Save Padmapper: Craigslist is wrong to shut them down. An open letter to Craig

http://blog.garrytan.com/save-padmapper-craigslist-is-wrong-to-shut-th

by ericz • 14 years ago

252 96 14 years ago

blog.garrytan.com

flatline3• 14 years ago

I don't understand the justification for "saving" padmapper.

Padmapper's goal is to have Craigslist subsidize their data until they grow large enough to challenge Craiglist's business.

Craigslist would be stupid to let them do this.

Instead, why don't you write a letter to craigslist asking for similar functionality?

whichdan3• 14 years ago

They already run PadLister[1]. I wonder whether their endgame is to usurp Craigslist, or to continue being an aggregator? Personally I see more value in them pulling in Craigslist ads than trying to create their own community, but at this point they're really limited for options.

Maybe I'm looking at this the wrong way, but what about companies like Twitter that rely heavily on people using their API? Is there ever a concern that the apps will try to create their own network and push Twitter out?

[1] http://www.padlister.com/

bitcrusher2• 14 years ago

Are you saying that Craigslist runs PadLister? If so, when you click "Search All Listings" it brings up PadMapper... As a result, I'm a bit confused.

ericd7• 14 years ago

Yeah, there is PadLister - my goal with that wasn't to usurp them with that, I just wanted to have a backup in place. It actually makes it easier to post to Craigslist. But I know how that looks :-/

eurleif• 14 years ago

>Is there ever a concern that the apps will try to create their own network and push Twitter out?

Yes, there is. http://ubermedia.com/

astrodust2• 14 years ago

Write a letter to Craigslist? You may as well stuff it in a bottle and throw it in the ocean.

steadicat• 14 years ago

Not very convincing. We all know the value that Padmapper brings to apartment seekers. What's harder to explain is what (if any) value Padmapper brings to Craigslist. That's really the case you'd have to make to get Craigslist to reconsider.

Also, as much as I hate to say this, the “they didn’t do anything wrong” argument is very weak. Scraping the site explicitly goes against Craigslist’s TOS:

Any copying, aggregation, display, distribution, performance or derivative use of craigslist or any content posted on craigslist whether done directly or through intermediaries (including but not limited to by means of spiders, robots, crawlers, scrapers, framing, iframes or RSS feeds) is prohibited.

mullingitover3• 14 years ago

"What's harder to explain is what (if any) value Padmapper brings to Craigslist."

The most compelling value that Padmapper added to craigslist was that it didn't make me want to tear my own eyes out, like the regular CL site does.

saurik• 14 years ago

That does not provide value to Craigslist: that provides value to you. Please explain how they provide value to /Craigslist/.

callahad• 14 years ago

"That's really the case you'd have to make to get Craigslist to reconsider."

There's also the possibility of making the case that shutting down PadMapper is really, really bad PR. Not to mention that there are more options here than simply killing PadMapper or returning to the prior status quo.

cglace• 14 years ago

99% of people that use cragslist could care less. Plus, I'm pretty sure it would hurt craigslist a lot more if padmapper were to start directly competing with them.

leelin• 14 years ago

"Save Padmapper" seems to be selling the company short given the diverse set of data sources and partnerships they have. I hope Craigslist comes around but my bet is PadMapper will be more than fine regardless.

mmanfrin• 14 years ago

I'd wager 90% of their listings come from craigslist -- not really sure how they'll be 'more than fine'.

ericd7• 14 years ago

You're pretty far off, since a lot of stuff gets cross posted, but I'm still pretty bummed about it - it obviously made the site more useful.

mdanger• 14 years ago

I was using Padmapper this morning to look at listings in the Boston area (I was actually on the phone with a friend at the time extolling the virtues of Padmapper), and went back to look at it again now -- tons of stuff gone.

staunch2• 14 years ago

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.

Estragon2• 14 years ago

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?

mullingitover3• 14 years ago

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.

potatolicious2• 14 years ago

Funnily enough, the exact thing you described has already happened. PadMapper has a companion PadLister service (http://www.padlister.com/) that does just that.

mikhael2• 14 years ago

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.

tptacek3• 14 years ago

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.

AceJohnny2• 14 years ago

would-be replacements?

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.

majormajor• 14 years ago

Padmapper actually does provide their own listing service (that currently goes to Craigslist, though): http://www.padlister.com/

That said, Craigslist UI is terrible for finding apartments, and Padmapper is a fantastic improvement, so I'm very unhappy with this development.

xelipe2• 14 years ago

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.

briandear3• 14 years ago

Either way, it makes no difference. Craigslist doesn't owe anyone anything. If people don't like it, they're invited to compete.

joe_the_user• 14 years ago

Abso - fricken - lutely,

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.

ericd7• 14 years ago

You do realize that Craigslist makes >100 million/year, right?

wpietri6• 14 years ago

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.

