This morning I was reading about Facebook’s rumored upcoming “Craigslist Killer”. My initial reaction was as I imagine yours was: “That makes sense! I spend all day keeping tabs on Facebook anyway.” That reaction was stifled within a moment, and the residual hesitation set in.
I don’t know exactly what Facebook will roll out, and my hesitations may be completely off-base, but my instincts and past experience are telling me it will fail. And it will fail much in the same way Google+ failed. (I was right about Google+ before it failed.)
Google+’s primary downfall was in design and marketing 101—a failure to identify a need before presenting a solution. It positioned itself as a “Facebook Killer”, hindering success by automatically putting it into a head-to-head challenge with the most successful online product to date. Anything it didn’t do better than Facebook was perceived as failure and the focus was drawn away from what it did that Facebook didn’t. Additionally, likening it to Facebook assumed it needed to compete for the same marketshare, rather than identifying its own position outside of (and overlapping with) the market Facebook occupies. Each user felt like they needed to choose one or the other and declare a personal winner.
If Google had instead positioned Google+ as a productivity tool, adding a social layer to its own office, email, and cloud services suite, it could have replaced Sharepoint (et al.) through convenience and economics. Having everyone use Google+ at the office would have naturally lent to it bleeding into the home environment, as people transitioned from their work account into their home account. In the end, it could have ended up as the “Facebook Killer” it wanted to be, without hitting the “but it doesn’t do XYZ as well as Facebook” wall mentioned above. Google+ would never have been compared to Facebook, and the orchestrated audience migration would have appeared to be user-instigated.
Out of the gates, Facebook’s Craigslist competitor faces the same hurdles. To live up to that title (media-generated or not) and to be successful, Facebook will be required to meet and/or exceed every audience-appreciated facet of the existing Craigslist platform. Additionally, Facebook will be missing out on opportunities in the marketplace because all resources will need to be dedicated to meeting those goals, rather than innovating.
All of that said, if the playing field is being leveled, Facebook is at a significant disadvantage against Craigslist merely by their privacy model. Craigslist is a novelty because it is one of the few sites left on the internet with a Wild West feel to it. You can post pretty much anything you want, anonymously, and until it is flagged by someone, it will spread virally. Facebook would not only remove the sense of anonymity, but would probably promote content across your network. I don’t know about you, but my friends and family are not my customer base on Craigslist. Most of them are not local, and I probably don’t want them to know I am selling that wedding gift that just doesn’t fit into our decorating aesthetic. My friend doesn’t want her network to know she is posting personal ads for a Valentine’s date, or a new roommate who doesn’t snore (because she is otherwise friends with the current who does snore). Suddenly, Facebook’s privacy and permissions settings have gotten twice as complex, where they were already a Rubik’s Cube. None of this is assuming you are selling something more taboo or even borderline illegal.
In Summary
To reach success in the manner the product is currently being positioned, there will be an extremely tall order in terms of meeting and exceding audience expectation. That isn’t likely to happen when you step back and ask yourself why you use each site and realize the two don’t mesh together well.
This high bar could be avoided by properly positioning the product as a new type of tool, rather than boasting it is the next sliced bread. Note, we always talk about great things being on par with sliced bread, yet sliced bread has never been dethroned. Facebook should create a user marketplace that works, but they should take a good look at what their audience needs them to fulfill, rather than assuming they can simply do Craigslist’s job better than Craigslist—else the Facebook will be mocked like the Google.