Though I had been hearing a lot about a US-based free online classified service called Craigslist but it wasn't until a few weeks ago that I started to realize the effective power and usefulness of this service also for many people outside the US.

Photo credit: Neža Čerin

Craigslist has been frequently pointed to for decimating classified advertising revenue of local newspapers, though the likely reason why newspapers are losing circulation is that too many traditional journalists have been losing the credibility and trust of their readers.
Online news readers seem to prefer the "independent", "open source" model of journalism where a growing number of individual investigators, news reporters, and bloggers act as genuine news reporters, fact checkers for the mainstream reporting, and early scouts of many unique stories.
What Craigslist offers is the opportunity to post online free classifieds through a web-based system that makes it both extremely easy and effective to sell or seek anything from an apartment to an expert in just about any field.

The first time I came in direct contact with Craigslist was a few weeks ago, during my stay over in San Francisco.

My host, a long-time friend from the university days, received during my stay a nice and unexpected present from her next door neighbors: a set of eight tickets to the next day baseball match, in some of the best seats available at the stadium.

I couldn't believe my eyes.
Within minutes my friend received multiple requests for the tickets and by providing to the prospective buyers her Skype number she was in no time talking to some of them.
In fifteen minutes all tickets were sold.

So, you may wonder, what are the "traits" that make Craigslist such a uniquely efficient tool for matching classified requests?
Read more to find out.