Craig Newmark at Inman: Craigslist in 70 Cities

Craigslist Founder Craig Newmark made another of his regular visits to Brad Inman’s stage at Real Estate Connect today, which is taking place in San Francisco. Newmark, who humbly refers to himself as working in customer service, noted that Craigslist is now in 70 cities and receives more than 50 million unique visitors a month. Those visitors look at more than 20 billion page views a month.

Craigslist has been taking a beating from law enforcement officials over its adult ads and other subjects, but Newmark says that the complaints are not really making much of an impact. “People like to manufacture controversy,” he says. But Craigslist remains both “a business and a community service.”

In fact, the service has generally made strides in most areas, thanks in part to the addition of more customer service employees. The service now has 35 employees.

The most complaints are in New York, due to abuses of apartment listings. But “there has been a big improvement. It is better than it was five years ago,” says Newmark, who also answered personal questions and discussed government issues. In answer to an audience question, he noted that he did not find his girl friend on Craigslist. He also says that a pre-nup between them is the “subject of negotiation.”