Why the Web Hasn't Birthed a Prettier Craigslist • Hacker News Board

Re: Why the Web Hasn't Birthed a Prettier Craigslist

#11

Post by patrick_curl » Mon, Feb 18, 2013, 4:27 PM UTC

lh7777 wrote: post #8

niggler wrote: post #4

The problem is that the target audience, as a whole, doesn't necessarily care about prettiness. It's functional, it works, and the users are comfortable with the design, so there's no need to fix it. I am reminded of Digg's redesign and descension.

I think the title of this article is a little misleading. It's easy to bash Craigslist over their dated (or lack of) style, but the problem with Craigslist really comes down to usability, which is not the same thing as prettiness. Craigslist could make lots of feature and UI improvements to their site to make it easier to find and post, but they choose not to for the most part. If they did, sites like PadMapper proba…

Why fight sites like PadMapper? Why not try and buy some of them? Think if CL owned a bunch of these businesses that try to mooch off of them? They could integrate in like Padmapper.craigslist.com -- without major redesign hurting existing people.. Build an API but either charge for it, or use it internally among acquired related companies...

Re: Why the Web Hasn't Birthed a Prettier Craigslist

#12

Post by vyrotek » Mon, Feb 18, 2013, 4:27 PM UTC

There's actually a fast growing trend to use Facebook groups to sell things. They call them "24/7 Yardsales". They'll make a group for each city and then people bid through the comments. Some of the groups have over 8000 members. The experience is a bit different though compared to normal classifieds. The reason they refer to them as yardsales is because the members of the groups usually aren't looking for something specific. They're all just 'window shopping' for deals and Facebook notifies them instantly when something new is available.

My wife was pretty active in these groups and eventually came to me saying that a lot of people wished there was a better way to do this. So, I did what any good husband would do and spent a few weeks putting a site together for them. I combined her two favorite things. Pinterest & Yardsales. http://yardable.com (It was a nice excuse to play with some new tech too :P) All the items and users on the site are legit. I found some humor in the fact that the first items officially sold on Yardable were my old CS college books. I felt as if I had passed on the torch.

I wish I had more time to work on this. I got as far as building an API for a few people who wanted to build the mobile app for me. It seems like there's some interest in something better than Craigslist with more 'browsing' type features. There are a few startups out there working on this I believe. One of them is a YC company called http://www.getyardsale.com which went with the mobile approach first. Monetizing these ideas through something besides ads seems a bit challenging though.

Re: Why the Web Hasn't Birthed a Prettier Craigslist

#13

Post by revorad » Mon, Feb 18, 2013, 4:32 PM UTC

vyrotek wrote: post #12

There's actually a fast growing trend to use Facebook groups to sell things. They call them "24/7 Yardsales". They'll make a group for each city and then people bid through the comments. Some of the groups have over 8000 members. The experience is a bit different though compared to normal classifieds. The reason they refer to them as yardsales is because the members of the groups usually aren't looking for something…

Surely making money on these ideas is straightforward - take a cut of the transaction. The hard part is solving the chicken-and-egg problem.

The Yardsale app seems quite good, but no one uses it here in London. Is it popular in SF or other parts of America?

Re: Why the Web Hasn't Birthed a Prettier Craigslist

#14

Post by crazygringo » Mon, Feb 18, 2013, 4:34 PM UTC

arbitrage wrote: post #10

rm999 wrote: post #9

I've long considered CL one of the biggest tragedies of the internet age. The problem is it's just good enough to prevent competitors from gaining critical mass, but it's not good enough to consistently do an adequate job. There's a huge pent-up demand for what CL provides, including local person-to-person commerce, sublets, apartment hunting, job hunting etc. I probably use CL about 2-3 times a year, and I end up re…

In your opinion, what job is it that CL fails to address adequately in a consistent fashion? Ignore the real identity / account reputation issue, which nobody has managed to solve in an adequate fashion. What is it that CL promises, that it fails to follow through on?

Um, OK. How about the fact that apartment listings in NYC are basically 95% spam, with brokers advertising apartments that don't exist, to pull a bait and switch when you call -- including on the specifically non-broker pages?

Searching by price is broken (look for $500 listings and it will return $500 daily, $500 weekly, $500 monthly, all mixed up together). Searching by neighborhood is broken, since it relies on keywords (which can vary, and are full of spam besides) instead of actual lat/lon.

I could probably write a book on everything that is broken, and that's just on the apartment stuff alone. (I understand it's better outside of NYC, but since NYC is the largest city in the US, that doesn't really matter.)

Re: Why the Web Hasn't Birthed a Prettier Craigslist

#15

Post by jsdalton » Mon, Feb 18, 2013, 4:34 PM UTC

The conversation here reminds me of the discussions last week around Microsoft Excel: Craigslist is a tool that techies seem to universally deplore, but every non-techie I know uses it regularly and without much complaint.

