Save Padmapper: Craigslist is wrong to shut them down. An open letter to Craig
blog.garrytan.com
blog.garrytan.com
It would be nice if Craigslist created a platform that others could build on. Something like Facebook. http://apps.craigslist.org/mapper. I bet people would build things on their data for free even without any way of making money off it.
Oh wait.
*Miscellaneous fees for job listings in some regions, and brokered apartment listings in NY do not apply. Ask your doctor for details. Void where prohibited.
You could try to replace Craigslist using only variants of the code shown in the original Rails screencast, with no consultation allowed. But you'd fail, because the result would be (from a UX perspective) better than Craigslist.
When people find a forum in which to post classifieds, they have exactly one (1) overriding goal: find the forum with the most vibrant market. There are a million zillion little things Craigslist can do better, but they are unlikely to make a big impact on that (1) goal, because Craigslist is already so vibrant that it has mostly put the rest of the classifieds "industry" (ie: newspapers) out of business.
There is really very little in common between renting or selling a house (which Craigslist is only good for in SF/SFBA, and ok in some college or other major-metro markets), selling small, highly standardized items (used iPhone 4s), selling used cars, dating or prostitution, and selling sofas. The unprofitable ghetto is selling sofas, and craigslist is the right place for that.
Amazon marketplace utterly destroys craigslist for selling most standardized, current-production items (books, electronics). There are Apple specific marketplaces for used Apple stuff which are by far the best. Etc.
Mostly because their interfaces are even EASIER for buyers than Craigslist. When I buy a used book from Amazon, it's zero friction, includes all the reviews for the new book, and has a single-button to buy (using stored payment, and shipping info, and shipping in 1-2 days for free).
In essence, the way to take market share from Craigslist is to take any market Craigslist dominates, and reimagine it as something other than "classified ads". It seems like you have to compete with the whole concept of "classifieds", not Craiglist.
Padmapper provides a service on top of Craigslist: it maps Craigslist ads. It does not provide classifieds, and Craigslist does not provide mapping. There is no overlap. They are not competing.
Maybe they will compete in the future, but that's just because Craigslist isn't making any effort to provide a mapping feature.
That said, Craigslist UI is terrible for finding apartments, and Padmapper is a fantastic improvement, so I'm very unhappy with this development.
Except craigslist almost is a charity... for it's users.
It's the multi-million dollar business that provides services valued at billions of dollars, previously.
Craiglist indeed barely changes but as one of the largest sites on planet that gives you stuff with barely any bullsht, there's little reason to pine-away for that innovation, if you're someone using the site*.
If coolpads or whatever wanted to just volunteer their Ajax to craiglist and get a share of milk-and-cookies craiglist's thirty employees live on, cool. Otherwise, wipe those dollar signs out of your eyes. Go make the big bucks doing SAP consulting or something.
That's especially true for Craigslist. A couple years back Craig and the Craigslist CEO were in front of an audience of Wall Street investors. They were asked, "How do you plan to maximize revenue?" Their answer: "We don't." Which is basically like asking the pope if those little crackers taste any good.
Craigslist is a mission-driven company. I think they've made a mistake, and that they'll realize it shortly. Perhaps by doing exactly what you suggest.
Also, as much as I hate to say this, the “they didn’t do anything wrong” argument is very weak. Scraping the site explicitly goes against Craigslist’s TOS:
Any copying, aggregation, display, distribution, performance or derivative use of craigslist or any content posted on craigslist whether done directly or through intermediaries (including but not limited to by means of spiders, robots, crawlers, scrapers, framing, iframes or RSS feeds) is prohibited.
The most compelling value that Padmapper added to craigslist was that it didn't make me want to tear my own eyes out, like the regular CL site does.
It's easy to miss relevant stuff on Craigslist. I used PadMapper to find my current place. I was the only person that week who put in an offer; had I missed his ad his place would have stayed unoccupied another week at least.
That provides value to the landlord, of course, but since Craigslist charges landlords for access, increased value to landlords means increased revenue potential for Craigslist, which is certainly of value to them.
There's also the possibility of making the case that shutting down PadMapper is really, really bad PR. Not to mention that there are more options here than simply killing PadMapper or returning to the prior status quo.
Padmapper's goal is to have Craigslist subsidize their data until they grow large enough to challenge Craiglist's business.
Craigslist would be stupid to let them do this.
Instead, why don't you write a letter to craigslist asking for similar functionality?
