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Bye Bye Craigslist

blog.padmapper.com

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Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#161

Post by anewguy »

huckleberries21 wrote: post #84
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 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?

Because that would endanger their monopoly.

Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#162

Post by eli »

iamwil wrote: post #157
trustfundbaby wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Do you have anything you're unwilling to sell? And if so is it cool if I just take it?

Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#163

Post by biot »

fleitz wrote: post #45
refurb wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you post on Craigslist, you're posting on a public forum. What expectation of privacy could you possibly have?

The expectation outlined in the TOS, as well as the privacy guidelines set out in PIPEDA.

I fail to see how PIPEDA is involved. The information being published on PadMapper is information which you've chosen to publicly disclose. The fact that this publicly disclosed information is showing up on a site you didn't intend might make a case for tort law or copyright law, but there is no disclosure of information that you expected to remain private.

Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#164

Post by webwright »

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.

Bah. Just because improve a web site is hard doesn't mean that you don't have a responsibility to your users to TRY. Craigslist has not. There are ways to experiment in a low-impact way. Hell, they could offer a "plugin" system, so that users could add the padmapper plugin.

People keep building things using Craigslist data that users LOVE and Craigslist keeps shutting them down.

Craigslist is one of the great squandered opportunities for awesomeness on the internet.

Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#165

Post by ericd »

Hi everyone, Eric from PadMapper here, thanks for all the comments!

To everyone saying that this is lifting their content, I disagree - it makes a summary of the content and then points back to the original. If I wanted to lift their stuff, I would have made separate pages that laid things out better than the original. Literally none of the text except the title and location string make it into the summary.

It's not a copyright issue, their main legal beef is that it's against their TOU for anything but general search engines to index their content - no vertical ones allowed. Who knows what their actual motivation is.

Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#166

Post by MichaelGG »

Avitas wrote: post #52

I would make the same argument that many are making with Cragislist about IRC, the use of multi-digit telephone numbers and a huge variety of other entrenched technologies that work reliably for enormous numbers of people. The entrenched technologies are clearly excellent in the context of what they do. Can additions be made which allow one to comprehend data faster, summarize and/or visualize groups of data, filter…

Or maybe those that are "forgiving" find that this "leeching" is creating a positive benefit for society as a whole, and that ultimately, IP laws are there to benefit the public.

Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#167

Post by biot »

eli wrote: post #162
iamwil wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Do you have anything you're unwilling to sell? And if so is it cool if I just take it?

This is unfortunately an increasingly common viewpoint. See for example the recent "Take My Money, HBO" site where people justify pirating the content because HBO won't sell episodes/seasons directly to them.

Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#168

Post by toddmorey »

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.

I would still conjecture that Craigslist succeeded in spite of their design, not because of it. That's the problem with these things, it's really hard to reverse engineer a success like Craigslist and figure out which of the moving pieces were real contributors.

Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#169

Post by iamwil »

cwp wrote: post #131

Disappointing. I'm currently living in an apartment I found via Padmapper and Craigslist. Padmapper was absolutely crucial, without it I wouldn't have found this place. I understand why they're complying with the C+D, but I wish they'd fight it. Craigslist is better than printed classifieds, but that's about the best thing you can say about it.

I think it's harder for small guys like Padmapper to fight them, because 1) There's no money for lawyering 2) Craigslist says that they listen more to users for UI.

So if you'd like to see CL give Padmapper license to use its data, send them an email. Your voice as a CL user weight more than Padmapper's would.

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