J3L2404• 14 years ago

They may be wrong in shutting them off, but they certainly have the right.

mullingitover3• 14 years ago

The really shameful part is that CL could easily implement this feature on their own with very little effort, but they won't. Someone in another thread surmised that perhaps CL is planning to roll out a mapping tool on their own. If that's the case, it's really user-hostile to kill the working tool before they replace it with something developed in-house.

bitcrusher2• 14 years ago

I am curious as to what the catalyst for killing PadMapper over LiveLovely or any of the other aggregation sites out there?

ericd7• 14 years ago

There's a wave of these C&D's coming out, a lot to sites much smaller than mine.

rcavezza• 14 years ago

Why haven't they done this more often? Many startups are trying to chip away at CL's business. http://www.mdaniels.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/tumblr_kw...

Mc_Big_G3• 14 years ago

Who wants to start a Kickstarter campaign to develop an open api/backend for classifieds? I'm in.

tptacek3• 14 years ago

Craigslist's market position has very little to do with technology. This is a little like suggesting a Kickstarter campaign for IPv6.

Mc_Big_G3• 14 years ago

The point isn't the technology, it's the openness.

jarcoal• 14 years ago

I have a feeling all this will be somewhat moot anyway. If Padmapper is as popular as it appears to be, then many rental companies will go straight to them and submit their units in addition to CL.

istari• 14 years ago

Dear Craiglist, please let Padmapper continue to scrape your data for free because I find Padmapper super useful and much better than your shitty site. I'm not going to address your interests at all, because they are directly threatened by the existence of Padmapper. In fact, I'm surprised that you haven't shut down Padmapper a year ago.

neutronicus• 14 years ago

I'm probably one of the only people who is glad to see this happen. Keep your Silicon Valley get-rich-quick schemes away from my Craigslist!

chrisballinger• 14 years ago

You must have never used Padmapper to find your apartment. It is truly a great experience compared to crawling through pages and pages of non-standardized listings.

kimmel• 14 years ago

I just tried padmapper out and I am not impressed.

The responsiveness of the site is sluggish and the longer I wait for that page load the less time I am saving.

The listings on there now are junk. Recycled listings from aparatmentfinder, really is that all you got. When I search property on craigslist for my town and a price range I get hundreds more listings than padmapper.

Right there are two major problems with padmapper.

shazow• 14 years ago

Get-rich-quick schemes?

Padmapper is an amazingly useful tool. Couple of months ago, I had a coworker relocate from Irvine and he was raving about Padmapper before I even had the chance to tell him about it. I run into people like this on a monthly basis to the point that I brag about personally knowing Eric.

I know Padmapper makes some money but it's not exactly a cash cow—though I hope someday it will be as it definitely provided me with more value than all the Groupons and Instagrams in the world, and asked me for nothing in return.

I can almost understand by what you mean with "Silicon Valley get-rich-quick schemes" but Padmapper is the last startup I'd ever categorize as such.

GigabyteCoin• 14 years ago

If Padmapper is really going to die without the addition of Craigslist real estate listings, then why would Craiglist want to allow them to allow them?

Padmapper is Craigslist's competitor.

blantonl• 14 years ago

The uproar over this is ridiculous. Craigslist is free to choose who can consume their data.

If you choose to build a platform that is dependent on third-party data and APIs, then you choose to accept whatever choices those third parties make that could possibly affect your application.

The whole "craigslist doesn't innovate" argument is moot. If they were selling buggy whips at a million dollar revenue rate a month, someone out there would attempt to get in that same business, copy it, mimik it, resell it, etc.

Innovators create stuff that people want to copy or leach off of. Poseurs copy and leach off of innovators.

neilc2• 14 years ago

Craigslist is free to choose who can consume their data.

That much is completely obvious; I don't think anyone is arguing that Craigslist don't have that right.

People are annoyed because shutting down PadMapper (without any effort to provide similar functionality) is a shitty thing to do. PadMapper was a useful service; now it is not useful. That is unfortunate.

Personally, it also seems hypocritical for Craigslist to claim that they just build what their users' want. I think it is hard to argue that shutting down PadMapper is consistent with that goal.

xelipe2• 14 years ago

I may have a contrarian view, but Craigslist not only has the right to choose who can consume their data, but how and when. It also, has the right to make it available any which way it likes. The idea that PadMapper has any right to Craigslist postings because it is a better service is ridiculous; it's like me saying that I think your house looks unkept so I am going to move in.

briandear3• 14 years ago

It's not shitty, it's smart, why give your data to a potential competitor? Padmapper is obstrnsibly attempting to make money right? Why should CL let PM profit for CL data? Just because YOU like PM, doesn't mean that CL is being shitty. There's a reason CL is still on top.

As far as the UI -- that's over rated. Drudge is the top trafficked news site in the world and he hasn't changed anything since 1997. Content trumps UI.

rwallace• 14 years ago

> I don't think anyone is arguing that Craigslist don't have that right.

I most certainly am arguing that. Not only is the concept of ownership of information fundamentally mistaken in the first place (copying information doesn't deprive the original holder of anything), but even if you believe data is property, it's the property of the people who created it - not of Craigslist.

tlogan• 14 years ago

So we need to save Padmapper which scrapes data from Craigslist.

