Can you please open source all the code specific to craigslist data extraction so that others may incorporate your work into open-source projects?
Bye Bye Craigslist
231–240 of 312 posts
Re: Bye Bye Craigslist
#232Earlier 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…
Haha, I see what you did there. You confused UI with Usability. Craigslist is incredibly usable. Have you taken a look at Ebay lately? Does it look familiar? That's cos it hasn't significantly changed in 10 years. Is that because they don't care? Nope, it's because gradients and drop shadows make your product look better, but don't make it more usable. Craigslist is a utility, not a website. They care about keeping i…
I disagree, craigslist sucks. It's filled with spam and it's searching and sorting options could be way better.
The only reason they don't have many competitors is because they have an information/platform monopoly. Just like many other tech companies, ebay and facebook come to mind as obvious examples.
Re: Bye Bye Craigslist
#233At the end of the day it is Craigslist's data. I know padmapper was useful for a lot of people so the next smart move is to build your own data. A "craiglist" focus on rental only with the same features. The sad reality is you need your own platform to scale any type of services like that.Is it going to be easy and fast to build. The answer is no. However the reward and opportunity are huge.... Of course it would be…
At the end of the day it is Craigslist's data. Nope. It's the users' data. Craigslist only has a license to use it.
In that case Craigslist is doing right by its users, the licencor of the data, since the licensor has not granted a license to padmapper to use said data.
Re: Bye Bye Craigslist
#234Earlier 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…
Haha, I see what you did there. You confused UI with Usability. Craigslist is incredibly usable. Have you taken a look at Ebay lately? Does it look familiar? That's cos it hasn't significantly changed in 10 years. Is that because they don't care? Nope, it's because gradients and drop shadows make your product look better, but don't make it more usable. Craigslist is a utility, not a website. They care about keeping i…
>You confused UI with Usability.
I certainly don't confuse the two.
I couldn't care less what Craigslist LOOKS like, but its usability is profoundly broken in some areas (Denver Metro, for example).
The problem is that there's a Denver, Boulder, Colorado Springs, and Fort Collins Craigslist. For those of you in the Bay Area, that would be roughly like having a distinct San Francisco, San Rafael, San Jose, and Santa Cruz Craigslist. If you're in between those places, which one do you look at? You have to look at more than one. Even if you're IN one of those places, which one do you look at? Sometimes three or four, if it's something you're willing to drive an hour to buy.
And if you're POSTING, where do you post? If you post a popular item to Boulder (because, say, you live in Boulder), then people in the next town over who only know about Denver won't see it, so you also have to post to Denver if you want everyone in a reasonable radius to see your item. Which means you have to violate Craigslist policies AND mess with your listing enough to get past its spam filter.
The sad thing is they've fixed it to the 80% level in the Bay Area, where the whole (extended!) Bay Area (even Santa Cruz, which isn't really Bay Area) is on a single Craigslist site with sub-area filters, but they just leave it broken here.
THIS is a usability problem.
And honestly so is the lack of "map these results," for times when you want to see which ones are closest, or which ones you could stop by on your way to work, or whatever.
It's not because it's not shiny or doesn't have gradients or drop shadows. It's because key features that I want from a classified site are sorely lacking.
Re: Bye Bye Craigslist
#235Could it not mean that they are coming up with some padmapper like functionality? Padmapper of course is the only usable rental search site after craigslist. The rest of them like rent.com and apartments.com are absolute crap. I hope they work something out.
Re: Bye Bye Craigslist
#236Earlier quoted context omitted.
Good luck, but I doubt it will work. My first experience with craigslist was trying to figure out why they had the capability to block my wife's ad for a free dog that contained a mispelled word while the site's creator was busy trying to tell the government that there was nothing he could do about the many child prostitution ads that appeared on craigslist.
One depends on a spellchecker?
If you can parse text for spelling, surely you can parse text for the sexual exploitation of minors.
Re: Bye Bye Craigslist
#237I'm sad to hear this. I used padmapper to find my place in NYC among an incredibly scam-filled and otherwise difficult to navigate sea of lies and frauds. PM helped me utilize CL in a way their filters could not.
Re: Bye Bye Craigslist
#238Here's an idea-- why doesn't Craigslist just buy padmapper? They certainly have enough cash to do so.
Re: Bye Bye Craigslist
#239I get that CL has a fast UI that is very easy to understand for non-technical users. But why can't they somehow work with others who want to improve the experience?
There have been several sites that I have personally used to aggregate searches, eliminate duplicates, filter on different attributes, etc. that all were better for me than CL. (Craiglook, padmapper, etc.)
Every, time, CL flips them off and threatens suit.
FFS, guys, just strike a deal with some of these devs and make a 'tech-friendly' portal for people who want actual search capability from your site.
Re: Bye Bye Craigslist
#240I'm surprised how many people here are defending Craigslist. They've got a history of both providing a terrible experience for apartment seekers and shutting down any attempts to use their data to provide a better experience. That would be okay in a competitive market, but they've got a strong monopoly in a market with a high barrier to entry. They're playing the textbook role of an evil monopolist.