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Bye Bye Craigslist

blog.padmapper.com

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Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#151

Post by ssebro »

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 this is true, then he (Craig Newmark) really needs to read the innovator's dilemma (http://www.amazon.com/The-Innovators-Dilemma-Revolutionary-B...). TLDR: If you allow yourself to become a prisoner to your success, you're actually making your continued success unlikely. You can solve the dilemma by spinning out a smaller, irreverant version of yourself & giving them what they need to destroy the old company.

In craigslist's case, he could include a link on the old site that allows users to upgrade to a more modern version, and have the modern site basically consume an api/scrape the old CL till it gained momentum.

Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#152

Post by sliverstorm »

bermanoid wrote: post #125
mtrimpe wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yup, there's a catch-22 here: when your site has shitty usability but is the only source of information, people hit more pages and spend more time there. When you fix your UI mistakes, they're in and out quicker because they actually get what they need efficiently. Because you're optimizing for engagement by measuring time on site or something like that, you end up making sure never to make your site easy to use. Thi…

Because you're optimizing for engagement by measuring time on site or something like that

Oh good, nobody actually told you how they measured but you already know! Bravo.

Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#153

Post by eli »

grantjgordon wrote: post #61
Stefan_H wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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…

You expect Google, Bing and DDG to honor requests not to be indexed, don't you? How is this different?

And what Craigslist does or doesn't do to make money shouldn't change what you're allowed to do with their content.

Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#154

Post by personlurking »

marquis wrote: post #127
alister wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 metrop…

There are various examples of Craiglist just simply not working in various countries. In fact I'm going to go out on a limb and posit that Craigslist really only had a monopoly in the U.S. Brazil uses olx (I think?), Argentina and Mexico among other Latin American countries use mercadolibre where Craigslist is more for baiting foreigners with higher rent prices and international shared accomodation. Australia has gum…

'alister' made some good points up top. Let me get further into the rental side of the subject.

As someone who, on many occasions, has rented in Brazil using classifieds sites, it's a mess. 'We' really, really need a CL-type site that everyone knows and uses. As a Californian, and former user of CL, it boggles my mind why CL-Brazil isn't used. It's there (here), it's usable, simple, and in Portuguese.

Instead, people use OLX (free) a little, Vivastreet (free) a little, EasyQuarto (paid) a little, and a few other sites that are either less popular or only work sometimes. Couchsurfing city-specific groups usually each have a sub-group for renting but a strange occurrence takes place there, almost no one puts the price-point. It's called doing business, paying money for a product or service, yet there's a real aversion to giving up the rental price in one's ad. Luckily, the more popular sites I mentioned make it so one has to list their rental price.

And my final two gripes are that very few people respond to inquiries into any particular ad (I think this is universal though) and a good 60% of ads here in Brazil only want women renters.

It's tough, I tell you...

Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#155

Post by sliverstorm »

bcrescimanno wrote: post #7

I hope this doesn't get down-voted for the confusing title (I know it's the title of the Blog post itself; but out of context it's a bit misleading). When I moved from Atlanta to Boston, PadMapper was invaluable in finding a place to live. Given that 1) we didn't know the area, and 2) most rentals in Boston and Cambridge are rented by individuals rather than part of larger complexes, it was great to be able to have t…

PadMapper is a great tool that deserves access to that data.

Why do they deserve access?

Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#156

Post by kylelibra »

For those wishing to take action:

jim@craigslist.org – Jim Buckmaster, CEO

craig@craigslist.org – Craig Newmark, Founder

@jimbuckmaster on twitter - http://twitter.com/jimbuckmaster

@craignewmark on twitter - http://twitter.com/craignewmark

Simple email to copy and paste:

Jim and Craig,

I'm a longtime user of Craigslist, but I'm really disappointed in your decision regarding PadMapper. It would be great if you could weigh in on the debate happening on Hacker News or elsewhere.

Thanks,

Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#157

Post by iamwil »

trustfundbaby wrote: post #138
MartinCron wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does that mean other people should steal the content and profit from it? Craigslist is unwilling to let Padmapper buy a license to use their content. This isn't as black and white as "stealing content".

Its their content, just because they won't let you use it doesn't mean you can break in and grab it.

They also don't have an API, and they also don't allow you to pay for a license or API for websites.

Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#158

Post by eli »

ssebro wrote: post #151
binaryorganic wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 this is true, then he (Craig Newmark) really needs to read the innovator's dilemma ( http://www.amazon.com/The-Innovators-Dilemma-Revolutionary-B... ). TLDR: If you allow yourself to become a prisoner to your success, you're actually making your continued success unlikely. You can solve the dilemma by spinning out a smaller, irreverant version of yourself & giving them what they need to destroy the old company. In…

I get what you're saying... But it's hard to argue with a strategy that's been absolutely dominating its industry for over a decade.

Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#159

Post by iamwil »

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.

Padmapper doesn't make money from Craigslist listings.

It also sends traffic back to CL. It shows the summary of the listing, and then when the user is interested, they can click through the pin to the actual Craigslist listing.

Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#160

Post by eli »

nottombrown wrote: post #49
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.

Agreed. Housing, where location is easily the most important factor, is where Craigslist is least usable as a product. Padmapper's success is a testament to Craigslist's users wanting something better. This is a big middle finger to all those users.

I agree with you, but if PadMapper is really that much better, what's stopping them from getting users to post directly on their site?
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