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Bye Bye Craigslist

blog.padmapper.com

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Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#111

Post by alister »

mtrimpe wrote: post #79
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.

Their magic recipe is that an amazing amount of non-technical people have figured out how to work with the site. The Dutch version of Craigslist (Marktplaats, owned by eBay) is in a similar predicament. They have a very sucky UI and have experimented with new and improved versions, but every improvement was quickly reverted after large drops in engagement. It's almost surreal to look at their site ( http://marktplaat…

Despite the very basic UI, the Dutch version of Craigslist seems to be doing well based on the hundreds of apartment listings in, for example, Amsterdam:

http://amsterdam.craigslist.org/apa/

But if I might inject an opposing data point, nobody seems to use the Brazilian version of Craigslist. Check out Sao Paulo:

http://saopaulo.craigslist.org/apa/

Can you believe that there are just 5 apartment listings for a metropolitan area of 19.9 million!

It's incomprehensible to me why Craigslist doesn't work there, especially since all the alternatives involve paying some middleman for listing. The same goes for job sites and "things for sale" sites as well. Brazilians prefer to use some scammy-looking sites loaded with graphics and eye candy and often charging a fee, rather than the vanilla Craigslist.

I'm going to venture a guess that this has much more to do with trust (Brazilians want to feel that someone has vetted the data) than with good/bad UI or web design.

Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#112

Post by pg »

romansanchez wrote: post #69
makeramen wrote: post #44

Carsabi (YC W12) was also affected by this recently. Especially annoying midway through my car search. It is really disappointing that Craiglist won't license their data.

I would say this pretty much killed Carsabi.

Actually not. Enough of their content is direct from dealers that it looks like they will be able to bounce back.

Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#113

Post by rdl »

Why not buy a license and go hard on mobile? Then use that to get more direct listings, ideally with ACTUAL STRUCTURED DATA unlike the shit that is craigslist (i.e. closer to MLS, or even better, closer to the proprietary systems used inside large real estate investment companies), and then re-release a web version using only those listings.

Maybe focus on SFBA only, since the real estate situation is acutely broken here AND smart+rich people still rent here (unlike Texas or the midwest, with NYC being its own weird market).

Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#114

Post by nottombrown »

aheilbut wrote: post #95
jamiequint wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While the pageload speed may be faster the total speed to find what I'm looking for is drastically slower due to the fact that the interface sucks.

Which paradoxically, seems to be an advantage, because it puts people in a feedback loop where they stay on the site, and every new search provides a tiny bit of reinforcement that builds the habit.

Failing to find what you're looking for because of a frustrating UI is not positive reinforcement. People stay on the site because it is the largest marketplace and they have no alternatives.

Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#115

Post by fleitz »

ericd wrote: post #72
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…

PadMapper team here, I don't show your copyrighted text, I link to your posts an provide a preview of the stats. Just a clarification.

Oh awesome, I thought it was a generic scraping site.

Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#116

Post by olog-hai »

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.

The same is true of Facebook. That hasn't stopped them from evolving their design.

Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#117

Post by lindablus »

PadMapper is like the super helpful feature that craigslist did not figure out how to build correctly, or never bothered to build. I'm disappointed that Craigslist chose to respond by making a great social utility disappear from the market and anger the users. What about charging a license fee? What about acquiring PadMapper? What exactly does Craigslist gain by pulling its index off from PadMapper other than damaging its own public image?

Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#118

Post by _ques »

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…

Not true. Padmapper has multiple DBs.

Google can scan apartment listings and show them as results in their format. PadMapper cant. What's the difference?

See http://www.craigslist.org/robots.txt .

Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#119

Post by cwp »

guelo wrote: post #104
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…

PIPEDA is a Canadian privacy law and EUDPD is a European one. I don't believe padmapper operates outside the US.

I used it to find an apartment in Vancouver. Still, I have a hard time finding sympathy for somebody that posts something on a public web site, and expects it to remain private.

Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#120

Post by Zak »

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…

Kudos to CL for standing up for user privacy.

While I appreciate the sentiment, it is very unlikely that a landlord would object to an apartment listing being aggregated so as to expose it to more users.

If padmapper wants the data why don't they just obtain consent from the CL posters, instead of copying it without consent.

How do you propose padmapper do that without violating the Craigslist TOS in some other way like bulk-emailing everyone who lists an apartment?

I'm not saying their conduct wasn't a bit of a grey area, against the TOS and maybe a copyright violation, but I don't think many Craigslist users would object personally to their posts being reposted in this manner.

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