An Open Letter to Craig Newmark
krrb.com
An Open Letter to Craig Newmark
1–10 of 109 posts
Re: An Open Letter to Craig Newmark
#2I used to have a great deal of admiration for Craig, and craigslist... It's all but dissolved.
After his/their repugnant treatment of Eric/padmapper and their more than glacial acceptance of the fact the CL UI sucked and was actually punitive to the UX - and yet another example of CL just being jerks, I am pretty much completely devoid of any respect for Craig/CL.
It's too bad, especially given how Craig attempts to keep a socially responsible image - I think his persona is a farce.
Re: An Open Letter to Craig Newmark
#3It's important to note that this is, at first glance, a different beast than the padmappers/3Taps issues, which were primarily about scraping craigslist data and placing it on a different site. Krrb has users press a button, which scrapes a given post.
The end result is the same -- the same data as Craigslist being displayed on a different site -- but this is coming from the Krrb users' own volitions, which I think makes this much more difficult to justify from Craigslist's point of view.
I honestly don't understand why Craiglist has taken this tack. I think the moves they've made in the past are respectable (as in, they have the right to protect their data and leverage their position) -- I just think there's more value to the company and the community to become the Amazon of local.
Re: An Open Letter to Craig Newmark
#4You should piggyback your plugin into popular installers to get this on millions of computers. Then, don't make them push a button to post it on krrb, do it automatically. Make sure your TOS at install time says this is going to happen.
(I may or may not have been involved with a company that did this to great success.)
Re: An Open Letter to Craig Newmark
#5eBay owns a reported at least 25% of Craigslist [1]. Whenever I tell people they are genuinely surprised. Craigslist never has really added huge features in years and I honestly think it is because eBay slows them down and doesn't want them to. Think about how Twitter and Facebook have grown built APIs, 3rd party integration and apps. Craigslist doesn't even have an official iPhone app.
They've had the capital, the resources, and the users who provided the content which were all they needed and could eventually launch a way to ship and provide feedback for users and destroy eBay. I think Craig sold out and doesn't have a lot of say in the legal matters which is why it happens in the first place and Craigslist really will never improve.
[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_eBay#ci...
Re: An Open Letter to Craig Newmark
#6While I agree with the main argument of the letter, I don't understand the characterization of CL's law firm as "infamous," and its employees as "cronies." What exactly are they infamous for? Just sending C&Ds on behalf of Craigslist?
Further, the argument that zealous attempts at protecting IP means you should be .com not org falls pretty short to me. The Red Cross has a policy of sending C&Ds to game companies that use the red cross on white logo, and also claim such use violates the Geneva convention. This may be overreach, but it would be a strange stretch to claim such actions meant the Red Cross should dump their .org domain.
Re: An Open Letter to Craig Newmark
#7You should piggyback your plugin into popular installers to get this on millions of computers. Then, don't make them push a button to post it on krrb, do it automatically. Make sure your TOS at install time says this is going to happen. (I may or may not have been involved with a company that did this to great success.)
So instead of providing a useful service, they should distribute malware designed to... what, maximize their chances of being sued by craigslist?
Re: An Open Letter to Craig Newmark
#8eBay owns a reported at least 25% of Craigslist [1]. Whenever I tell people they are genuinely surprised. Craigslist never has really added huge features in years and I honestly think it is because eBay slows them down and doesn't want them to. Think about how Twitter and Facebook have grown built APIs, 3rd party integration and apps. Craigslist doesn't even have an official iPhone app. They've had the capital, the r…
eBay owns a chunk of craigslist yes, but not a controlling share. The two companies have been involved in multiple legal battles. I doubt eBay is secretly pulling craigslist's strings while they sue each other.
I agree that it appears Craig doesn't appear to have much say in legal matters at craigslist, but that appears to be because he has voluntarily ceded control to Jim Buckmaster.
Re: An Open Letter to Craig Newmark
#9You should piggyback your plugin into popular installers to get this on millions of computers. Then, don't make them push a button to post it on krrb, do it automatically. Make sure your TOS at install time says this is going to happen. (I may or may not have been involved with a company that did this to great success.)
It could also encrypt the users important files and then demand money for the decryption key. It's all good if it's in the TOS!
Re: An Open Letter to Craig Newmark
#10craigslist's position is pretty clear, whether they publicly admit it or not: they don't want, and will aggressively work to prevent, other companies attempting to bootstrap themselves off craigslist's content. I don't know why we have to all pretend we're shocked about this.