Re: Why the Web Hasn't Birthed a Prettier Craigslist

#16

Post by vyrotek » Mon, Feb 18, 2013, 4:35 PM UTC

revorad wrote: post #13

vyrotek wrote: post #12

There's actually a fast growing trend to use Facebook groups to sell things. They call them "24/7 Yardsales". They'll make a group for each city and then people bid through the comments. Some of the groups have over 8000 members. The experience is a bit different though compared to normal classifieds. The reason they refer to them as yardsales is because the members of the groups usually aren't looking for something…

Surely making money on these ideas is straightforward - take a cut of the transaction. The hard part is solving the chicken-and-egg problem. The Yardsale app seems quite good, but no one uses it here in London. Is it popular in SF or other parts of America?

You can't take a part of the transaction since they all happen in-person with cash.

Not sure about Yardsale. None of the people around here knew about it. There's definitely a chicken & egg problem in this space. But I could see these things spread through small communities first. I had hundreds of registered users in a couple of weeks from Utah and watched it spread to Idaho and Arizona pretty quickly.

Re: Why the Web Hasn't Birthed a Prettier Craigslist

#17

Post by hartator » Mon, Feb 18, 2013, 4:37 PM UTC

I think this article miss an important point, Craiglist does the job. It's not fancy and the content is poorly written and it's the reason why people want to post to it. They don't want to understand a new system with reputation or painful other features, you just take your add, throw 2/3 lines, a dirty picture and it's done. There is scam but in the other it's easy to post or to reply, it's about free market and responsibility (mainly my point is: we are not babies). Moreover, Craiglist is cheap or free so why caring? I mean your are using obviously using Hacker News and maybe reddit, we can say the same about them.

Though, I totally agree about the law suits. They shouldn't do that. I think it hurts their businesses for gaining only short term partnerships. This is the real issue, not UI.

I am interested in knowing what people are missing from the UI perspective? Reputation is bullshit for individuals and Favorites is gadget, so what else?

Re: Why the Web Hasn't Birthed a Prettier Craigslist

#18

Post by revorad » Mon, Feb 18, 2013, 4:39 PM UTC

vyrotek wrote: post #16

revorad wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely making money on these ideas is straightforward - take a cut of the transaction. The hard part is solving the chicken-and-egg problem. The Yardsale app seems quite good, but no one uses it here in London. Is it popular in SF or other parts of America?

You can't take a part of the transaction since they all happen in-person with cash. Not sure about Yardsale. None of the people around here knew about it. There's definitely a chicken & egg problem in this space. But I could see these things spread through small communities first. I had hundreds of registered users in a couple of weeks from Utah and watched it spread to Idaho and Arizona pretty quickly.

You can't take a part of the transaction since they all happen in-person with cash.

Ebay proves otherwise.

Re: Why the Web Hasn't Birthed a Prettier Craigslist

#19

Post by revorad » Mon, Feb 18, 2013, 4:42 PM UTC

danso wrote: post #5

FYI, for people who have not been on Craigslist in awhile...it's also been a long time for me since I've used the service...I was just about to complain that CL doesn't need a radical redesign, it just needs features grafted on that users could choose . For example, whenever I do apartment/furniture searching, I'll write a script to pull down the links so I can create my own webview of the links juxtaposed with the i…

I just realised that craigslist map view is a burglar's dream tool.

Re: Why the Web Hasn't Birthed a Prettier Craigslist

#20

Post by rm999 » Mon, Feb 18, 2013, 4:43 PM UTC

arbitrage wrote: post #10

rm999 wrote: post #9

I've long considered CL one of the biggest tragedies of the internet age. The problem is it's just good enough to prevent competitors from gaining critical mass, but it's not good enough to consistently do an adequate job. There's a huge pent-up demand for what CL provides, including local person-to-person commerce, sublets, apartment hunting, job hunting etc. I probably use CL about 2-3 times a year, and I end up re…

In your opinion, what job is it that CL fails to address adequately in a consistent fashion? Ignore the real identity / account reputation issue, which nobody has managed to solve in an adequate fashion. What is it that CL promises, that it fails to follow through on?

Two issues. The first is the most important to me: I simply can't trust the other party a priori. I've had so many poor experiences on craigslist, including scams, clearly stolen items for sale, misleading descriptions, no-shows. This is why I think the identity/reputation issue is so important. If ebay needs a reputation system, craigslist needs it even more (CL is inherently more dangerous because you meet in-person and exchange cash). It's not just safety, I also value my time and every issue is wasted time.

The second isn't as big to me, but I do think searching craigslist is annoying and suboptimal. CL is a solution that worked great in 1998, but 15 years later it lags behind the standard web experience. Worse yet, as the article discusses, CL isn't just refusing to improve their user experience, they are refusing to let other people do so too.