Craigslist isn't a charity. It is sad that they don't innovate, but it's not the responsibility of the incumbents to make the job of their would-be replacements easier. In fact that's bad business.
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.
Exactly. The thing is, if some app becomes the way to access a Craigslist forum, Craigslist effectively loses its network advantage. If Padmapper really takes off, do you think it will hesitate to start offering rental advertising itself? And what does Craigslist get in return for the risk of that?
Funnily enough, the exact thing you described has already happened. PadMapper has a companion PadLister service (http://www.padlister.com/) that does just that.
This is very true. They could lose all that money* that they make off charging people to post there!
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.
Oh well nevermind, if craigslist make a lot of money from doing something than I certainly don't want anyone else innovating and taking their business away. We as consumers need to fight for businesses right to never have to compete with anyone else and freeze others out of the market via legal threats.
No that's not really what it's like. They are using information from Craiglists site, even if you don't respect Craigslists claim to IP on the user-submitted listings you have to respect the fact that it's their servers/resources that collect and then re-feed that data directly to their competitors. They are perfectly within their right to stop that, not just legally but ethically as well... at least IMO.
You seem to be implying that the forums which don't directly contribute revenue have no impact on the network effect which makes their job advertisements valuable. That doesn't really make sense to me.
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.
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.
The end game for Padmapper would definitely and without a doubt be to build its business using Craigslist and then compete with it. I wonder how many startups launched off of Craigslist.
Without a doubt? You presume that this is a standard startup with aggressive biz dev plans. It's actually mostly me working on things that I think are cool.
It's not the responsibility of incumbents to competitors. But it is part of their responsibility to their users.
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.
i wonder whether there is enough interest to build a community-supported "open-craigslist" on top of which anyone might build their own tools/services.
The second comment on this thread that suggests that the problem is "building an open replacement". Have you been on Craiglist lately?
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.
You can disrupt Craigslist vertical by vertical, same as with eBay (before they became totally crap) and Amazon (even today).
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).
I thought about adding something like this to my comment, but you said it better.
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.
i meant it not as a way of solving the current problem so much as a way of preventing it from happening again. indeed, i haven't any great ideas about how to redirect the massive momentum that craigslist has right now.
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.