Best Local Website

Ignore the text-only design that seems a throwback to the early days of the World Wide Web. The Miami section of craigslist.org -- which includes browsers from across South Florida -- is arguably one of the most dynamic in the online subtropics. Craig Newmark founded the nonprofit online community in San Francisco in the 1990s at the urging of friends. Over the past decade, the website has expanded to cover more than 30 metropolitan areas, including the website for South Florida, which launched in October 2002. What has made South Florida's craigslist.org so successful is its decidedly local edge. It's a communal bulletin board designed for neighbors to exchange opinions, advertise services, discover new loves, find an activity partner, or locate an activity partner for whom you have to, well, uh, pay. The site receives several hundred posts per day; a good number are from Broward and Palm Beach counties. Posting a message is free since craigslist.org is noncommercial. It costs money only to post a job advertisement, and the revenue is used to operate and maintain the site. Of course, you can be completely anonymous when you post, even if you're the 25-year-old straight dude who recently advertised for "someone to give me a prostate massage." So log on and talk politics, give away your old couch, adopt a pet, breed your snake, sell your car, find a job -- it's all possible at miami.craigslist.org.