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Craigslist has been disrupted

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Re: Craigslist has been disrupted

#111

Post by rhizome »

phlux wrote: post #18
nir wrote: post #8

>"I don't think Craig's a bad guy, but he's harvesting $50M a year into his pockets and not improving the site" Not sure about the definition of "improving the site" here. I'm thankful to CL for not building gratuitous UI, or half assed "social" element, or "tweet this post to your social graph". Instead they work on improving the content by fighting certain types of abuse, having the founder do customer support and…

There is a strong difference between UI and UX, for example, when looking through postings for stuff for sale, or places for rent - filtering by HAS IMAGE is really the only way Ill look at an ad - yet there has NEVER been a way to expand and see images. The FLAG FOR REMOVAL is and has been abused for YEARS. The fact that an apartment or for sale posting gets flagged then immediately nobody else can see it has been u…

The fact that an apartment or for sale posting gets flagged then immediately nobody else can see it has been used to effectively block competition in the buyers market

You misunderstand the flagging mechanism, and it's never "the competition." The competition isn't united against you and there aren't enough of them anyway. You probably just used a hit counter or external images or some other commonly-abused or community-hated posting trope.

Re: Craigslist has been disrupted

#112

Post by ericd »

carlosag wrote: post #17

I completely agree with Josh that there is a gap in functionality that needs to be filled. I often hear the argument that I should be grateful for this free online service... Poppycock! My attention on the internet is worth something. Especially for such a profitable industry as classifieds. If I'm looking for a house on the internet I want to be able to zoom into a certain area on a map and click 'refresh' to see al…

Try PadMapper. That kind of interface probably wouldn't work very well at Craigslist's scale, though, with their headcount.

Re: Craigslist has been disrupted

#113

Post by ericd »

pdaviesa wrote: post #97
bandushrew wrote: post #30

This graph: http://d2o7bfz2il9cb7.cloudfront.net/main-qimg-c18ef2d8f8bd7... is showing exactly the reason Craigslist is doing well. Each of the alternatives displayed represents a specialized, vertical solution for just one (or a couple) of the categories offered by Craigslist, There is no way that Craigslist could compete head to head with every one of them anyway, at best they could choose a couple of categories an…

You know, that's a really good point. I may go straight to StubHub if I'm really into seeing ballgames, but am I really going to remember the hot new startups focusing on apartment rentals, spa services, or used car parts? No, I'm just going to Craigslist for any of my peripheral needs.

Exactly, the inability to remember 50 specialized marketplaces means that CL's position is pretty much secure.

Re: Craigslist has been disrupted

#114

Post by rhizome »

heyitsnick wrote: post #60
dpcan wrote: post #10

Craigslist is the most UNBROKEN site on the web. It works flawlessly. Just yesterday I bought a cell phone from a local guy on Craigslist. Scrolled down the page. Found the phone I wanted in the city I wanted for the price I wanted. Called him, met at a restaurant, paid for the phone, and we went on our way. It was perfect.

From the top answer: "if I'm looking to rent an apartment, it would be nice not to see the same listing reposted every day, and having to re-read it and figure out if I've called them before. It might be even nicer to view them on a map, or god forbid have new and relevant listing emailed to me." Is that not broken? Sure sounds it to me. I had my first experience of using AirBNB today. From start to finish it was an…

It's not broken, the apartment shopper is broken for not taking their own notes! Jeez, does Craigslist have to make up for everybody's personal failings?

I've heard of PLENTY of frustrated attempts to use Airbnb, enough that I would not use them without a Craigslist-level of (caveat-) emptorial vigilance. I wouldn't call your experience with them to be unbelievable, but Airbnb has not solved the Craigslist "random scammer" problem by any means.

Re: Craigslist has been disrupted

#115

Post by rhizome »

cgs wrote: post #31
bradleyjoyce wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Craigslist is so full of spam and reposts it's practically useless for major categories. Take for example Dallas apartments/rentals... hardly a single legitimate posting in there. There is A LOT more to complain about than appearance.

In my experience, the quality level of ads has dropped considerably. My last two Craigslist experiences: I recently tried looking for a used car in the Chicago area. It turns out almost all the postings in the "by owner only" area are actually dealers in disguise. I found this out the hard way after driving an hour to see a car at what turned out to be some kind of sketchball dealership. Another time, someone posted…

Read their TOU. By using Craigslist you agree to help flag bad ads.

Yet from driving an hour to see one car you arrive at the conclusion that "almost all" of the by-owner car ads in Chicago Craiglist are dealers. OK.

Re: Craigslist has been disrupted

#116

Post by rhizome »

potatolicious wrote: post #86
rhizome wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It always takes more than "a few obsessive users," and there is a flag help forum on Craigslist to help explain how your ad might have trammeled your area's standards.

