More mid-'90s than 'new media'

EBay's free classifieds Kijiji is gaining ground in the States, a  potentially worrisome piece of news for competitor craigslist.

Though eBay owns a quarter of craigslist; the other 75 percent is not for sale. Left adrift without a controlling interest in the successful local classified site, eBay launched Kijiji overseas in March 2005.

A US version opened last summer.

Kijiji has grown from 362,000 uniques in July 2007 to 1.8 milllion in January, according to comScore.

The figure pales to the 26.7 million visitors Craigslist had in January. comScore dubbed Kijiji the sixth most popular classified site in the US.