[Soc] NYTimes on Craigslist Missed Connections

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/23/nyregion/23romance.html?oref=login



Categorized under the label Missed Connections, the messages are posted by waitresses longing for patrons, customers lusting after shop clerks and subway passengers pining away for one another. Pessimists see the bulletin board, which gets about 7,000 postings per month, as an online repository for regret. Optimists see it as an opportunity for second chances and serendipity.


You know, I've always wondered how many people found their missed connection. Also interesting is how Craigslist decided to create the Missed Connections group.


Missed Connections was created in 2000 after Craigslist employees noticed "I saw you" messages popping up in the personals section. The name of the category was chosen as a transportation metaphor. "Our motivation is simply that this is something that happened to all of us," said Craig Newmark, an Internet pioneer who started Craigslist in San Francisco.


Of course, here's the main problem:


Completing a missed connection is a challenge requiring that the desired person see the message, reciprocate the feeling and respond. People can be married or in committed relationships. Others do not share the appropriate sexual orientation.

Comments

Anonymous said…
ah, actually I suggested it to the team out of a sense of romanticism, a sense of what happens when you meet someone, and no one gets the others' phone number.

Craig (lived on Negley hill twelve years ago)
7:04 PM
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