
Ask HN: How to setup scaled-down Craigslist for my struggling rural area? - JayNeely
My hometown is a small city in north Georgia; less than 15,000 people or so. There isn't even a section of Craigslist for the surrounding area. I'm in town from Boston for a month or so, and while I'm here, it was recommended to me ( http://ask.metafilter.com/141621/How-to-help-rural-hometown-friends-survive-in-this-economy ) I setup a local version of Craigslist.<p>Do any HNers know of a white-label platform suited for this kind of purpose? I'd like to keep it simple; especially for getting a community started, there won't be enough volume of posts to fill up all the sub-sections Craigslist has, and thus make it worth checking them out. Community events, jobs, and a marketplace of some sort would probably be the basic sections needed.
======
breck
I tried this for my hometown of 100,000 3 years ago. I spent about 50 hours on
it (it was called brocktonpost.com). It had amazing features. No one used it.

My recommendation: Wait for Craigslist to come in.

> less than 15,000 people or so

If 1% of people used this, that's 150 people. You might want to start with a
simpler email group instead. If you can get 150 using an email list, then make
a website to accompany it.

The hard part isn't the software. In fact, it's 1000x easier to get the
software going than to get people to use it.

~~~
joe_the_user
Yes,

Especially since craigslist will come in eventually and so your fix will be
temporary if it's only aiming to be like craigslist.

Hey, you could even write Craig and ask him to include you. I know places in
rural California well-served by craigslist.

~~~
JayNeely
I have to disagree.

1) To clarify on the purpose a bit, it's aim wouldn't be to be just like
Craigslist. Craigslist is good, but has plenty of room for imrpovement. And
the unique characteristics of a local community make a more customized
solution (church sections, farming & agriculture sections, different job
categories as a few possible examples) a better option. While this may start
by being a simple classifieds Craigslist-like, it could evolve into something
very different.

2) One of the main points of what I'm looking for is the ability to setup a
_simplified_ Craigslist-like site. Craigslist has too many subsections to make
it easy to show activity in a newly active area.

3) It's always easier to promote, and gain buy-in, for a more specific (in
this case, local) solution.

None the less, thanks for the comment, and idea of writing Craig directly to
ask for an area section to be created.

------
innovate
Does your hometown have a local newspaper with a classified section? That
might be a good place to see where the needs are and what sections will be
most useful for your community specifically.

Get something up and running fast... a modified blog as simonk suggested might
be a good way to get it up quickly. Craigslist started as a mailing list of
sorts among friends.

~~~
davi
Also check out (physical!) bulletin boards to see what people are buying &
selling -- outside the food store, or for really remote areas, the nearest gas
station/general store.

------
ews
There are actually many ways to start a community, many of the best ones have
been described here.

Anyways, since I am here and I work at CL: can you send me (email on my
profile) information about your city and what would you specifically need on a
new geo? (specific categories/forums).

I can't promise anything (I don't have the last vote on the decision of
whether to launch a new geo or not) but it looks like it may make sense to
launch a new geo for your area at least at county level.

~~~
JayNeely
The e-mail field in your profile doesn't cause your e-mail to display
publicly; it's unfortunate HN doesn't make it more clear. You have to add it
in the bio section to cause it to be publicly viewable.

The area I'm in is Hiawassee, GA. Craigslist has a North _west_ GA section,
but could really use a Northeast GA section to cover Union, Lumpkin, White,
Habersham, Rabun, and Towns County. Each has several small-ish mountain towns,
but no central metro area, even in neighboring states.

~~~
ews
ops, you are right about the email , sorry about that.

We usually open new areas when people request them. I will see what I can do.

------
Mankhool
I don't agree that CL will come in eventually. What is their attraction point
to do so? Listing in your nearest CL designated area is problematic unless
1)Listers always include their town or, 2)People in non-listed towns fail to
use CL because they are not listed. I think there is an opportunity to fill in
between the "nodes" that CL uses, build it to scale easily, add everything you
wish CL would do, but doesn't, and launch it.

------
simonk
There is a few Wordpress plugins that turn it into a simple classified site
that work well.

<http://classifiedstheme.com/> <http://wpclassipress.com/>
<http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-classified/>
[http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/another-wordpress-
classi...](http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/another-wordpress-classifieds-
plugin/)

~~~
JayNeely
Excellent options, especially that last one it looks like. I'll look into
these. Thanks!

------
sacrilicious
White label? No. Singularly-focused on Classifieds? Nope. But Patch.com may be
a great way to pull together towns that are ailing and need to rely on each
other. Am I biased? Yes - these are guys I know and respect, but it's at the
very least a good model to shoot for and they may solve a lot of the harder
problems as they grow.

------
Scott_MacGregor
Since there seems to be no profit motive in setting this up, just possible
overhead, like site maintenance and getting the word out, if it were me,
before going to the effort to build and publicize a new site I would call
someone over at Craig’s list and ask them to include your area in their list.
Just a recommendation.

------
spaghetti
Perhaps myhometown.stackexchange.com could be a good start? The format is
relatively simple (just Q&A). All the hosting is taken care-of... so one could
set up a stackexchange in an afternoon (just seed the questions and do some
basic design).

------
shawndrost
Some rural towns have a radio hour that's basically craigslist. If there's a
local radio station, I'd guess you'd have more luck with this format than with
a website. (Hat tip to "This American Life".)

~~~
pstuart
Combine that with the local paper and online/sms.

------
kbob
Easiest thing would be to set up phpBB or similar forum software, then recruit
a few neighbors to moderate.

There is no point in applying more technology -- all the value will come from
the users (if you can get them).

~~~
palmsdev
I agree. Our town has a website with forum section for all of the residents
powered by phpBB.. While it isn't the perfect platform, it's a great way for
residents to exchange a variety of information. I find myself on here every
day for a variety of reasons and it's become a really valuable tool for many,
many people in our town.

Here is a screenshot of the categories that were created for us:
<http://client.palmsdevelopment.com/frontporch.png>

I would also look at Vanilla forums as an alternative to phpBB:
<http://vanillaforums.org/>

Hope this helps!

------
dannyr
Jay,

Sent you email. I may have something for you.

------
barmstrong
Google Groups would definitely be the simplest, although not 100% like
craigslist.

------
w3matter
Yeah, we have something simple. I'd be glad to let you get the code, or even
set it up on one of our servers here. Provided you totally run it.

We use it in Jamaica for stuff there. <http://www.brawtalist.com>

Dependencies? * Ruby on Rails * Redis

~~~
JayNeely
That's a fantastic offer! I'd definitely like to explore it. Could you send me
an e-mail, so we can talk further?

jay [.dot.] neely [@at@] socialstrategist [.dot.] com

~~~
cellis
The bots are that good these days now , huh?

------
anigbrowl
Ning.com (YC alumnus) offers templates for this kind of thing - you can start
with a CL lookalike and remove a bunch of sections to simplify. You could
consult local businesses and ask them to participate (free), maybe print up
some window stickers or do a press release for your local paper, if you have
one.

I don't think it's too hard to set up your own domain and transfer it, there's
a 'powered by ning' option or similar if you want to host offsite, as I
recall.

~~~
johnnybgoode
I don't think Ning was ever in YC.

~~~
anigbrowl
D'oh. Marc Andreesen who founded Ning _spoke_ at YC Winter 08. I keep mixing
this up, sorry for the confusion.