Maybe I'm looking at this the wrong way, but what about companies like Twitter that rely heavily on people using their API? Is there ever a concern that the apps will try to create their own network and push Twitter out?
Yes, there is. http://ubermedia.com/
If you choose to build a platform that is dependent on third-party data and APIs, then you choose to accept whatever choices those third parties make that could possibly affect your application.
The whole "craigslist doesn't innovate" argument is moot. If they were selling buggy whips at a million dollar revenue rate a month, someone out there would attempt to get in that same business, copy it, mimik it, resell it, etc.
Innovators create stuff that people want to copy or leach off of. Poseurs copy and leach off of innovators.
That much is completely obvious; I don't think anyone is arguing that Craigslist don't have that right.
People are annoyed because shutting down PadMapper (without any effort to provide similar functionality) is a shitty thing to do. PadMapper was a useful service; now it is not useful. That is unfortunate.
Personally, it also seems hypocritical for Craigslist to claim that they just build what their users' want. I think it is hard to argue that shutting down PadMapper is consistent with that goal.
That is obvious, follows directly from copyright law, and is not in dispute. PadMapper does not have a right to use Craigslist's data [1], but Craigslist sending C&Ds to PadMapper and similar sites is still shitty behavior all the same.
[1] Outside of fair use and similar stuff, but that doesn't apply here.
As far as the UI -- that's over rated. Drudge is the top trafficked news site in the world and he hasn't changed anything since 1997. Content trumps UI.
I most certainly am arguing that. Not only is the concept of ownership of information fundamentally mistaken in the first place (copying information doesn't deprive the original holder of anything), but even if you believe data is property, it's the property of the people who created it - not of Craigslist.
Can I create a LinkedIn competitor and just scrape your profile information to put on my site? After all, its the same situation.
You could alternatively hire people to spam them with nice requests to reconsider.
Technical papers get downvotes while people's blog posts about how to hire/fire people get upvoted.
Never heard of the site. Curious after this introduction I opened the site, went to my chosen hometown of Cologne, DE (1 mil people). Map's empty. Berlin, maybe? Nope. Tel Aviv, IL? Nothing.
So for all the places I care about on this very planet the service doesn't seem to work for me. That's not to slight their service at all, padmapper might be a great service. But either they depended on craigslist too much (and that's why it's barren now for me) or the writer of that blog post should tone down his introduction a bit. Is it planet or US now?
Regarding listings in the cities I mentioned: I only know that Tel Aviv definitely uses craigslist. I never used it in Germany before, no idea if it is relevant at all in those places.
Jim and Craig,
Padmapper saved me dozens of hours looking for apartments vs. using the Craigslist UI. If you extrapolate this to your entire user base, padmapper can save your users millions of hours each year. That's the equivalent of several human lifetimes saved that can be spent on other pursuits.
Padmapper saves lives. Please unblock them and open your data API.
-Jacob
(Of course, Craigslist is an evil monopoly despite their happy granola reputation, so I don't expect them to listen)
Just focus on making the SV/SF market amazing using padlister or partnerships with property managers. Displace Craigslist in real estate in their home market.
For my geographical area at least, the removal of Craiglist might improve the signal-noise ratio.
Padmapper is Craigslist's competitor.
Note to whiners, please hold your breath.
I think the time is coming that developers will have to "invent" their own datasources rather than banking on such _giants_
That is fine with me, but let me asks this: if I start a web site which scrape all Craigslist data would you guys back me up? If not, why not?
their service is 100% dependent on Craigslist so they'd have trouble selling to anyone else
"Don't build your house on someone else's platform" http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4093796
The responsiveness of the site is sluggish and the longer I wait for that page load the less time I am saving.
The listings on there now are junk. Recycled listings from aparatmentfinder, really is that all you got. When I search property on craigslist for my town and a price range I get hundreds more listings than padmapper.
Right there are two major problems with padmapper.
Padmapper is an amazingly useful tool. Couple of months ago, I had a coworker relocate from Irvine and he was raving about Padmapper before I even had the chance to tell him about it. I run into people like this on a monthly basis to the point that I brag about personally knowing Eric.
I know Padmapper makes some money but it's not exactly a cash cow—though I hope someday it will be as it definitely provided me with more value than all the Groupons and Instagrams in the world, and asked me for nothing in return.
I can almost understand by what you mean with "Silicon Valley get-rich-quick schemes" but Padmapper is the last startup I'd ever categorize as such.