to me feels a little bit like one. I feel the way I do and so I do things gingerly and that seems to be fair.
纽马克：偶尔也会，但我会很谨慎，因 为这里面有利益冲突，我要在上面做这 些，我必须透露我是谁，但难免就会出 现利益冲突的事。其实这并不是利益冲 突，但是我还是觉得是。所以我想自己 必须非常谨慎才会显得公平。
Reporter: Five years from now, what do you see changing at Craigslist?
记者：今后5年，你会看到Craigslist有 什么改变？
Newmark: It’s going to be more of the same, more cities, more languages. It’s now in English and we’ve recently introduced Spanish, starting with Madrid. We，re just starting. We have to improve technologies like multicity search. In some cases, we need to be able to search in nearby cities rather than doing multiple searches. We always need to improve customer service—for example, we need better tools to detect and remove spam listings. One thing we found doing customer service is that there are not that many bad guys out there, that the people with good will far outnumber the bad guys. However, the bad guys make a lot more noise.
纽马克：更多的会保持不变，我们会发 展到更多城市，更多语言，现在是英 语，最近我们正尝试西班牙语，从马德 里开始。我们才刚刚开始。我们需要提 高某些技术，如多城市搜索。在某些情 况下，我们需要搜索临近城市而不是 多重搜索。我们需要提高我们的客户服 务水平，比如，我们需要更好的工具来 寻找并剔除垃圾信息，在做客户服务期间，我发 现，事实上 坏人并不像 想象的那么 多，好人远 比坏人多， 但坏人制造 的动静更 大。
Reporter: Is there anything you’d personally like to see happen with the site in the future? Will we ever see a massive redesign from the white, mostly text-based listings to something with more pizzazz and color?
记者：你个人希望看到网站未来有什么 变化吗？ Craigslist网站会不会来个大规 模重新设计？从原来的白色，文字为主 的模式到漂亮的多彩设计？
Newmark: We’re pretty much not really changing. We do one thing well and we don’t want to screw it up. And regarding our look and feel, someone said that our site has the visual appeal of a pipe wrench and that was intended and taken as a compliment. We don’t need much new fancy stuff in general. We need tools that get the job done.
纽马克：我们不会改变，我们现在做得 很好，不想把事情搞糟。关于我们网站的 外观和感觉，有人说我们的网站在视觉上 像管钳子，这就是我们要的。我们需要的 不是花哨的外观，而是有用的工具。
Reporter: Why has Craigslist been so successful? How did you get the whole world to know about it and use it?
记者：为什么Craigslist这样成功，你是 如何让全世界知道并使用它的？
Newmark: There are some easy reasons. We were an early mover doing what we do and it does help that the site is almost all free. We think we have a really good culture of trust and that’s because without consciously doing so, we have stood by some core-shared values. The fundamental value is that we feel you should treat people like you want to be treated, which means that you provide good customer service and it means that you should have a “live and let live attitude,” and it means that now and then you give the other person a break. These are values that most everyone in the world shares. The problem that a lot of people have is following through with those values. That’s hard to do sometimes. And I do want to add, that there’s nothing noble or altruistic or pious about this; it just feels right.
纽马克：原因都很简单。我们是最早做 这个的，另外，免费也是一个原因。我 想我们有很好的信任文化，并不是有意 去做，是因为我们有一些核心共享价值 相伴。我们最基础的价值观是我们相信 人们希望推己及人，也就是说，你给别 人提供很好的客户服务，需要秉着和平 共存相互宽容的态度，需要不时地让别 人喘□气，那么别人也会这样对你。几 乎所有人都同意这点。但是多数人的问 题是说到容易做到难。有些时候这确实 并非易事。我想说的是，这并非什么高 尚、无私或尽责，只是我们觉得这样做 是对的。