Ask YC: Anyone working on applications for Craigslist? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask YC: Anyone working on applications for Craigslist?

#21

Post by STHayden » Sun, Apr 20, 2008, 11:59 PM UTC

jrockway wrote: post #14

dcurtis wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain why you're creating a craigslist competitor? I'm having a hard time understanding why so many people are doing this. What problem are you solving?

I got my first two apartments on Craigslist, both a few years ago. I was looking for a new one this year on Craigslist, but the rentals section is so full of lies and "call me for info" that it's worthless. Basically, the openness of Craigslist is destroying it. I'm not sure how to solve the problem, but I would really like a forum that is non-commercial.

it's a hard problem in general because craigslist has such market share... when myspace was that dominant back in the day every one knew they would fall eventually because myspace was such a pain to use.

craigslist's problems are not so glaringly functional. They have safety problems with anonymous posters and scamers. They have issues with locking out people in the development community. I've heard a lot of complains about their forums.

It's hard to figure out the best way to attack though problems in a way that draws people from craigslist to a new service.

Re: Ask YC: Anyone working on applications for Craigslist?

#22

Post by vesterr » Mon, Apr 21, 2008, 12:48 AM UTC

nuggien wrote: post #19

vesterr wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ha, with EC2 you can get around that now. Separate your website IP from your crawling IP, and every time CL blocks an IP, switch to a new one. Eventually they'll have to block the entire AWS range, but that's okay, you can crawl over cablemodem/DSL connections that use DHCP. What are they going to do, block Verizon, Comcast and Time Warner? Then you can get around referer [sic] blocks for your links to CL that the us…

Why would you go to all that effort if they don't want to play with you in the first place? If they really wanted to block you, they'll do it through their lawyers.

That stuff is really easy.

And you may convince them to join you after all, like YouTube and the media companies they parasite off of.

Re: Ask YC: Anyone working on applications for Craigslist?

#23

Post by cmm324 » Mon, Apr 21, 2008, 3:17 AM UTC

jrockway wrote: post #14

dcurtis wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain why you're creating a craigslist competitor? I'm having a hard time understanding why so many people are doing this. What problem are you solving?

I got my first two apartments on Craigslist, both a few years ago. I was looking for a new one this year on Craigslist, but the rentals section is so full of lies and "call me for info" that it's worthless. Basically, the openness of Craigslist is destroying it. I'm not sure how to solve the problem, but I would really like a forum that is non-commercial.

Our goal for our startup http://www.propertystampede.com is to captures the dynamic listings that craigslist does for rental property, but in a fraud free environment.

Come check us out, and if you have rental property or are a property manager, please sign up for the beta.

Christopher Mancini Co-Founder, Property Stampede LLC

Re: Ask YC: Anyone working on applications for Craigslist?

#24

Post by nuggien » Mon, Apr 21, 2008, 4:17 AM UTC

vesterr wrote: post #22

nuggien wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you go to all that effort if they don't want to play with you in the first place? If they really wanted to block you, they'll do it through their lawyers.

That stuff is really easy. And you may convince them to join you after all, like YouTube and the media companies they parasite off of.

I didn't say it was hard.

It's also very easy to differentiate between a crawler and a user. But they don't even have to do that. Blocking the entire AWS ip range isn't hard either. I doubt any craigslist users browse the site through AWS :)

Re: Ask YC: Anyone working on applications for Craigslist?

#25

Post by aquateen » Mon, Apr 21, 2008, 7:58 AM UTC

aaronsw wrote: post #7

gscott wrote: post #2

Craigslist doesn't have an open system. Craigslist blocks ip's of those accessing there system through a web application and they send out lots of cease and desist notices. It just is not worth the time to develop something that might even benefit Craigslist. Piggybacking on bigger sites is a good idea, just find one that is interested. Paypal did for eBay and it worked out for them, There is a lot of room to develop…

That's a pretty serious claim; any pointers? If you've got some I'll be sure to nag Craig about it next time I see him.

One example, I used to want to search for craigslist items regardless of location. I found some sites that briefly offered this service, but they were requested to stop by CL.

Re: Ask YC: Anyone working on applications for Craigslist?

#26

Post by aaronsw » Mon, Apr 21, 2008, 4:43 PM UTC

fragmede wrote: post #11

aaronsw wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a pretty serious claim; any pointers? If you've got some I'll be sure to nag Craig about it next time I see him.

listpic? http://mashable.com/2007/06/08/listpic-craigslist/

So the issue is: 1) they were putting ads on top of Craigslist, and 2) they were using up too much bandwidth. I expect if you actually wanted to build something useful you could just email Craig and he'd get you a dump.

Re: Ask YC: Anyone working on applications for Craigslist?

#27

Post by cmm324 » Mon, Apr 21, 2008, 6:07 PM UTC

cmm324 wrote: post #23

jrockway wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got my first two apartments on Craigslist, both a few years ago. I was looking for a new one this year on Craigslist, but the rentals section is so full of lies and "call me for info" that it's worthless. Basically, the openness of Craigslist is destroying it. I'm not sure how to solve the problem, but I would really like a forum that is non-commercial.

Our goal for our startup http://www.propertystampede.com is to captures the dynamic listings that craigslist does for rental property, but in a fraud free environment. Come check us out, and if you have rental property or are a property manager, please sign up for the beta. Christopher Mancini Co-Founder, Property Stampede LLC

Why the downmode? Our product is indirectly creating an environment for property managers to list individual units, and because of the design of the system, you have to be using our property management software to list on our listing engine. Reducing possible fraud if not eliminating it all together.

Our listing engine will not provide the same listings you see in forrent.com, rent.com and apartments.com, which is primarily apartment complexes. Our goal is to provide a wide variety of rental listings more similar to craigslist. Listings that normally would not find themselves on the above mentioned sites due to the magnitude of cost that is required to list there.

For this I get downmoded :(

Sincerely, Christopher Mancini

Re: Ask YC: Anyone working on applications for Craigslist?

#28

Post by gscott » Tue, Apr 22, 2008, 1:07 AM UTC

aaronsw wrote: post #26

fragmede wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

listpic? http://mashable.com/2007/06/08/listpic-craigslist/

So the issue is: 1) they were putting ads on top of Craigslist, and 2) they were using up too much bandwidth. I expect if you actually wanted to build something useful you could just email Craig and he'd get you a dump.

There have been a few others, one fellow made a search system (using the rss feeds) where you can search across cities (by using checkboxes to select the different areas). Craiglist didn't like that.

I guess the bigger question is, what would Craigslist like? I am not sure, I just have not seen anything survive yet because Craigslist hasn't liked anything anyone has done so far.