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Craigslist blocking Airbnb.com

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Craigslist blocking Airbnb.com

#21

Post by foxit »

jurre wrote: post #15
bizodo wrote: post #8

I think it's bc they found out about how airbnb used robots, scrapers and fake gmail accounts to scrub Craigslist and spam people listing their apt.

I think you should post some proof when making accusations like that?

I think he's referring to what jeremydavid posted above: http://davegooden.com/2011/05/how-airbnb-became-a-billion-do...

It's an inaccurate representation of what happened as well as a year-old story, and I don't think it has much relevance to why they chose to block airbnb.com today.

Re: Craigslist blocking Airbnb.com

#22

Post by foxit »

foxit wrote: post #3

I hope this submission gets noticed. Craigslist is the absolute best way to advertise Airbnb listings. Without it, we're kinda sunk, and it could have a big impact on Airbnb's bottom line.

To whomever is downvoting everything I am posting, tell me why.

I think this is REALLY important. I didn't want it to pass without notice as when I posted the "Airbnb killer" link 10 days ago; that was worth noting too, but this is vital. Ability to link to Airbnb on Craigslist may not be important in the large markets where people will see your Airbnb ad anyway, as in SeoxyS's case, but for the just-getting-going places where Airbnb wishes to grow, it's vital.

Re: Craigslist blocking Airbnb.com

#23

Post by poppew »

intended wrote: post #12
poppew wrote: post #5

I think craigslist is notorious for this. I remember they recently blocked my favorite posting app, Bazaar, and all they did was host the images you posted from your phone. This was the simplest most user friendly app to post to craigslist with. So basically craigslist blocked any ad that had an image hosted by Bazaar. Killing Bazaar was a huge disservice to me as I stopped posting as many things to CL and a huge dis…

?Beautiful. Does that really matter? Take a bloomberg terminal - its literally arcane. If you don't know the specific commands to type, and the stock naming system they and only they use, you won't be getting anywhere. You would never have someone make an interface like that today. At the same time - it works. Once people get learn it, it moves into muscle memory. Since it obeys internally consistent rules, its also…

It works, but what I am saying is it works for a fraction of the population. Those that have time to hunt for deals and deal with flakes and last minute hagglers. There is a ton of people like this, but I argue that there are even more people that would use it if it were cleaner. Why force people to develop "muscle memory"? The rate of recycling of used goods would be much higher if craigslist was more open to either improvement of their platform or to startups building features for their community. Maybe the folks that want to develop "muscle memory" to fish out deals can do so at the cost of their time and score the best deals, but the value of time varies a lot from person to person and even from year to year. For example I sold a bunch of stuff on craigslist in college, but now that I have a job I don't bother with anything less than $200. I usually just donate it to the salvation army and write it off my taxes or let crap pile up in my garage. If I had an app that I could use to post and sell objects quickly and easily I would use it. I'd even be happy to pay someone to make this simple and easy. I am not saying to make a new service a paid service, but let free markets and innovative entrepreneurs figure out how to justify the costs of improvement. I definitely think craigslist has generated an insane amount of value, but I the bar can be set higher. They have definitely done net good, but if they continue to use their monopoly of the local online marketplace as a justification for not improving their site, I think it is bogus.

Either improve craigslist or let others build value added tools on top of craigslist. Why stop an app like Bazaar that helped people post things easily? Let people make up their own mind. Using smartphones as an example again, people will trade int their iPhone 3GS for $80, when they can get $160 for it on CL. So there is definitely demand somewhere in the massive gap of services that retailers and B2C companies offer and what exists on craigslist. Making consumer to consumer commerce smoother and easier is a huge opportunity in my mind that is not only lucrative, but fills in a big gap that exists because craigslist is still stuck in 1995.

Re: Craigslist blocking Airbnb.com

#24

Post by poppew »

incongruity wrote: post #11
poppew wrote: post #5

I think craigslist is notorious for this. I remember they recently blocked my favorite posting app, Bazaar, and all they did was host the images you posted from your phone. This was the simplest most user friendly app to post to craigslist with. So basically craigslist blocked any ad that had an image hosted by Bazaar. Killing Bazaar was a huge disservice to me as I stopped posting as many things to CL and a huge dis…

> These guys are doing a disservice to the American public. This comment blows my mind. How quickly we take things for granted is astounding. CL is a largely FREE site – I for one have sold around $1k of stuff I didn't want on there in the last decade or so – not much, but I paid exactly $0 for that. Try that with eBay or, even better, your local newspaper classifieds. The entitlement that lurks behind comments like…

Keep in mind this was a rant. Craigslist is awesome in many ways and has provided tremendous value over the years. All I am saying is their stubbornness to not improve has left a lot of value on the table. If someone else, maybe more capitalistic, was running craigslist we would probably be benefiting from it more at this point. Their monopoly of the local marketplace allows them to be complacent. The fact that they use their monopoly to not improve or let anyone else improve their platform is a crime in my mind. Just because it is free does not justify not improving it. There is huge a market inefficiency here that they are using to their advantage at the cost of the consumer...

