NOTEBOOK:

Some time ago, Craigslist founder Craig Newmark famously made the comment that he was going to begin dabbling in community journalism. It was a fascination of his, I recall him saying, and his hope was to arm citizen journalists to provide news and information that could rival mainstream media.

I recall thinking at the time: “Bring it on Newmark! Let’s see if you can compete with the likes of the Daily Pilot.”

Newmark hasn’t made good on that effort just yet, though his personal blogs on Craigslist show he hasn’t stopped thinking about it.

Whether Craigslist ventures into community journalism, it would be hard for those of us in the media business to dispute his success in the area of classified advertising and how it has affected newspapers big and small.

Unlike much print advertising, Craigslist is free in most cases and its ads from men seeking women to cars for sale are seen by millions.

As websites go, the Orange County version of Craig’s List, at https://orangecounty.craigslist.org, is not pretty. No great design. Just simplicity like Google. Hence its great success, I believe.

But even still, can Craigslist, which is a big, big online giant, really fly low enough here in the local community to compete against us, even in the classified advertising area?

Well, I performed an experiment, albeit a very, very unscientific one, that gives me doubt that Craigslist can really compete with us.

A couple weeks ago, my wife and I agreed that the puppy that we were given as a gift was just too much for us to take care of. It was not that we didn’t like it or that it wasn’t a good dog, but with three children under the age of 7, we could not give the puppy the time and attention it needed. It wasn’t fair to the puppy, really.

We didn’t want the puppy to end up at the animal shelter, not that there is anything wrong with that, so we decided to place an ad and hope that a well-meaning and loving family would get the dog.

I placed an ad in two places: Craigslist online and in the Daily Pilot classified pages, both under the pets section. For Craigslist I listed my e-mail address. For the Daily Pilot ad, I listed my mobile phone number. I was really curious to see which would get the greatest response.

The next day it was a slam dunk. About five e-mails right off the bat from the Craigslist ad. The next day, about three more.

And what about my phone? Dead silent.

Talk about worried. Were classified print ads really that dead?

Then a funny thing happened. My phone started to ring. And it rang and it rang and it rang. The print ads were working, and I got flooded with phone calls.

In fact, the phone calls easily outnumbered the Craigslist e-mails by a 2-to-1 margin.

So what does this all mean?

I’m not really sure. But I do have a hunch.

You see, while Craigslist and Google and eBay and Yahoo, et al., can all take major chunks out of mainstream big media, the local community news franchises may prove a little bit harder, if not impossible, to capsize.

Try as he might, Craig Newmark just isn’t going to be able to cover the race on the Balboa Peninsula this November with his Craigslist correspondents. To know who wins the Battle of the Bay this year between Newport Harbor and Corona del Mar, readers will have to pick up or log on to the Daily Pilot.

If you want to go to a local garage sale, the Daily Pilot is probably still your best source of local advertising.

So what about the fate of the puppy, you ask?

Well, to be honest, we gave her away to a nice young family, who contacted me via e-mail by Craigslist.

But it had nothing to do with the advertising and everything to do with the notion of first come, first served.

So keep that in mind, Newmark — first come, first served.

When it comes to community journalism in Newport-Mesa, you’re definitely not the first guy on the block.