- kill Padmapper instantly by building a map function to view their listings.
- elect not to build a map feature because they think it's trivial and they believe no one cares. So Padmapper should languish.
- buy Padmapper for a little bit of money and have Eric help make their product better.
- hire Eric to make their product better.
- invest a little money into Padmapper as a hedge and hope it does well.
- charge Padmapper a data access fee
These are all totally reasonable options.
Instead, Craig turned to the lawyers and sued Padmapper for using Google's listings and decided that all CL posts are now their exclusive property. If CL really didn't want this data out in the wild, they'd prevent Google from indexing their site.
This is not only a dick thing to do, it's an especially dick thing to do if you sit on the board of The Sunlight Foundation and the advisory board of Wikimedia.
Craig Newmark is a lazy monopolist at this point. All profit taking, no innovation.
"Craig Newmark is a lazy monopolist at this point. All profit taking, no innovation."
This argument is way overblown. If you ask most companies for the data they generate, they would say no. So singling out Craigslist and using that as an argument as to why Craig is a "jerk" is silly because he would be in good company if that were the case.
Bottom line is that CL isn't a hard site to reproduce and even do it in a better fashion. The moment that other sites can start using CL data is the moment that the CL stranglehold will slip. Currently, others can build a product and then fight for users to come. If they were able to use CL data they would eliminate the chicken and egg problem and can slowly get their own data 'til they wouldn't need CL data. How is that in CL's interest to let that happen?
I don't think its overblown. The major issue here is CraigsList owns the network for internet classifieds, but hasn't done anything to improve their product in a decade. The Craigslist experience has been diminishing ever since:
1) Spam, Scams, and false postings
2) Postings not taken down because they've already been sold
3) Terrible interface for adding pictures, uploading media to help sell.
Generally, the guy is sitting on top of a monopoly and is actively choosing to do nothing with it other than collect money, and prevent anyone from usurping his throne.
Now, is PadMapper out of line by stealing their data? Sure, why not. Is CraigsList out of line for wanting exclusive license on their listings? Probably not.
But when you add that monopoly, and then stifle innovation because you are either lazy or incompetent is not doing the world any good. My guess is - everyone thinks CraigsList works wonderfully because we haven't had an opportunity to see anything better. Its like saying Camera phones are the best thing ever, but its because you've never seen an iPhone.
"Generally, the guy is sitting on top of a monopoly and is actively choosing to do nothing with it other than collect money, and prevent anyone from usurping his throne."
There is nothing stopping somebody from coming up with a site that beats craigslist, nothing at all. It will be hard, for sure, but it can and will be done eventually. So it isn't really preventing anybody from usurping his throne.
"But when you add that monopoly, and then stifle innovation because you are either lazy or incompetent is not doing the world any good. "
I hear this argument over and over, that CL is stifling innovation and I just don't see it. It seems like a bunch of would-be competitors want an easy in. There is nothing stopping a competitor from taking over, except a large amount of work. Just because a company won't let anybody use their data, doesn't mean they are stifling innovation. It would be a different story if CL tried to claim IP protection on internet classifieds but that isn't the case.
I didn't mean to say they are stifing innovation because they won't let some UI hipsters gain access to their data - but because they aren't willing to cooperate at all, AND don't do anything to make internet classifieds anything other than what it already is... from 12 years ago.
Those aren't reasons that they are stifling innovation. They are just not providing an easy in for other companies, which most companies don't do either. If Craigslist didn't exist the field would be exactly the same, the new companies would face a chicken and the egg problem. How do they get users without content and how to get content without users.
I feel that the people are being extraordinarily harsh on Craigslist with requests that would be laughed at if you brought them to another company. Although that being said, CL is in a unique position where they have been able to hold their market share without innovation or even much change.
Why should they spend money and time because you are whining their interface is ugly and hasn't changed? I can apply this argument to 50% of the websites I visit every day. I'll start: eBay.
This seems very naive to think that Craig gives a damn about padmapper, they (CL) have every right to license their data to whomever they want, and PM choose not to seek such a license so I seriously doubt Eric would really stand much of a chance getting a job with CL.
You speak as though CL is broken, and it clearly isn't, as a marketplace it functions well. You may not like the website, but it's marketplace first, website second. If you want to sell something, it has the inventory and the customers.
Craid had to sue PM, it's just business, it wasn't a personal attack or a "dick thing" as you seem to think.
Actually, Craig has a history of speaking personally with founders using CL data, acting nice, and then mysteriously shutting down their mechanism for getting data without replying. Even if they weren't trying to make money.
Craigslist is broken. And successful. Those aren't mutually exclusive things. Newspapers are broken yet they'll do nearly $20 billion of dollars in revenue this year. They were broken and did peak revenue in 2005. Nokia was broken but had record profits two years ago. RIM was broken and did record profits last year.
Craigslist will eventually lose. It's just going to take longer than any of us reasonably expect.
> You speak as though CL is broken, and it clearly isn't, as a marketplace it functions well.
I'm guessing you've never had to find an apartment on Craigslist. Sifting through spam, scams, fake listings by agents, listings that have already been sold... sure, you can do it, but it's not efficient.
Clearly people are still finding value on CL. Hacker News readers are in a demographic that views the internet and the web VERY differently from how people who do not create internet services for a living view them. We care about a completely other set of factors then they do.
We don't bookmark facebook.com we rely on the browser history, having typed it in to the address bar once. They use google to search for the link to the facebook login.