Re: Craigslist blocking Airbnb.com

#25

Post by intended »

poppew wrote: post #23
intended wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

?Beautiful. Does that really matter? Take a bloomberg terminal - its literally arcane. If you don't know the specific commands to type, and the stock naming system they and only they use, you won't be getting anywhere. You would never have someone make an interface like that today. At the same time - it works. Once people get learn it, it moves into muscle memory. Since it obeys internally consistent rules, its also…

It works, but what I am saying is it works for a fraction of the population. Those that have time to hunt for deals and deal with flakes and last minute hagglers. There is a ton of people like this, but I argue that there are even more people that would use it if it were cleaner. Why force people to develop "muscle memory"? The rate of recycling of used goods would be much higher if craigslist was more open to either…

Any variant of my answer will boil down to being built around "well... people".

Maybe ease of use is the weak point - I personally doubt it - go for fixing it.

At the same time, I do suggest that there is something more complex bubbling under the surface.

GO for building your alternative. Nothing works better to figure out whats going on than an example that can be tested against. Good luck! Interface isn't everything!

Re: Craigslist blocking Airbnb.com

#26

Post by ericd »

I think this is likely an automatic ban for an unusual non-dictionary word/phrase, probably just another automatic tool in their arsenal against spammers. I don't think Craigslist has it in for AirBNB specifically.

Re: Craigslist blocking Airbnb.com

#27

Post by vijayr »

incongruity wrote: post #11
poppew wrote: post #5

I think craigslist is notorious for this. I remember they recently blocked my favorite posting app, Bazaar, and all they did was host the images you posted from your phone. This was the simplest most user friendly app to post to craigslist with. So basically craigslist blocked any ad that had an image hosted by Bazaar. Killing Bazaar was a huge disservice to me as I stopped posting as many things to CL and a huge dis…

> These guys are doing a disservice to the American public. This comment blows my mind. How quickly we take things for granted is astounding. CL is a largely FREE site – I for one have sold around $1k of stuff I didn't want on there in the last decade or so – not much, but I paid exactly $0 for that. Try that with eBay or, even better, your local newspaper classifieds. The entitlement that lurks behind comments like…

Totally agreed, the level of entitlement among the public is really amazing, especially when it comes to online/free services. CL is not a charity, it is not a non-profit. They can do anything they want, as long as it is legal. Of course their interface is bad etc. But they've got the biggest audience, the site is fast/predictable/never down, they also do their best to keep spammers/scammers out. What else could we ask from a totally free (for the most part) service?

Re: Craigslist blocking Airbnb.com

#28

Post by garethsprice »

I'm guessing they got blocked because of the automated "Post to Craigslist" feature on AirBnb that pushes an AirBnb user through various screens on Craigslist, filling in information automatically, and all the user has to do is hit "Submit" at the end.

CL is openly against anything that isn't a human individual expressing their energy by posting ads to another human individual via manually entering text into a mid-90s HTML interface. Anything else is too much like capitalism, man.

Re: Craigslist blocking Airbnb.com

#29

Post by foxit »

ericd wrote: post #26

I think this is likely an automatic ban for an unusual non-dictionary word/phrase, probably just another automatic tool in their arsenal against spammers. I don't think Craigslist has it in for AirBNB specifically.

I post ads every single day of the week. This is the first occurrence of the term being blocked.

Re: Craigslist blocking Airbnb.com

#30

Post by foxit »

foxit wrote: post #19
athst wrote: post #9

I don't understand - why should they allow AirBnB postings in the first place? When someone comes to Craigslist, I think the assumption is that you'll be doing business on Craigslist and not through a third party site like AirBnB. Why should they allow another company to take advantage of their audience if they don't want to?

This isn't about them allowing postings via airbnb, but rather not allowing the string "airbnb.com" to appear in the ad.

What in the world was this downvoted for. Seriously. I was explaining a misunderstanding.

For those who don't know, Airbnb has a posting-to-Craigslist option. It is not an auto-poster; rather, it formats a post into the html that'll be accepted by Craigslist, then you have to log into your Craigslist account to post to Craigslist what Airbnb's given you. We haven't used this option since we started. It does invite you to go to Airbnb's site so the transaction is not being conducted via Craigslist's email system. It chooses "no email - see below" as the default option and does not include a phone number. You can, of course, since you are the poster and it's not being auto-posted, change anything and everything about the format and the options.

Then you have our situation, the situation that has developed. We indicate our reviews on Airbnb and other services. The other services remain fine and untouched. But we can no longer show potential customers our Airbnb reviews.

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