Ask YC: Anyone working on applications for Craigslist?

[breck]

Today I stumbled upon a great program that makes reading craigslist easier. It's called Craigslist Reader and is available here:

http://www.motiont.com/

(My review is here: http://breckyunits.com/?p=52)

A lot of Web 2.0 apps piggyback on the big sites to achieve success (Auctomattic, Facebook apps, etc.). I think this is a terrific strategy because these sites have millions of daily users who have many unmet wants. I was wondering if anyone here has been working on (or know of any) apps that would benefit craigslist users.

I'm not planning on developing any, actually I'm just curious because I use craigslist a fair amount.

[gscott]

Craigslist doesn't have an open system. Craigslist blocks ip's of those accessing there system through a web application and they send out lots of cease and desist notices. It just is not worth the time to develop something that might even benefit Craigslist.

Piggybacking on bigger sites is a good idea, just find one that is interested. Paypal did for eBay and it worked out for them, There is a lot of room to develop things using ebay. For example, maybe a craigslist format but for ebay auctions.

[aaronsw → gscott]

That's a pretty serious claim; any pointers? If you've got some I'll be sure to nag Craig about it next time I see him.

[fragmede → aaronsw]

listpic?

http://mashable.com/2007/06/08/listpic-craigslist/

[aaronsw → fragmede]

So the issue is: 1) they were putting ads on top of Craigslist, and 2) they were using up too much bandwidth. I expect if you actually wanted to build something useful you could just email Craig and he'd get you a dump.

[gscott → aaronsw]

There have been a few others, one fellow made a search system (using the rss feeds) where you can search across cities (by using checkboxes to select the different areas). Craiglist didn't like that.

I guess the bigger question is, what would Craigslist like? I am not sure, I just have not seen anything survive yet because Craigslist hasn't liked anything anyone has done so far.

[vesterr → fragmede]

Ha, with EC2 you can get around that now. Separate your website IP from your crawling IP, and every time CL blocks an IP, switch to a new one. Eventually they'll have to block the entire AWS range, but that's okay, you can crawl over cablemodem/DSL connections that use DHCP. What are they going to do, block Verizon, Comcast and Time Warner?

Then you can get around referer [sic] blocks for your links to CL that the user clicks on by using a redirect, I think.

You can slurp the entirety of CL daily without causing them traffic problems. I mean it's equivalent to each page getting one page view per day, which is nothing. Just keep track of URLs so you only slurp new content, and serve thumbnails off your own hosts (it's fair use).

[nuggien → vesterr]

Why would you go to all that effort if they don't want to play with you in the first place? If they really wanted to block you, they'll do it through their lawyers.

[vesterr → nuggien]

That stuff is really easy.

And you may convince them to join you after all, like YouTube and the media companies they parasite off of.

[nuggien → vesterr]

I didn't say it was hard.

It's also very easy to differentiate between a crawler and a user. But they don't even have to do that. Blocking the entire AWS ip range isn't hard either. I doubt any craigslist users browse the site through AWS :)

[aquateen → aaronsw]

One example, I used to want to search for craigslist items regardless of location. I found some sites that briefly offered this service, but they were requested to stop by CL.

[optimal → gscott]

"Craigslist doesn't have an open system. Craigslist blocks ip's of those accessing there system through a web application and they send out lots of cease and desist notices"

Screw it. Right now, a group here should build a newer, better Craigslist. Enough of you guys are in touch with the SV/Bay scene to bring the eyeballs required to kick it off, because as I see it, it's not a technical problem but rather a marketing one: what you need is a brief but intense "attention burst" to launch something like this.

The bleeding-edge users are all here, or only one or two degrees removed, and could make it work. [Don't look at me, I'm stuck on the East Coast.]

[mlinsey → gscott]

"Paypal did for eBay and it worked out for them", which is true but it should also be noted that it worked only after eBay launched a competing product that PayPal was able to beat despite the enormous distribution advantages that an eBay-run competitor had.

[utnick → gscott]

wonder why he does that..... cl doesnt make money off page impressions.... seems like closing the system is just hurting himself

[STHayden]

I'm in a startup working on a competitor to craigslist. We have a long way to go but so far I think we have good bones. We are hoping to work toward being more open for people to build on top of us.

http://www.flugpo.com

[dcurtis → STHayden]

Can you explain why you're creating a craigslist competitor? I'm having a hard time understanding why so many people are doing this.

What problem are you solving?

[STHayden → dcurtis]

craigslist has an problem with anonymous posters. People often get ripped off because there is no good way to check on a persons reputation. Flugpo.com is trying to create a space where you can find out more about who the people are that you are trying to deal with.

Not a solution for all people but some people are more concerned with online safety then others.

[alaskamiller → STHayden]

so a free ebay.

[STHayden → alaskamiller]

nope.. not a free ebay either... I like to think of Flugpo.com as a middle ground between ebay and craigslist. There is a large spectrum of security between ebay and craigslist and we are trying to fill that middle gap.

[mlinsey → dcurtis]

Right - openness can be a strong advantage but only after there are some compelling applications built on top of that openness.

[jrockway → dcurtis]

I got my first two apartments on Craigslist, both a few years ago. I was looking for a new one this year on Craigslist, but the rentals section is so full of lies and "call me for info" that it's worthless.

Basically, the openness of Craigslist is destroying it. I'm not sure how to solve the problem, but I would really like a forum that is non-commercial.

[STHayden → jrockway]

it's a hard problem in general because craigslist has such market share... when myspace was that dominant back in the day every one knew they would fall eventually because myspace was such a pain to use.

craigslist's problems are not so glaringly functional. They have safety problems with anonymous posters and scamers. They have issues with locking out people in the development community. I've heard a lot of complains about their forums.

It's hard to figure out the best way to attack though problems in a way that draws people from craigslist to a new service.

[cmm324 → jrockway]

Our goal for our startup http://www.propertystampede.com is to captures the dynamic listings that craigslist does for rental property, but in a fraud free environment.

Come check us out, and if you have rental property or are a property manager, please sign up for the beta.

Christopher Mancini Co-Founder, Property Stampede LLC

[cmm324 → cmm324]

Why the downmode? Our product is indirectly creating an environment for property managers to list individual units, and because of the design of the system, you have to be using our property management software to list on our listing engine. Reducing possible fraud if not eliminating it all together.

Our listing engine will not provide the same listings you see in forrent.com, rent.com and apartments.com, which is primarily apartment complexes. Our goal is to provide a wide variety of rental listings more similar to craigslist. Listings that normally would not find themselves on the above mentioned sites due to the magnitude of cost that is required to list there.

For this I get downmoded :(

Sincerely, Christopher Mancini

[kirse]

http://www.crazedlist.org -- Lets you search states, regions, etc. on Craiglist. You have to disable referrers though, which takes about 2 seconds. I didn't make the site nor do I know the guy behind it, but I found it pretty useful when searching for a car.

[redorb]

(not a product but a personal idea) ...

I wanted to build a google custom search engine, that indexes all the car sites (for each city etc..) - then make them all search-able from one box... This works for all items that someone would drive cross state for...

- I was afraid this might be used for malicious purpose so I haven't done it yet

[joshwa]

yep, flowthing (coming soon, needs a new name) will piggyback on craigslist, as well as its competitors in the jobs and real estate markets.