They hear that CL is the biggest site for classified ads, so they post there. They don't care that padmapper will put their apartment on a map, they don't care about other sites.
CL did the hard work of attracting the people to the marketplace. Padmapper is not doing any of that hard work. It is my opinion, if you're doing the hard work of building the community and attracting the users, then you'll agree with CL on this issue. If you're a repackager, then you'll side with padmapper.
If your business idea is "Some corner of Craigs List with a better UI" then by all means, build the UI and then convince people to GIVE you their data.
To me, the word community connotes a separate entity that you interact with in some way, usually due to proximity. You might define the Craigslist Community as only people visiting craiglist.com but to me it would imply sites such as Padmapper that extend and improve Craigslist data. They are symbiotic and support the same community of users, Padmapper is not "repackaging" Craigslist like some sort of parasite like you imply.
Anecdotally, whenever I've used Padmapper to find a new apartment I would end up on craiglist.com anyway as Padmapper would often not contain the real estate agent's contact information.
Building a community takes work, but so does building a better UI. Both should be rewarded in the market, but because of network effects, the former is rewarded disproportionately.
Or a car. Try searching for one of three brands you like within a specified range prices and years, excluding vehicles that have salvage titles, sorted by how close the seller is to you.
The query syntax for CL is reasonably sophisticated, it supports phrase match, grouping and it's possible to specify to specify a price range, using minAsk and maxAsk, you can also specify exclusion terms.
Depends on the market - I understand the incentives in new york are such that scamming by agents is common, and problematic. In the Bay Area, (indeed, all of california to the best of my knowledge) - it's rare (as in, I've never heard of it happening) for a renter to pay a fee for a new rental, and so there is very little incentive to scam them. I've moved five times since 2003, every time using craigslist. If I want a graphical/map view, I just use housingmaps.com - unlike padmaps, they are simply offering a service to the user base, so, to the best of my knowledge, they've always had free access to the CL data.
I've never spent more than a week looking for a new place, and wouldn't consider using any service other than craigslist to do so.
Clearly the experience in other markets is not so positive.
You speak as though CL is broken, and it clearly isn't, as a marketplace it functions well.
A marketplace can be popular and still broken. I think Craigslist's extreme insistence on not developing their product may have been a great move once upon a time but is catching up with them. PadMapper and apartment rentals is just one example.
People seems to think that PM is the good guy and CL the bad guy I just see it a buiness trying to profit over one that's already existing and has a strong user base
It's not that simple. PM is trying to profit by innovating, CL is trying to profit by maintaining a monopoly position. They're entitled (legally) to do that, but they're not entitled to do so without losing the goodwill that they rely on for customers to give them their listing for free.
That's an extremely concise, and (I believe), correct, point.
The question is whether or not there's room for a craigslist clone, particularly one that can succeed by sharing its data openly with third-parties.
In truth, I'm doubtful. My reluctant conclusion is that there is, in fact, value in preventing the data from being spread across multiple interfaces and platforms, which itself could confuse users. This was essentially Twitter's stance when it came time to solidify their brand and reduce the number of clients.
There is real user value in knowing how their listing will be presented. I mean, if I'm listing a room for rent and "DruggieCriminalRoommateFinder" syndicates my listing, I'm probably not going to be happy with the response quality.
That's the thing though, remember that old adage "The customer is always right" it means that at the end of the day, right or wrong, good or bad, allowed or not-allowed, caring or cold, sue-happy or not if the people that use the website are complaining (and so far it seems they are) than cragislist is broken, because it's leadership lost the respect of it's market. There is absolutely nothing stopping someone from making a new place-to-list-stuff-for-sale, that's easier to use, safer, and open source for that matter.
People, why aren't we just getting together to do just this, we've got UX people, web people, team management types and coders out the wazoo here. Let's just make a new craiglist already.
PS: I forgot, we've got marketing genius's here to, that can make miracles happen with just about zero dollars.
PPS: It doesn't matter how much that saying irritates you, as a business owner, try being successful without customers. If anything the saying is truest only when a majority of the customers believe the same thing, but there is still truth in it. (Obviously a jerk customer that other customers would shun will have no impact on you if you say I won't serve you.) "The customers are always right" :)
The customer isn't always right, but they're still the customer. That saying really grinds my gears.
Someone said/typed once that there will be no big CL killer - that they'll be pecked to death by many small replacements, such as Etsy in the crafts space. PM should be the CL replacement for the housing market, and their biggest problem to solve now is getting listings from another source, hopefully from landlords listing directly with them.
However, if people don't buy what your building you have made a mistake. It can be slick, salable, cheap, and marketed to the high heavens, but it's customers that decide if you have a business or a really expensive hobby.
- kill Padmapper instantly by building a map function to view their listings.
- elect not to build a map feature because they think it's trivial and they believe no one cares. So Padmapper should languish.
- buy Padmapper for a little bit of money and have Eric help make their product better.
- hire Eric to make their product better.
- invest a little money into Padmapper as a hedge and hope it does well.
- charge Padmapper a data access fee
These are all totally reasonable options.
Instead, Craig turned to the lawyers and sued Padmapper for using Google's listings and decided that all CL posts are now their exclusive property. If CL really didn't want this data out in the wild, they'd prevent Google from indexing their site.
This is not only a dick thing to do, it's an especially dick thing to do if you sit on the board of The Sunlight Foundation and the advisory board of Wikimedia.
Craig Newmark is a lazy monopolist at this point. All profit taking, no innovation.