A View on View :: Craig Newmark Revealed...Sorta

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Craig Newmark Revealed...Sorta

by Mark Evans on Mon 08 May 2006 07:02 AM EDT | Permanent Link

If you've ever wondered about Craig Newmark, a.ka. the guy behind Craigslist.com, the Times of London ran a long feature in yesterday's paper. When you think about someone dramatically impacting the newspaper industry's future, you think about a guy like Rupert Murdoch with his bold, global ambitions and his large pile of cash. Newmark, on the other hand, is a regular guy/nerd who apparently takes a bus to work and has somehow managed to resist the temptation to trade his large stake in the classified-ads company for mega-millions. Instead, he has ambitions to do good rather than get rich. Perhaps this is what's made Craigslist such a phenomena: when you use the service (including the paid real estate part), you feel like part of altruistic. If you're interested in learning more on Craigslist, check out the documentary 24 hours on craiglist. We were disappointed not to be able get Craig or COO Jim Buckmaster to come to the mesh conference next week given one of our panels looking at the future business models for newspapers.

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Re: Craig Newmark Revealed...Sorta

by Anonymous on Mon 08 May 2006 08:24 AM EDT | Permanent Link

I think you gave the reason why Craig N. would not come to the Mesh conference in your post. He is not motivated by money or business. He wants to "make the world a better place" in his own little way. Put yourself in his shoes...Why would he attend a conference that has a business focus to help entrepreneurs and others develop better business models to presumably make more money?

Re: Re: Craig Newmark Revealed...Sorta

by Mark Evans on Mon 08 May 2006 10:20 AM EDT | Profile | Permanent Link

to be honest, mesh is ideally focused on how the internet and web-based services are impacting different sectors. sure, it may involve how to make money or invest more intelligently but i'd suggest our panels on politics and grassroots community movements have little to do with money.

Re: Re: Re: Craig Newmark Revealed...Sorta

by Anonymous on Mon 08 May 2006 12:43 PM EDT | Permanent Link

Did a quick count of sessions at Mesh. 25 sessions (if my counting skills are accurate) and I would estimate that up to 7 (and that may be generous) are focused on politics, grass roots, or other non strictly business focused issues...that leaves 70% with a business agenda. The main focus is clearly established...not that that is a bad thing.

The other issue to consider is the motivation of those people attending. Yes, there are students (25 max?) but I suspect the attendees are those looking to better understand "web 2.0" and interact with participants in this space so as to financially take advantage of the business opportunities going forward. To an outside looking in, that is how it appears.

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\n"; #File retrieval failed - exiting function pass back old values. return $this->GetParameters($AdFilePath); } #TODO - Replace with file retrieval $ad_params = $this->GetParameters($AdFilePath); $new_ad_params = $this->_newRowPosition($ad_params); #TODO - Add SlidingExpiration for REFRESH Dates that dont change # Example: REFRESH DATE permanently affixed to 2 days prior, every 30sec refresh will attempt a new page download # Temp Solution is to UPDATE FILE_DATE with AD_ROTATE_DATE $new_ad_params["AD_FILEDATE"] = $new_ad_params["AD_ROTATEDATE"]; #echo "Writing new ad
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\n"; return $new_ad_params; } } /** BEGIN Backwards Compatibility Routines */ if (! function_exists('array_combine')) { function array_combine($keys, $values) { foreach($keys as $key) $out[$key] = array_shift($values); return $out; } } if (!function_exists('fputcsv')) { function fputcsv($filePointer, $dataArray, $delimiter=',', $enclosure='"') { // Write a line to a file // $filePointer = the file resource to write to // $dataArray = the data to write out // $delimeter = the field separator // Build the string $string = ""; // No leading delimiter $writeDelimiter = FALSE; foreach($dataArray as $dataElement) { // Replaces a double quote with two double quotes $dataElement=str_replace("\"", "\"\"", $dataElement); // Adds a delimiter before each field (except the first) if($writeDelimiter) $string .= $delimiter; // Encloses each field with $enclosure and adds it to the string $string .= $enclosure . $dataElement . $enclosure; // Delimiters are used every time except the first. $writeDelimiter = TRUE; } // end foreach($dataArray as $dataElement) // Append new line $string .= "\n"; // Write the string to the file return fwrite($filePointer,$string); } } if (!function_exists('fgetcsv')) { #TODO - Remove or ??? #Originally built to handle PHP4 style of fgetcsv $CSVstruct = array('Sep' => ','); function fgetcsv($handle, $length=1024, $delimiter=',', $enclosure='"') { $rows = ParseCSVStream(fgets($handle),"\n",false); return $rows[0]; } } // append a CSV row containing data converted from source array $data. Actual conversion is done by ExCSVRowWalker() function AppendCSVRow($data) { global $CSVstruct; array_walk($data,'ExCSVRowWalker'.($CSVstruct['OutEOL']=="\n"?'N':'')); $CSVstruct['File'] .= implode($CSVstruct['Sep'],$data).$CSVstruct['OutEOL']; } // returns an array of rows (each row being an array of columns) with parsed data. Returns false when conversion fails. Auto-detects Win/Mac/*nix newline characters, which are converted all to the sequence specified (defaults to $CSVstruct['OutEOL']) for your convenience. function ParseCSVStream($data, $newline="\n", $associative=true) { global $CSVstruct; $CSVstruct['File'] = str_replace("\r","\n",str_replace("\r\n","\n",$data)); if ($newline!="\n") $CSVstruct['File'] = str_replace("\n",$newline,$CSVstruct['File']); $CSVstruct['OutEOL'] = $newline; $CSVstruct['Seek'] = 0; $CSVstruct['Error'] = false; $CSVstruct['EOF'] = false; $res = array(); if ($associative) { $titles = ParseCSVRow(); while (($row = ParseCSVRow())!==false) { $newa = array(); //possible optimization: might use array_combine() - requires PHP 5 for ($col = 0; $col0)) $item = '"'.str_replace('"','""',str_replace($CSVstruct['OutEOL'],"\n",$item)).'"'; } function ExCSVRowWalkerN(&$item) { if (!is_numeric($item)&&(strlen($item)>0)) $item = '"'.str_replace('"','""',$item).'"'; } // read next line from buffer. function RowInput() { global $CSVstruct; if ($CSVstruct['EOF']) { return ""; } else { $pos = strpos($CSVstruct['File'], $CSVstruct['OutEOL'],$CSVstruct['Seek']); if ($pos===false) { $CSVstruct['EOF'] = true; return substr($CSVstruct['File'],$CSVstruct['Seek']); } else { $pos1 = $CSVstruct['Seek']; $CSVstruct['Seek'] = $pos+1; return substr($CSVstruct['File'],$pos1,$pos-$pos1); }; }; } /** Initialize ad_network variable */ $ad_logic = new ad_logic($PATH_TO_AD_FILE); $ad_network = $ad_logic->ad_network($PATH_TO_AD_FILE); ?>