

Ask HN: Review my web app, CraigUpdate.com - sil3ntmac
http://craigupdate.com

======
brighton36
This site will likely either get down down for TOS violations - or its
spidering IP will get blocked by craigslist.

If anyone on hackernews wants a (more powerful) ruby program/lib to do this
exact thing (with multi-city amd regex search support!), I recommend you check
out craigwatch/libcraigscrape :
<http://www.derosetechnologies.com/community/libcraigscrape>

~~~
hnsion
I agree - I've been using craigwatch for a while - once you configure your
report, I keep a cronjob running once a day to update me with all the new
stuff in my area that I might be interested in. The results are way better
then craigslist's or these other online systems. Once its setup, it just works
automatically - Plus, I dont have to worry about all the spam coming in from a
forked-over email address

------
synnik
I've noted, over the years, many sites that scrape craigslist data for one
purpose or another. They run for a few months, get popular, get noticed by
craigslist, get shut down.

Do you have ongoing communications with them to avoid this fate?

~~~
andrewljohnson
Could you name an example of this? I scraped CL for a while and they didn't
say a word, and I've never heard of them shutting someone down.

~~~
catone
If you visit <http://crgslst.com/> \-- a multi-city search site -- it pops up
a message about how they were blocked.

They also disabled Jeff Atwood's multi-city search:
<http://www.codinghorror.com/craigslist/> (he posted the letter he got from
them)

Then again, <http://www.housingmaps.com/> is still functional, and might be
the most popular Craigslist mashup -- I'm assuming they have a deal in place
with CL.

------
Davertron
I think the site is OK, but I get this same general functionality from doing a
search on craigslist and then adding that search as an RSS feed. While I don't
get INSTANT updates, I'm in my RSS reader often enough during the day that I
usually see things quickly enough. Still, not a bad idea, and if you're really
looking to be the first person to see a new post, I can see how this would
come in really handy.

~~~
sil3ntmac
I used to do that, but I'm not always at my computer. This way I can have
results emailed to my iPhone and instantly be notified. SMS isn't a bad idea
either now that I think about it...

------
pbburns
Hi I've done the same thing, <http://www.craigdiddy.com> and I also have a
list of all the other sites that do this and why mine is the best. Besides
email you can currently get free sms to find out even faster (via Twitter) and
I plan on releasing the non-interface code on github.

------
reduxredacted
Thank you for not using JavaScript unnecessarily.

In fact, thank you for not requiring me to create an account or register or
asking if I wanted to receive valuable offers via e-mail.

I'll comment back if it finds anything, but as far as the paint on the outside
goes, it looks nice and is something I would definitely use.

[edit] - technically you did create an account and I did have to click a link
to activate. I still stand by the thank you (and that's just smart going
anyway).

~~~
reduxredacted
So I said I'd follow up and I will.

I like the e-mail note. It only found one item but it said "A few items have
been founding matching <my criteria>", which I take to mean that it groups its
findings together in one e-mail, rather than sending an e-mail every time
something is found.

Just my own pet peeve and this is disgustingly nit-picky and petty, but: "1
File _(s)_ copied" has always bothered me. A plural check would be an
improvement. Of course, had there been a plural check, I wouldn't have been
able to comment yet.

------
sev
Not bad at all. I had the same idea and was about to implement it, but you
beat me to it. The only suggestion (small one) that I have, is that once you
register for the first time, and it suggests you register again for another
keyword, the city drop-down menu changes back to default. Generally speaking
(although not always the case), the requester would probably choose the same
city for every keyword search.

------
snewe
Thanks for knocking something off my to-do list. However, what I really wanted
(and I wrote an ugly version for myself) is an update for apartments. We were
looking for 1-2 beds that allowed dogs/cats within a certain prices range, not
in certain neighborhoods. Add that feature and you have an awesome product.

------
jack7890
It's cool and useful--the thing is there are a ton of cool/useful apps that
COULD be built on top of craigslist, but craigslist does everything in its
power to prevent that from happening. Is there a reason you won't get shut
down?

------
ca98am79
\- allow a '+' in the email address

\- make the data sticky, if you give me an error when I enter a '+' in the
email address, I want the stuff I previously entered to be there

But it looks nice, I'm hoping to get a free bike

------
archon810
I've been a fan of <http://www.craigslistwatch.com/> for a long time, and
they'd never gotten banned but unfortunately currently undergoing some sort of
restructuring.

------
aw3c2
No about, no contact, not even a privacy statement where you assure not to do
bad things with all the mail address you collect.

~~~
sil3ntmac
The privacy statement is a good point, I will add one in later for sure.

------
mangoleaf
Cool.

Might get spammy.

I don't see a revenue model anywhere. Nor a marketing model. Pull out the
checkbook for adsense?

~~~
sil3ntmac
To be honest, it was just a little web app I wrote last night. No marketing or
business model, although I can see how one could make money off of ads in the
emails?

I'm not really looking to develop this into a business, just thought it would
be useful and some people would get some use out of it. :)

------
vaksel
A craig's site I used before, has changed their name, one of the reasons for
change was:

    
    
       This is the big one. Craigslist doesn't like related 
       sites that use their 'Craig' name. And that's only fair. 
       As always, I try to do everything possible not to 
       irritate the big guy. The site hasn't drawn his wrath 
       yet, and this change is an important step to keep it  
       that way.

------
hyoogle
Great! I'd like it if it remembered my city so I can add a few search terms in
a row.

~~~
sil3ntmac
Good point! I'll add that feature tonight. :)

------
vaksel
won't this spam the crap out of people?

or are you doing the smart thing and just sending people a single email "We've
found a new match" with a link to the craigslist search results, sorted for
their search preferences?

~~~
rwolf
It's hard to remember that everyone doesn't have 7+ Gb of email storage. If I
wanted to use a service like this, I can't imagine an email with the fulltext
of a listing being big enough to ever bother me.

Giving your users the option to only receive links can't hurt, though.

~~~
vaksel
one email is not a problem, its getting 40 emails a day

------
harry4000
i couldn't find San Francisco or Bay Area or SFBay in the list!

~~~
sil3ntmac
Whoops, my bad. Fixed :)

------
matthavener
this is great, very simple and straightforward!

------
rokhayakebe
I was just speaking with someone this morning about setting up CG updates to
look for freelance gigs. Great start. Web workers will need to track several,
if not all, cities though.

~~~
sil3ntmac
You can sign up for as many cities as you want, I couldn't think of an easy
way to combine multiple cities/search terms without creating an account, which
defeats the simple/quick signup aspect I was aiming for.

~~~
rokhayakebe
separate search terms with a comma, just as in email. select STATE (for all
cities). select COUNTRY.

As of now I must go to Google and run a term+date site:cl.org to get results
for all states. That works, but it does not send me updates.

