5 ms·

It's true that such ideas tend to be magnets for sloppy thinking, but I think most if not all of them could be pulled off if done right.

by pg 16y ago

eladgil 16y ago
I totally agree. The premise is not that they can not work - rather, that many people have tried them, or thought of them, but they have not worked as of yet. Even more importantly for the article, the really do come up in every brainstorm I have ever had :) I think social news (Reddit, Twitter) and Cloud based file sharing (DropBox) are two ideas I would have put on my list before that have been addressed in some good way....
- brlewis 16y ago
  Shouldn't the parenthetical note in your title be (That Haven't Worked Yet)?
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - gruseom 16y ago
    Indeed. Reminds me of Jerry Weinberg's story of the Nebraska farmer who was interviewed by the local paper when he turned 100. "Have you lived in Nebraska your whole life?" they asked. "Yes I have," said the farmer, and then added: "So far."
stevenj 16y ago
Out of curiosity, what do you dislike or think can be done better with Craigslist? In other words, if you were going to build a Craigslist competitor what would you focus on doing differently?
- pingswept 16y ago
  (I'm not pg, obviously.) I've found the scantiness of information in Craigslist posts a weakness. I have no idea how to fix that, but I rule out a large fraction of ads based on "Not enough info to know what this person is selling." For example, many ads don't have pictures, and many that do have pictures that are tiny and inscrutable.
  - enjo 16y ago
    I'd argue that's a strength for Craigslist. The fact that you don't need pictures (or even content really) lowers the barrier to posting. What craigslist gets wrong is the posting procedure. It's arcane. My in-laws can't figure it out with the email responses and what-not. Better would be some way to submit posts by email (or mobile app) and have them automatically posted to the site... like posterous.
- wtracy 16y ago
  Craigslist got buying and selling and job hunting pretty much right. The Craigslist personal sections suck. If you want something closer to the traditional newspaper ad online ("Anyone free Friday night?") and not the experience that today's dating sites give you (create an account, personalize it, finally find someone, realize that your profile is still up and creepy guys are still hitting on you....) there's not much out there.
- vaksel 16y ago
  better fraud control...my sister was looking for an apartment in Manhattan, and out of ~20 people she contacted, only 4 were real people.
  - ericd 16y ago
    This is a very real problem, especially in Manhattan, and especially at the lower end of the price spectrum (that's where the scammers are all fishing).
- HeyLaughingBoy 16y ago
  Location: I live in a rural area and while CL has a section for my county (grouped with two others!), it's still flooded with ads from large cities 40 miles away. Niche: CL for antiques, or used musical instruments, or used books or for special collectible classes of items Jobs: specialized job types. CL for nannies or other household services: housecleaning, carpet cleaning, window washing, pet sitting etc. Every time I use craigslist I'm overwhelmed by the amount of stuff I have to wade through to find the few items I care about.
danielrhodes 16y ago
This just got me thinking that dating sites definitely fall into this category. Perhaps the answer is not a dating site but a dating tool, much like Facebook does not try to make you social connections, but facilitates the social connections you already have. You could write down the dates you have already been on, what you did/talked about, and compare notes with other people. Anyways, just a thought.
- sedachv 16y ago
  You mean like the whole pick-up artist community? Most girls aren't that interested in recording details of their dates, and definitely don't want other people knowing about their dating life (unless they're really young and want to brag that they're dating a football player, or in one recent case, have had the discriminating taste to sleep with half of the Duke lacrosse team).
  - yummyfajitas 16y ago
    Actually, a tool bringing pick up artist techniques to the masses might be useful. I know a guy who does record assorted details of approaches (various sketches/openers) and outcomes (dissed, phone number, base #, etc). He records them on paper, puts it into excel the next day and A/B tests. He is very successful. A tool that automates all this could be very useful for those of us less willing to devote large amounts of time to picking up women.
    - sedachv 16y ago
      The amount of time it takes him to put this into Excel is miniscule compared to just having a conversation with a single woman. What's really driving his success is his persistence (it's a numbers game). The problem with "bringing pick up artist techniques to the masses" is the same as the guy/girl ratio notification tools. We're very poor in making comparisons based on absolute factors, so we make our decisions based on relative comparisons. This includes the decision of who, if anyone, to sleep with. It's a zero-sum game. Anyone who realizes this realizes that it's in his best interest not to tell everyone about his pick-up technique or the large number of girls in the bar he's at, and anyone who doesn't probably doesn't have the social intelligence to sleep with those girls anyway (that's where the absolute factors come into play). But I hear Mystery is a multi-millionaire, so there's probably a market for such a tool.
pornel 16y ago
I think the fact that many tried and failed could be explained that these are "iceberg problems": http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2010/11/code-icebergs.html http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2010/11/code-icebergs.ht... It's not impossible, just much much harder than it seems.

