If you want to compete with craigslist, build a better product and convince people that there is value for them to enter their data.
That's what craigslist did.
Craigslist Casualty: The Story of ApartmentsNearMetro.com
21–26 of 26 posts
Re: Craigslist Casualty: The Story of ApartmentsNearMetro.com
#22I had that exact same pain point in 2011. It's too bad the Craigslist refuses to innovate or let others innovate on their platform.
What does 'innovate' mean in this context? Ditto for 'platform'?
Both terms are terribly over-used and make discussion challenging, since both sides end up assuming what they words probably mean (without every discussing the meaning).
Re: Craigslist Casualty: The Story of ApartmentsNearMetro.com
#23> Had around 1,500 unique visitors with an average time spent on the site of about 7 and a half minutes. With no disrespect to the OP, that's not a ton of users, even for a single day...so I'm kind of surprised Craigslist noticed enough to block them. There must be tons of unapproved scraper scripts checking CL on a daily basis.
That's a very good point. 1,500 unique visitors is tiny. Hell, I will probably get more visitors to this single blog post. Forgoing everything about CL blocking me and such, I never did enough to promote the site. I started the site in 2011 and had little experience with promoting content. As a newb developer, I was leery of promoting something I created. What if it broke? What if people didn't like it? When in reali…
craigslist is hiring engineers. Interested?
Re: Craigslist Casualty: The Story of ApartmentsNearMetro.com
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
In defense of CL (which I have never before offered), I noticed some UI improvements recently: pic view, grid view, and map view. These are the first noticeable innovations on CL in many years. Might they be the result of the on-going parade of sites improving upon CL w/ their own data, not to mention the criticisms on HN and elsewhere? Whether they 'hate' competition is debatable. Clearly they view their data as THE…
I've seen the UI improvements, but haven't needed to use them so I don't know how good they are. If those work: Awesome! In a way, that's a victory. If CL incorporates the best things about 3rd party sites into their own site, I think that's a big win for consumers. If CL refuses to allow 3rd parties to exist because they are skeptical of human nature. Talk about the ultimate irony: a site that lives off of people's…
CraigsList doesn't care if other websites use the same data to power their own services, as long as those other websites obtain the data directly from the source (i.e., the user) and not by scraping Craiglist.
Re: Craigslist Casualty: The Story of ApartmentsNearMetro.com
#25I don't get why people say things like, "It's too bad the Craigslist won't ... let other people innovate on their platform." It's just childish in my view. Here's another child's toys - and, granted, he has a LOT of toys[1] - and he's chosen to share them to every child in the world regardless of their background, yet you're upset because he's not sharing them in such a way that would only allow people to play with t…
Unlike children (who typically are given their toys), these toys are the result of "his" work.
Er, no. They are the work of everyone who posts on CL.
Re: Craigslist Casualty: The Story of ApartmentsNearMetro.com
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
In defense of CL (which I have never before offered), I noticed some UI improvements recently: pic view, grid view, and map view. These are the first noticeable innovations on CL in many years. Might they be the result of the on-going parade of sites improving upon CL w/ their own data, not to mention the criticisms on HN and elsewhere? Whether they 'hate' competition is debatable. Clearly they view their data as THE…
I've seen the UI improvements, but haven't needed to use them so I don't know how good they are. If those work: Awesome! In a way, that's a victory. If CL incorporates the best things about 3rd party sites into their own site, I think that's a big win for consumers. If CL refuses to allow 3rd parties to exist because they are skeptical of human nature. Talk about the ultimate irony: a site that lives off of people's…
Good point. Here's the quote from the end of the article:
"These all signal Newmark and Buckmaster's wariness about what humans, including themselves, might do if given the chance. There may be a peace sign on every page, but the implicit political philosophy of craigslist has a deeply conservative, even a tragic cast. Every day the choristers of the social web chirp their advice about openness and trust; craigslist follows none of it, and every day it grows."
HN discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=784663