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Bye Bye Craigslist

blog.padmapper.com

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Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#191

Post by jacoblyles »

hyperbovine wrote: post #140
kenrikm wrote: post #11

Craigslist is in major need of disruption. Actually apartment finding in general sucks I can't think of a single goto place to look for apartments other then Craigslist and that just proves point #1!

> Craigslist is in major need of disruption. This is about the 3000th time I've read that phrase, or some variation of it, in the past ten years. If that were true then it would have happened already, no? Markets can fail in the short term, but in space as crowded with upstarts as the web, I just don't buy it over such a long period of time. The thing I like most about Craigslist is that some guy made it just to help…

They're monopolists with a shitty product. Craigslist is the IE6 of classified ads.

Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#192

Post by victoro »

kylelibra wrote: post #156

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…

I for one, commend Craigslist for their commitment to maintaining a strict, consistent, well-defined UI and moreover, for choosing to maintain a relatively modest operation to the benefit of their core users instead of succumbing to the promises of riches that so often end up ruining great services created by the Tech Community. Many of you are saying this is detrimental to consumers, and it may be in the short term, because services like PadMapper really do provide a better experience. But in the long-term, things seem to be much different. Too many recent startups launch with promises of "changing the world" only to be bought and dismantled a few short years later, setting their community adrift. Craigslist's chief benefit to their users, and to the web community as a whole, is that they have a proven track record of stability. Thus, who can blame them for trying to protect their marketplace from getting eroded by outside interests? If they bowed to the current pressure and allowed outside access to their data, the web would risk losing a long-term standard, and, these days, consistent, trust-worthy standards are in short supply.

Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#193

Post by potatolicious »

jessriedel wrote: post #88
potatolicious wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ex…

There are, for example, real estate websites that are eating the CL for-rent category's lunch right now. Craigslist isn't doing much in response to these competitors, despite the fact that in some markets (particularly SF and NYC where I have experience) Craigslist is now very firmly in second place (or worse).

I've been apartment hunting in NYC lately, and it's mind-boggling what proportion of Craigslist posts are scams compared to other sites like StreetEasy or NYBits.

IMO if Craigslist was run more like a scrappy startup looking for their big exit, they'd have more than responded to these competitors by now. The network effect exists, but IMO is an insufficient explanation of their lack of action.

I agree that the fragmentation is, all things being equal, a bad thing for users - but considering how utterly useless Craigslist's moderation systems are (many categories are full of duplicate posts, spammers, and scammers), and how poor the UX is otherwise (search? hah!), I welcome it. Fragmented sites like PadMapper, StreetEasy, etc, have done way more to ease the life of renters than Craigslist in the last decade.

Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#194

Post by kylek »

as someone typing this in the apartment they found via a Craigslist ad on PadMapper (and as someone who has recommended it to several people because of the feature). time for a mobile PadMapper with a proper license for the data? :/

Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#195

Post by AgentConundrum »

kenrikm wrote: post #11

Craigslist is in major need of disruption. Actually apartment finding in general sucks I can't think of a single goto place to look for apartments other then Craigslist and that just proves point #1!

> Craigslist is in major need of disruption.

I rarely hear anyone mention Craigslist in Canada. We have Kijiji [1] but its UI isn't significantly different than that of Craigslist. The home page is essentially just another long list of categories, etc. Maybe there's something about that design that works exceptionally well for this type of site.

[1] http://www.kijiji.ca

Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#196

Post by MichaelApproved »

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…

Do you think they're shutting you down in preparation of creating their own version of pad paper an releasing that without your competition?

Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#197

Post by ericd »

eli wrote: post #182
kalininalex wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Network effect. Sellers go to CL because that's where the buyers are, and buyers go to CL because that's where the sellers are. Other features come in play after that. Once the network effect sets in it's almost impossible to unseat the incumbent: eBay, Linked-in, Facebook, Craigslist, etc. The dominant company has 90%+ share, and can stay that way forever doing very little. eBay, for example, hasn't changed its (rat…

I think there's more to it than that. I know people for whom craigslist is one of the very few websites they interact with. It's a very different demographic from the one that hangs on HN. I think this is a big factor in the CL design and the reluctance to change it. I also think the network effect is being overstated in this instance. eBay has much stronger lock-in because I can't list my item in more than one aucti…

If you don't think Craigslist has an insanely strong network effect, you haven't been thinking about this long/hard enough. Why do you think it's one of the very few websites those people interact with? It's not just because it's simple (though that helps a lot). It's that a) everyone uses it and b) it has everything you could want. It means you don't have to remember 50 random websites, one for each vertical.

I may be in the minority in Silicon Valley, but I'm honestly a really big fan of Craigslist, even despite their C&D'ing me, and I don't think it could or should be "disrupted". I think it's perfect for most of the things on there: lightning fast, few restrictions, community driven. I think it's massively better than that other alternative of having a ton of small websites that each do one thing well, but differently. I shop for new stuff almost exclusively via Amazon for the same reason that I shop exclusively on CL for used stuff.

Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#198

Post by neilc »

pbreit wrote: post #137
dr42 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm not sure why those TOUs would prohibit Padmapper but not Google.

The immediately following text in the CL ToS reads:

As a limited exception, general purpose Internet search engines and noncommercial public archives will be entitled to access craigslist without individual written agreements executed with CL that specifically authorize an exception to this prohibition if, in all cases and individual instances: (a) they provide a direct hyperlink to the relevant craigslist website, service, forum or content; (b) they access craigslist from a stable IP address using an easily identifiable agent; and (c) they comply with CL's robots.txt file ...

Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#199

Post by ericd »

MichaelApproved wrote: post #196
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…

Do you think they're shutting you down in preparation of creating their own version of pad paper an releasing that without your competition?

It's possible, they've been looking for a dev with maps experience for a while.

Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#200

Post by flashmedium »

kalininalex wrote: post #181
eli wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Network effect. Sellers go to CL because that's where the buyers are, and buyers go to CL because that's where the sellers are. Other features come in play after that. Once the network effect sets in it's almost impossible to unseat the incumbent: eBay, Linked-in, Facebook, Craigslist, etc. The dominant company has 90%+ share, and can stay that way forever doing very little. eBay, for example, hasn't changed its (rat…

http://www.businessinsider.com/network-effects-2011-5
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