That is fine with me, but let me asks this: if I start a web site which scrape all Craigslist data would you guys back me up? If not, why not?

wpietri6• 14 years ago

Depends on how useful you are. Many scrapers are just putting out BS search engine bait. PadMapper created a great interface on top of CL's data, which created huge value for CL users.

jacoblyles• 14 years ago

Here's mine:

Jim and Craig,

Padmapper saved me dozens of hours looking for apartments vs. using the Craigslist UI. If you extrapolate this to your entire user base, padmapper can save your users millions of hours each year. That's the equivalent of several human lifetimes saved that can be spent on other pursuits.

Padmapper saves lives. Please unblock them and open your data API.

-Jacob

(Of course, Craigslist is an evil monopoly despite their happy granola reputation, so I don't expect them to listen)

lawnchair_larry• 14 years ago

This really sucks. Moving is extremely stressful. Apartment hunting is very difficult and time consuming. I was elated when I stumbled on padmapper. I'm really disappointed that it won't be available next time I move.

Mc_Big_G3• 14 years ago

The real douche bag move is to wait for something to become really successful and pervasive before sending the cease and desist. Padmapper has been around for a long time and now they decide to drop the hammer. Fuck craigslist.

shantanubala• 14 years ago

Things only get a cease and desist when they become noticeable enough to warrant writing a cease and desist letter.

cldrope2• 14 years ago

Craigslist does not allow scraping. Beg for help and for support for breaking their rules elsewhere. This is Hacker News, not "help me retain a business model after I broke rules" central.

You could alternatively hire people to spam them with nice requests to reconsider.

wpietri6• 14 years ago

Wait, what? If anybody should appreciate breaking the rules in order to create something useful, it's hackers.

cldrope2• 14 years ago

I fully agree, but unfortunately us hacker-kind are no longer the norm nor the majority here. It's all startups and tons of people with business degrees.

Technical papers get downvotes while people's blog posts about how to hire/fire people get upvoted.

clobber• 14 years ago

This is unfortunate but I'm reminded of this discussion from just over a week ago:

"Don't build your house on someone else's platform" http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4093796

smartwater• 14 years ago

Craig is just a customer service rep. He isn't in charge of Craigslist anymore. Jim Buckmaster is the guy you want to speak to. Check out the documentary, it's pretty good.

CamperBob2• 14 years ago

Question: why can't Padmapper simply run as a browser plugin on the user's PC? From Craigslist's point of view, it would just look like a user who reads all the ads.

darklajid2• 14 years ago

"I just found out a few moments ago that Craigslist has sent a cease and desist to one of the most valuable sites for apartment renters ON THE PLANET, Padmapper." (emphasis mine)

Never heard of the site. Curious after this introduction I opened the site, went to my chosen hometown of Cologne, DE (1 mil people). Map's empty. Berlin, maybe? Nope. Tel Aviv, IL? Nothing.

So for all the places I care about on this very planet the service doesn't seem to work for me. That's not to slight their service at all, padmapper might be a great service. But either they depended on craigslist too much (and that's why it's barren now for me) or the writer of that blog post should tone down his introduction a bit. Is it planet or US now?

greengarstudios• 14 years ago

They depended on craigslist too much. It worked really well when craigslist wasn't stopping them from using craigslist. craigslist is international. Does craigslist have listings for Cologne, DE, Berlin, or Tel Aviv, IL? If it does, they would have appeared on PadMapper. I've used PadMapper before. I didn't even know they had any other sources; I thought it was strictly a mapping of craigslist listings.

darklajid2• 14 years ago

Okay, that explains why it's empty now, but then again it's a strong reason for craigslist to go after them, I guess. If the service is mostly a good search ui for their data..

Regarding listings in the cities I mentioned: I only know that Tel Aviv definitely uses craigslist. I never used it in Germany before, no idea if it is relevant at all in those places.

maked00• 14 years ago

These whiners think if they whine loud enough and spam the interwebs with it, they will get their way.

Note to whiners, please hold your breath.

pknerd• 14 years ago

First LinkedIn and now CL follow the suit. What message are they trying to give to developer community?

I think the time is coming that developers will have to "invent" their own datasources rather than banking on such _giants_

vaksel• 14 years ago

Padmapper should offer to be acquihired by Craigslist

their service is 100% dependent on Craigslist so they'd have trouble selling to anyone else

mw642• 14 years ago

What about making PadMapper client-side, including the Craigslist scraping? It'd have to be done on each request, which would hurt performance, but it may be a way of staying within their TOS (not sure if they have a provision against that; I don't use craigslist so haven't read their TOS).

ssx• 14 years ago

This happened to Oodle a few years back. It isn't like CL is targeting Padmapper.

astrodust2• 14 years ago

Glad I was able to use Padmapper before this happened. Surfing through raw Craigslist entries is surely what you're forced to do in one of the circles of hell.

Save Padmapper: Craigslist is wrong to shut them down. An open letter to Craig

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