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Bye Bye Craigslist

blog.padmapper.com

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Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#81

Post by psc »

juiceandjuice wrote: post #62
jamiequint wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The magic recipe that keeps people coming back is that Craigslist has a large network. I would be willing to bet a large amount of money that adding a map to search results and letting me put an upper limit on the number of bedrooms I'm looking for would not make people less likely to use Craigslist.

To be fair to Craigslist, since everyone and their grandma uses it, I'd imagine a lot of users have underpowered computers, outdated browsers, and low bandwidth connections. I've seen padmapper slow wayyyy down on my i7 macbook with 8GB ram, I can't imagine what it'd be like on grandma's 5 year old budget PC.

Features can be added without alienating users with outdated tech. Just conditionally show the improved site only to users who can run it. It's a poor excuse, especially since Craigslist hasn't even tried to improve the layout of the site, which has no effect on load speed and compatibility.

Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#82

Post by readme »

I am totally upset. I wanted to use padmapper to search for an apartment for my next move. I had been looking with it for months and wow it was super helpful.

Please, make a client-side solution so they can't shut you off! A browser based plugin, for example that allows us to plot the listings on our end.

I wrote this email to craigslist:

Hi Craig and Jim,

I am very upset that you cut off padmapper. Using padmapper cuts out a lot of the spam that ends up in the apartment listings due to the fact that it doesn't have a lat,long pair most of the time. It also makes it much easier to search for apartments based on your preference. With padmapper, I could see if the apartment I'm looking at is in a safe area, how far it is from a potential employer, and a myriad of other great things.

Finding an apartment with craigslist, in spite of the fact that you have the data, is much harder than searching on padmapper.

I really wish there was a way you could work with them!

You guys are a solid blue chip, no doubt. But if you take this oligarchical perspective to your business, someone is going to beat you eventually.

Thank you for your continued service

Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#83

Post by dr42 »

robrenaud wrote: post #48
fleitz wrote: post #33

Kudos to CL for standing up for user privacy. When I use CL it's with consideration of their TOS which bans these practices. When padmapper copies the data they violate my privacy, my copyright, and the agreement between myself and craigslist as outlined in the TOS. What padmapper is doing is a violation of many data privacy laws like PIPEDA, EUDPD, and various copyright acts. If padmapper wants the data why don't th…

This isn't making a permanent record of casual encounters. It's putting apartment listings on a map. People listing apartments tend to want it to be widely known.

People listing apartments tend to want it to be widely "known."

those same people are already getting their listing widely known, by posting it on CL.

Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#84

Post by huckleberries21 »

binaryorganic wrote: post #37
jamiequint wrote: post #29

This is just offensive. It would be one thing if Craigslist was doing their best to satisfy their customers and they wanted to shut down others who were scraping their site and leeching off their business. However, Craigslist puts absolutely no effort into making their product usable. The continued existence of Craigslist is just a testimony to the enormous strength of network effect lock in.

Disagree. Craig Newmark has said that he's scared to make drastic changes to the UX specifically because he doesn't know what magic recipe keeps people coming back. Do I like the CL layout? Nope. Does that mean other people should steal the content and profit from it? Probably not.

If they don't want to change their layout, why not let sites like PadMapper build on it the way that it has been doing? That way, old-fashioned users can keep using just CL and people in need of something slicker can use PM+CL.

I also don't understand why classifieds content is proprietary? Aren't they just facts? Please can someone explain?

Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#85

Post by icebraining »

Stefan_H wrote: post #46
jamiequint wrote: post #29

This is just offensive. It would be one thing if Craigslist was doing their best to satisfy their customers and they wanted to shut down others who were scraping their site and leeching off their business. However, Craigslist puts absolutely no effort into making their product usable. The continued existence of Craigslist is just a testimony to the enormous strength of network effect lock in.

So your argument is "Since they are not doing everything they can with their content, I can steal it"?

The content isn't theirs. They just have a license to display it.

Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#86

Post by runako »

kthakar3 wrote: post #70

I wonder why CL doesn't create an API and charge for it's usage. The data is clearly valuable and they own it, but that doesn't mean that it can't use multiple views.

This is only useful if the teams scraping CL have budget to pay a market rate for the data. Considering that CL seems to have a lock on this data for many markets, I'm guessing that's worth a lot of money (which startups will not be able to afford).

Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#87

Post by psc »

dr42 wrote: post #80
grantjgordon wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard for me to see this as stealing content since: 1) Padmapper shows the original craigslist page when you click through to the details page. 2) Padmapper doesn't seem to be monetizing itself in any obvious way, at least not directly through ads on content. 3) Craigslist doesn't monetize its content through ads, anyway. Essentially all it offers is a wrapper that lowers the friction to discovery. You know, like…

The difference is that the search engines aggregate from the whole web, PadMapper was just appropriating content from CL, which is against their TOS. It's very clearly spelled out. All the other companies that have tried have also been told to C&D. If you don't like it, start your own network... From http://www.craigslist.org/about/terms.of.use "Any copying, aggregation, display, distribution, performance or derivati…

PadMapper gets content from more than just Craigslist. They have their own postings (padlister.com), sublet.com, apartments.com, apartmentfinder.com and a lot more. There's really not that much difference between them and a search engine.

Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#88

Post by jessriedel »

potatolicious wrote: post #54
jessriedel wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Craigslist is closer to a non-profit than a business. You can't model them as a self-interested agent.

And like many other non-profits, the quality of the service shows - the service is merely "good enough" (in many categories, far less than good enough), with no competitive pressure to improve. We have already seen the meteoric rise of many niche, category-specific Craigslist competitors eclipse CL in scale and influence, particularly in real estate. I suspect due to Craiglist's general crappy experience this fragmen…

Well, the lack of competitive pressure stems more from network effects than being non-profit per se.

Because of this, I don't see the fragmentation as a good thing. One of two things will happen in each craigslist market (rentals, used goods, ridesharing, etc.): either a single for-profit company will ride networks effects and establish a monopoly, or there will be severe fragmentation.

If the former, then you can expect some features to improve (in order to steal the market from craigslist in the first place) but many other things to languish due to a lack of competitive pressure. (Also, if it's a for-profit company, you'll pay money.) This is ebay.

If the latter, then it will no longer be possible to go so one site to search in that market, greatly decreasing consumer utility. This is how classified ads worked before craigslist.

Much better is a well-run, benevolent non-profit. Wikipedia, though not flawless, is pretty much the epitome of this idea. It's scary to think what it would be like if Wikipedia's data was spread over dozens of websites of varying quality and motivation. (Then again, in the scenario no one would bothered to write most of the articles anyway.)

Craigslist doesn't fit this exactly because they impose a philosophy ("localism"?) which most people don't share and which decreases usability.

Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#90

Post by icebraining »

blackysky wrote: post #67

At the end of the day it is Craigslist's data. I know padmapper was useful for a lot of people so the next smart move is to build your own data. A "craiglist" focus on rental only with the same features. The sad reality is you need your own platform to scale any type of services like that.Is it going to be easy and fast to build. The answer is no. However the reward and opportunity are huge.... Of course it would be…

At the end of the day it is Craigslist's data.

Nope. It's the users' data. Craigslist only has a license to use it.

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