131–140 of 312 posts
I understand why they're complying with the C+D, but I wish they'd fight it. Craigslist is better than printed classifieds, but that's about the best thing you can say about it.
I wonder why CL doesn't create an API and charge for it's usage. The data is clearly valuable and they own it, but that doesn't mean that it can't use multiple views.
This is only useful if the teams scraping CL have budget to pay a market rate for the data. Considering that CL seems to have a lock on this data for many markets, I'm guessing that's worth a lot of money (which startups will not be able to afford).
I'm not too worried. What craigslist is doing (ie, sucking) isn't sustainable.
I hope this doesn't get down-voted for the confusing title (I know it's the title of the Blog post itself; but out of context it's a bit misleading). When I moved from Atlanta to Boston, PadMapper was invaluable in finding a place to live. Given that 1) we didn't know the area, and 2) most rentals in Boston and Cambridge are rented by individuals rather than part of larger complexes, it was great to be able to have t…
Specially when the site is down. Pretty annoying to find this kind of reddit like title here.
From comments my guess is that it's some blog post from someone who is pissed off at CL for forbidding them to use some web app they built (PadMapper?) that scrap content from the CL site or something like that.
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The difference is that the search engines aggregate from the whole web, PadMapper was just appropriating content from CL, which is against their TOS. It's very clearly spelled out. All the other companies that have tried have also been told to C&D. If you don't like it, start your own network... From http://www.craigslist.org/about/terms.of.use "Any copying, aggregation, display, distribution, performance or derivati…
PadMapper gets content from more than just Craigslist. They have their own postings (padlister.com), sublet.com, apartments.com, apartmentfinder.com and a lot more. There's really not that much difference between them and a search engine.
Several innovative solutions have been invented over the years, the most obvious one is to do the CL scraping on the client, this way there is no indexing server to block, it's just the client reading all the search listings, parsing them and offering faceted filters. It breaks the spirit of the TOS but it would be impossible for CL to block. I am not advocating this, just pointing out one of the many approaches that have been attempted over the years.
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It's hard for me to see this as stealing content since: 1) Padmapper shows the original craigslist page when you click through to the details page. 2) Padmapper doesn't seem to be monetizing itself in any obvious way, at least not directly through ads on content. 3) Craigslist doesn't monetize its content through ads, anyway. Essentially all it offers is a wrapper that lowers the friction to discovery. You know, like…
The difference is that the search engines aggregate from the whole web, PadMapper was just appropriating content from CL, which is against their TOS. It's very clearly spelled out. All the other companies that have tried have also been told to C&D. If you don't like it, start your own network... From http://www.craigslist.org/about/terms.of.use "Any copying, aggregation, display, distribution, performance or derivati…
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Disagree. Craig Newmark has said that he's scared to make drastic changes to the UX specifically because he doesn't know what magic recipe keeps people coming back. Do I like the CL layout? Nope. Does that mean other people should steal the content and profit from it? Probably not.
Does that mean other people should steal the content and profit from it? Craigslist is unwilling to let Padmapper buy a license to use their content. This isn't as black and white as "stealing content".
Just sent a mail to {craig,jim}@craigslist.org. Not sure if it will help but if they hear enough noise about it, maybe they'll change their stance.
Craigslist is in major need of disruption. Actually apartment finding in general sucks I can't think of a single goto place to look for apartments other then Craigslist and that just proves point #1!
This is about the 3000th time I've read that phrase, or some variation of it, in the past ten years. If that were true then it would have happened already, no? Markets can fail in the short term, but in space as crowded with upstarts as the web, I just don't buy it over such a long period of time.
The thing I like most about Craigslist is that some guy made it just to help other people out. The thing I dislike most about all the people trying to "disrupt" Craigslist is that they're clearly in it for the money. I feel like this non-trivial selling point is lost on those who swear that CL is broken and needs replacing.