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Bye Bye Craigslist

blog.padmapper.com

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Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#171

Post by ericd »

GigabyteCoin wrote: post #103

I expected padmapper to be shut down a long time ago. Mainly because they are an incredible threat to the websites they are scraping all of their data from. That's probably why padmapper has no way of making money at the moment. They were hoping they could slink by, stealing other's content, until they were eventually big enough for people to warrant visiting them to list their apartments for rent. And then sell ads.…

You're right, I was hoping I could go on, but I wasn't stealing anyone's content, I was posting links pasted geographically located with stat summaries. Look at a listing on PadMapper - there's no listing text, and when you click through, it goes to the original listing.

Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#172

Post by eli »

I personally would have tried to find a way to work with them. But it's not my site.

Craig isn't doing anything wrong or unethical here. Quite the opposite; Craigslist continues to deliver exactly what its users signed up for.

Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#173

Post by minouye »

ericd wrote: post #165

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…

Serious question: Do you think CL would actually follow through with a lawsuit? It seems like they fire off C&D's all the time, but I have yet to see serious follow through.

Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#174

Post by ericd »

eli wrote: post #153
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…

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.

PadMapper obeys robots.txt's, for the record. Also, it doesn't repost their content, it reposts facts about the content, which is a pretty key difference.

They've had an informal amnesty for services using their stuff for a long time, Craig has stated that they're OK with services that interface with them as long as they don't use many server resources, but they recently updated their TOU and started sending out huge waves of C&D's a few weeks ago, based on my talking with people.

Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#175

Post by ceph_ »

sliverstorm wrote: post #152
bermanoid wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Remember, if the numbers don't support your opinion, it's because your measuring the wrong thing!

Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#176

Post by eli »

ericd wrote: post #174
eli wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

PadMapper obeys robots.txt's, for the record. Also, it doesn't repost their content, it reposts facts about the content, which is a pretty key difference. They've had an informal amnesty for services using their stuff for a long time, Craig has stated that they're OK with services that interface with them as long as they don't use many server resources, but they recently updated their TOU and started sending out huge…

So if they add a Disallow line for PadMapper to robots.txt instead of sending a C&D, how does that change the situation in any meaningful way?

Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#177

Post by ericd »

minouye wrote: post #173
ericd wrote: post #165

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…

Serious question: Do you think CL would actually follow through with a lawsuit? It seems like they fire off C&D's all the time, but I have yet to see serious follow through.

No idea, but I've done a little bit of looking, and they have a history of attacking pretty aggressively, at least against things that auto-post. Those are mostly tools for spammers, though, so who knows if they'd come after me.

Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#178

Post by ericd »

eli wrote: post #176
ericd wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PadMapper obeys robots.txt's, for the record. Also, it doesn't repost their content, it reposts facts about the content, which is a pretty key difference. They've had an informal amnesty for services using their stuff for a long time, Craig has stated that they're OK with services that interface with them as long as they don't use many server resources, but they recently updated their TOU and started sending out huge…

So if they add a Disallow line for PadMapper to robots.txt instead of sending a C&D, how does that change the situation in any meaningful way?

Sure, it's effectively the same in result, without the legal threat backing it up.

Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#179

Post by wilfra »

Hi Craig and Jim,

I was disappointed to learn you dont want PadMapper to use your listings. Their site and Carsabi are two sites I recently used to find my apartment and car, respectively, only after I had given up on dealing with your firehose and sparse search options. In using both sites I knew full well I was simply using them as a better, more elegant, more feature rich version of CL. Both ultimately referred me right back to your site for specific listings, which was exactly what I wanted them to do.

I dig and respect that you guys are staying true to your mission, running a lean company and keeping it simple. I've read all I can find about both of you and how you've built and how you run CL. You are two of my heroes. But you are really betraying your mission and your credibility with this move. You should let your data be completely open. Let people do whatever they want with it. CL is an institution. You are a backbone of the internet. Just like Facebook and how they share their graph with anybody who wants to use it, as it spreads the FB brand everywhere - you should embrace people wanting to use your data. It will only serve to spread the CL brand further and even more important, it will make the lives of people all over the World better. I thought that was what you stood for. I hope you don't prove me wrong.

Regards,

-Bill

Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#180

Post by eupharis »

iamwil wrote: post #159
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.

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.

Most landlords probably never even realize the traffic first got to CL through Padmapper at all. Whenever I'm asked, I automatically just say CL. Bringing up Padmapper is just likely to confuse.

CL is deliberately making its service less useful both to its paying customers and the public at large. And the sole justification for this is fear that Padmapper could grow to be a bigger, better competitor someday in the distant future.

Leveraging a monopoly to destroy technological progress for fear of future competition is irksome.

It's almost certainly not illegal, and maybe not even morally wrong. But it still sucks.

Yet for all that, I'm moving on July 15th, and I think there's about a 95% chance I'll find the place through CL. That's where the market is.

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