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The Craigwatch Story

craigwatch.com

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Re: The Craigwatch Story

#43
I ran a system that was a back end for craigslist for many years, and I never stopped even after getting a cease and desist from them. What really got me was after they started charging people to post ads... that really killed my business model. Generally its not a great idea to build a business model around the availability of a third party... I think the whole concept of craigslist sending a 'cease and desist' over what is generally considered public_html is a laughable joke in my opinion, and good luck trying to restrict public html from crawlers and robots.

Re: The Craigwatch Story

#44
post #18

A little bit off topic but interesting nonetheless. I've known Beau for many years now and his writing style has improved so much. He is a testament to the "practice makes perfect" (or better at least) mantra. It's really interesting to see the transition in his travel blog from when he started writing to now. If you're interested you can check out. Compare the first post to the most recent. http://dangertravels.com/

Thanks for sharing, his travel stories are inspiring

Re: The Craigwatch Story

#45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone is too law abiding.. But really what laws is he breaking here?? Trademark? Copyright? Spoke to my legal counsel and I don't see either..

Terms of service are a contractual agreement between a service and its users. There's no laws being broken, but it's breach of contract. Your legal counsel would know that I suspect.

click through agreements and terms of service agreements (TOS) are not legally binding contracts. they are used by service providers to provide fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD).

Re: The Craigwatch Story

#47

One thing I like about this reflection is the highlighting of the weirdness of the connection between a service's creators and its users. I'm on both sides of the fence, and I find myself wrestling with lots of different feelings towards my users (mostly positive, but not all). I guess this dynamic has existed since the printing press, but it feels a bit more intimate now since you can see the emails and read the twe…

This is a very good point, and something that was also touched on in http://www.saurik.com/id/20 recently.

Re: The Craigwatch Story

#49

I used Craigwatch. It was a useful tool - when a search pops, I get an email. I used to use Google Reader for this but when Reader died so did my RSS reading habit, so now email is the only part of my daily workflow that I poll frequently. The real mystery to me is why Craigslist shut the service down, because (protocols aside) it wasn't fundamentally different from any other way of consuming craigslist. Craigslist's…

another service i used a lot was padmapper(?) (CL killed and then stolen the feature) and then another site that allowed me to search on all craigslist sites around the US. i used it to check the price of whatever i was buying locally. or to find things so rare around i am that i would be willing to risk having my money stolen and nothing delivered... i don't even remember the name of the site, but nothing have come even close to filing the gap. one would think ebay is the logical solution, but ebay is filled with crap that it is useless.

Re: The Craigwatch Story

#50
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to give away good free stuff, but it's just not woth the hassle(going to the wrong people, people not showing up, the spam, over agressive Flaggers--you people need to get a life, etc.) While I'm here. What's with the begging to lower an already low price on a service, or item. I used to price an item realistically, then knock off 40 percent. People still want to Haggle over the price. I now just double the pr…

Yeah, I am going to work on it once I am done launching my main product. My main product is for in-person customer acquisition, so I should be able to seed this properly. I am thinking: * Schedule pickup (I made a scheduling product a few years ago with a nice algorithm) * [Innovative revenue source that is the secret sauce, not involving ads or subscriptions] * Request hold on the item (with ability to flag no shows…

all that would remove the one killer feature of CL... no logins.

what you describe is just a ebay clone with pickup instead of delivery.

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