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While Knight Ridder received a financial makeover with its acquisition by McClatchy, the site blamed frequently for the demise of classified ad revenue took on a new look at the SXSW conference.

As noted by Valleywag, Craiglist got a makeover to its long-time look and feel. A six-person panel at the South by Southwest conference made a series of changes to the site's Austin, TX, appearance, visible at the link.

The design makes use of more whitespace, created by shifting the city list to the bottom of the page, and using smaller fonts for links on the left and right sides of the site. During the session where the redesign was unveiled, the panel invited Craigslist founder Craig Newmark onstage for his impressions, Valleywag recounted:

"It's good. I like it." Would Craigslist try any of the changes? "Talk to my CEO, Jim Buckmaster -- who's featured in Fortune, there's a photo of him on a bear rug. Anyway, it looks good."
Craigslist now has sites for 219 cities, according to Classified Intelligence, going online in new places from Chattanooga, TN, to Taipei, China. Only eBay's Kijiji international classifieds group is in more cities.

Recently, Craigslist had to delay a plan to charge brokers in New York City $10 per listing. They had planned to begin that on March 1st, but subsequently changed the date per a post from Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster:

Based on feedback received through your emails and in this forum, we are not convinced we are ready to provide the level of customer service required for paid postings in the NYC apartment categories, and will be postponing charging by at least 2 weeks. More details to come.

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David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.