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Bye Bye Craigslist

blog.padmapper.com

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Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#61

Post by grantjgordon »

Stefan_H wrote: post #46
jamiequint wrote: post #29

This is just offensive. It would be one thing if Craigslist was doing their best to satisfy their customers and they wanted to shut down others who were scraping their site and leeching off their business. However, Craigslist puts absolutely no effort into making their product usable. The continued existence of Craigslist is just a testimony to the enormous strength of network effect lock in.

So your argument is "Since they are not doing everything they can with their content, I can steal it"?

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 those kids over at Google. Or Bing. Or DuckDuckGo. Are they stealing content?

Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#62

Post by juiceandjuice »

jamiequint wrote: post #50
binaryorganic wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The magic recipe that keeps people coming back is that Craigslist has a large network. I would be willing to bet a large amount of money that adding a map to search results and letting me put an upper limit on the number of bedrooms I'm looking for would not make people less likely to use Craigslist.

To be fair to Craigslist, since everyone and their grandma uses it, I'd imagine a lot of users have underpowered computers, outdated browsers, and low bandwidth connections.

I've seen padmapper slow wayyyy down on my i7 macbook with 8GB ram, I can't imagine what it'd be like on grandma's 5 year old budget PC.

Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#63

Post by wave »

Padmapper has been a wonderful service. It is confusing why Craigslist is blocking it unless they (Craigslist) are thinking about coming up with similar user interface soon. Craigslist has been hiring UI designers.

Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#64

Post by markerdmann »

jamiequint wrote: post #50
binaryorganic wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The magic recipe that keeps people coming back is that Craigslist has a large network. I would be willing to bet a large amount of money that adding a map to search results and letting me put an upper limit on the number of bedrooms I'm looking for would not make people less likely to use Craigslist.

Don't discount the speed. Every Craigslist page loads and renders very quickly. The simple, text-only UI helps keep it fast, and that matters.

Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#65

Post by JaggedJax »

cwilson wrote: post #5

Curious if Live Lovely ( http://livelovely.com/ ) will get a similar cease and desist. They do essentially the exact same thing, but with a nicer design.

Except Padmapper works everywhere craigslist does. I went to livelovely just now and they don't have my city. It's not exactly a small town. Also their filtering is nothing compared to padmapper.

On a more related note, I would imagine any sites like this that come up on Craigslist's radar will get a similar notice.

Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#66

Post by jonxu »

binaryorganic wrote: post #37
jamiequint wrote: post #29

This is just offensive. It would be one thing if Craigslist was doing their best to satisfy their customers and they wanted to shut down others who were scraping their site and leeching off their business. However, Craigslist puts absolutely no effort into making their product usable. The continued existence of Craigslist is just a testimony to the enormous strength of network effect lock in.

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.

Wow, if this is true I've lost a lot of respect for CL. Being scared to make forward changes because one doesn't know the source of success is such a terrible excuse to stop innovating.

Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#67

Post by blackysky »

At the end of the day it is Craigslist's data. I know padmapper was useful for a lot of people so the next smart move is to build your own data. A "craiglist" focus on rental only with the same features. The sad reality is you need your own platform to scale any type of services like that.Is it going to be easy and fast to build. The answer is no. However the reward and opportunity are huge....

Of course it would be great if craigslist could have an API or licence his data but it won't happen in a bear future ...

Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#68

Post by ArmstrongRSBC »

fleitz wrote: post #33

Kudos to CL for standing up for user privacy. When I use CL it's with consideration of their TOS which bans these practices. When padmapper copies the data they violate my privacy, my copyright, and the agreement between myself and craigslist as outlined in the TOS. What padmapper is doing is a violation of many data privacy laws like PIPEDA, EUDPD, and various copyright acts. If padmapper wants the data why don't th…

So you're upset that a listing that you created for the sole reason of being seen and generating a response is being made more public?

wat??

Re: Bye Bye Craigslist

#70

Post by kthakar3 »

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.
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