Having had an ad inexplicably flagged, the flag help forum is no help at all , unless you consider random, uninformed speculation a form of help. For one thing, the tone of the flag help forum is that of a hazing circle. It's just a lot of people sitting around being snarky, making rude comments at relative novices and calling them names. Which might be easier to swallow if they actually provided any real help - but…

the there is neither accountability nor reliability in the flags themselves.

Correct, it's up to the poster to construct an ad that can stay up. Community standards are different from city to city, but it's not Craigslist's job to keep ads up that the community doesn't want to see. Where is the "accountability and reliability" in your newspaper's classifieds? You think some editor at the Star Tribune is double-checking that that muscle car being advertised isn't actually a bucket of bolts?

The dominant "mechanism" or thought process I see getting thwarted on Craigslist is that since time-immemorial, classified ads (and really, ads in general) operated by the ethic of "Here it is, if you don't like it then you don't have to buy it (also: shut up)." Craigslist inverts this relationship and puts the power into the readers' hands: "You don't like getting flagged? Feel free to post your ad on some other website." This, I feel, is the most political thing that Craigslist has done: instead of forcing readers to overlook bad ads, it tries to motivate sellers not to write bad ads in the first place. That so many here are angry about having gotten flagged off in the past tells me that they were doing the bare minimum in writing their ad anyway. Good riddance, I say. It's not like Craigslist will die without whiners complaining about them.

By and large the people most frustrated with their Craigslist posting experience are those who just barf out a self-serving ad and expect the invisible hand of Adam Smith to protect their "right" to get $1200 for a Britney Spears ticket.

it seems like the user base is 50% there to flog newbies, and 50% there to make wrong statements.

If this was your experience, I'd look to the attitude of the person asking for help. There is a certainly an amount of "RTFM" in the flag forums, but so few RTFM. Lots and lots of people get "real help" in the flag forums. Unfortunately, lots and lots of other people have a "don't like it? don't buy it." attitude.

Re: Craigslist has been disrupted

#117

Post by rhizome »

huuleon wrote: post #103

Yes I totally agree why craigslist dominates the industry because of simplicity and ease of use for users. Craigslist has always been the place where i go first to look for used products especially cars. But there are two things i dislike about craigslist. One is sometimes you'll receive fishing emails asking you to reset password where you later noticed your computer is contain with viruses. Second, buying stuff on…

Phishing emails are by no means restricted to Craigslist users, nor are they CL's responsibility. Should I complain to Chase bank that I received a phishing email in their guise?

Re: Craigslist has been disrupted

#119

Post by storborg »

nettdata wrote: post #87
danilocampos wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that they haven't done the things you describe doesn't change the fact that craigslist is a terrible product. It is clogged with spam. Clever types of spam, often ones that crowdsource their content by mining previously legit posts. Since there are no reputation mechanisms to speak of, it's far too easy to waste your time with stuff that's either spam or a scam. Meanwhile, data visualization has progressed d…

Yeah, it's so bad that everyone uses it and it's making $50m a year. I wish I had a shitty product like that. And I even use it regularly to find stuff I want, locally, and cheap. The bastards.

I too wish I had a shitty product like that. However:

> And I even use it regularly to find stuff I want, locally, and cheap.

Are you really successful at that, though? 9 times out of 10 when I use craigslist the transaction is a horrible experience--for example:

    - the buyer of an item claims it, then flakes out
    - the seller of an item jacks up the price at the last
      minute, when I'm there in person, saying, "oh well
      there are 5 other people that want it"
    - potential rideshare flakes out, or changes plans at
      the last minute
    - potential landlord turns out to be unreliable
The one area where I have had great success with craigslist is hiring, which I suspect is due to craigslist charging for job listings (which keeps the bar high).

Re: Craigslist has been disrupted

#120

Post by a5seo »

drp wrote: post #67
danilocampos wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that they haven't done the things you describe doesn't change the fact that craigslist is a terrible product. It is clogged with spam. Clever types of spam, often ones that crowdsource their content by mining previously legit posts. Since there are no reputation mechanisms to speak of, it's far too easy to waste your time with stuff that's either spam or a scam. Meanwhile, data visualization has progressed d…

Data visualizations have progressed in almost all craigslist competitors (and mashups), but visualizations won't be the death of craigslist. The battleground is content. Sure there's plenty of spam and scams, but people love craiglist listings because there is so much unique content. One major contributor to craiglist becoming so successful as a website is essentially the ease of posting content. That lead to lots of…

seriously??? can your mom successfully post and ad on CL, including verifying her email?

and can she bold the important words in the ad? even the newspaper classifieds, as dumb as they were, made that easy for the most basic user.

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