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RentHop (YC S09) Launches Algorithmic Apartment Search In Boston

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Re: RentHop (YC S09) Launches Algorithmic Apartment Search In Boston

#21

Post by ericd »

aneth wrote: post #18
chrisballinger wrote: post #5

Is this just a ripoff of PadMapper ( http://www.padmapper.com )?

Isn't PadMapper just a ripoff of http://www.housingmaps.com/ , which was the first of its kind? I developed http://www.cribq.com because at the time, both PadMapper (if it existed, can't remember - according to domain records padmapper.com was registered after CribQ launched) and HousingMaps were too simplistic and behind on listings to use. HousingMaps had no organizational tools - so I suppose PadMapper "ripped" th…

It depends on how similar the implementation is. If someone clones all or most of another site's design decisions, I'd say that's not cool and is worthy of derision. There are sites that I would consider clones of PadMapper because they try to do things the same way without adding much new or providing a new take on the problem. That says to me that they didn't have much of a vision, and it's annoying - it seems unlikely that if they were re-deriving solutions to those problems that they'd come up with the same answers for everything.

For an example, see how different the results of our both tackling the same problems were - they barely resemble each other in form or functionality.

But yeah, the basic idea of showing real estate on a map is old, I have a research papers from the 80s that talks about making map-based search systems for real estate. housingmaps is the earliest web-based implementation of the idea that I know of, though, and was my inspiration.

Re: RentHop (YC S09) Launches Algorithmic Apartment Search In Boston

#22

Post by aneth »

ericd wrote: post #21
aneth wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't PadMapper just a ripoff of http://www.housingmaps.com/ , which was the first of its kind? I developed http://www.cribq.com because at the time, both PadMapper (if it existed, can't remember - according to domain records padmapper.com was registered after CribQ launched) and HousingMaps were too simplistic and behind on listings to use. HousingMaps had no organizational tools - so I suppose PadMapper "ripped" th…

It depends on how similar the implementation is. If someone clones all or most of another site's design decisions, I'd say that's not cool and is worthy of derision. There are sites that I would consider clones of PadMapper because they try to do things the same way without adding much new or providing a new take on the problem. That says to me that they didn't have much of a vision, and it's annoying - it seems unli…

I certainly don't think it's anyone's place to judge something as a "ripoff" versus "inspired." That is in the heart of the creator. And I think it's ridiculous to judge something on such an extreme binary scale - as either a soul-less copy or an inspired innovation.

Look at Android - it's a "ripoff" of iPhone, and copied much of the design and function. Except it's entirely different. It has created a new, more open and more dangerous ecosystem for applications. It has made iPhone-like functionality available to different markets and fulfilled different requirements. It has lighted the fire of competition under Apple.

While it may annoy you to have "copies" out there, I can guarantee you there was a reason those copies were developed. Nobody spends their hours reproducing existing functionally without some idea of how they will be better in product or distribution, regardless of their ultimate success. They may have been inspired by your work, but almost certainly they saw a need for something better in some way.

Re: RentHop (YC S09) Launches Algorithmic Apartment Search In Boston

#23

Post by MaxGabriel »

Have you considered varying the annotations on your map to help differentiate apartments? Hipmunk did a blog post explaining their approach to this, I think it helps you to read data from the map and makes it more visually interesting. http://blog.hipmunk.com/1/post/2012/01/the-making-of-hotel-s...

Re: RentHop (YC S09) Launches Algorithmic Apartment Search In Boston

#25

Post by ericd »

aneth wrote: post #22
ericd wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on how similar the implementation is. If someone clones all or most of another site's design decisions, I'd say that's not cool and is worthy of derision. There are sites that I would consider clones of PadMapper because they try to do things the same way without adding much new or providing a new take on the problem. That says to me that they didn't have much of a vision, and it's annoying - it seems unli…

I certainly don't think it's anyone's place to judge something as a "ripoff" versus "inspired." That is in the heart of the creator. And I think it's ridiculous to judge something on such an extreme binary scale - as either a soul-less copy or an inspired innovation. Look at Android - it's a "ripoff" of iPhone, and copied much of the design and function. Except it's entirely different. It has created a new, more open…

That last part is patently false. Many clones of software projects are developed entirely to get a piece of that other project's pie without any thought to being better, in the same way that Louis Vuitton counterfeits exist solely to capitalize on the design and brand cachet of the real thing.

Re: RentHop (YC S09) Launches Algorithmic Apartment Search In Boston

#26

Post by binarysolo »

jquery wrote: post #17
ericd wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, I wrote/write PadMapper, and I'd say not really. Thanks for looking out for me, though :-) The map UI is clearly inspired by it, but the data sources are very different. If I understand correctly, RentHop mostly focuses on getting information directly from and making money from rental brokers, whereas PadMapper just tries to index everything it can (PadMapper takes direct listings from a lot of the top agents/age…

How do you index from craigslist? They are notorious for sending "cease and desist" orders to companies who try to index them. Do you have some special agreement with them or is a matter of being a small enough fish they haven't noticed you yet?

Probably via RSS feeds, not through scraping.
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