It's true that such ideas tend to be magnets for sloppy thinking, but I think most if not all of them could be pulled off if done right.

by pg 16y ago

It's true that such ideas tend to be magnets for sloppy thinking, but I think most if not all of them could be pulled off if done right.

eladgil 16y ago

I totally agree. The premise is not that they can not work - rather, that many people have tried them, or thought of them, but they have not worked as of yet. Even more importantly for the article, the really do come up in every brainstorm I have ever had :) I think social news (Reddit, Twitter) and Cloud based file sharing (DropBox) are two ideas I would have put on my list before that have been addressed in some good way....

brlewis 16y ago
Shouldn't the parenthetical note in your title be (That Haven't Worked Yet)?
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- gruseom 16y ago
  Indeed. Reminds me of Jerry Weinberg's story of the Nebraska farmer who was interviewed by the local paper when he turned 100. "Have you lived in Nebraska your whole life?" they asked. "Yes I have," said the farmer, and then added: "So far."

stevenj 16y ago

Out of curiosity, what do you dislike or think can be done better with Craigslist? In other words, if you were going to build a Craigslist competitor what would you focus on doing differently?

pingswept 16y ago
(I'm not pg, obviously.) I've found the scantiness of information in Craigslist posts a weakness. I have no idea how to fix that, but I rule out a large fraction of ads based on "Not enough info to know what this person is selling." For example, many ads don't have pictures, and many that do have pictures that are tiny and inscrutable.
- enjo 16y ago
  I'd argue that's a strength for Craigslist. The fact that you don't need pictures (or even content really) lowers the barrier to posting. What craigslist gets wrong is the posting procedure. It's arcane. My in-laws can't figure it out with the email responses and what-not. Better would be some way to submit posts by email (or mobile app) and have them automatically posted to the site... like posterous.
wtracy 16y ago
Craigslist got buying and selling and job hunting pretty much right. The Craigslist personal sections suck. If you want something closer to the traditional newspaper ad online ("Anyone free Friday night?") and not the experience that today's dating sites give you (create an account, personalize it, finally find someone, realize that your profile is still up and creepy guys are still hitting on you....) there's not much out there.
vaksel 16y ago
better fraud control...my sister was looking for an apartment in Manhattan, and out of ~20 people she contacted, only 4 were real people.
- ericd 16y ago
  This is a very real problem, especially in Manhattan, and especially at the lower end of the price spectrum (that's where the scammers are all fishing).
HeyLaughingBoy 16y ago
Location: I live in a rural area and while CL has a section for my county (grouped with two others!), it's still flooded with ads from large cities 40 miles away. Niche: CL for antiques, or used musical instruments, or used books or for special collectible classes of items Jobs: specialized job types. CL for nannies or other household services: housecleaning, carpet cleaning, window washing, pet sitting etc. Every time I use craigslist I'm overwhelmed by the amount of stuff I have to wade through to find the few items I care about.

danielrhodes 16y ago

This just got me thinking that dating sites definitely fall into this category. Perhaps the answer is not a dating site but a dating tool, much like Facebook does not try to make you social connections, but facilitates the social connections you already have. You could write down the dates you have already been on, what you did/talked about, and compare notes with other people. Anyways, just a thought.

sedachv 16y ago
You mean like the whole pick-up artist community? Most girls aren't that interested in recording details of their dates, and definitely don't want other people knowing about their dating life (unless they're really young and want to brag that they're dating a football player, or in one recent case, have had the discriminating taste to sleep with half of the Duke lacrosse team).
- yummyfajitas 16y ago
  Actually, a tool bringing pick up artist techniques to the masses might be useful. I know a guy who does record assorted details of approaches (various sketches/openers) and outcomes (dissed, phone number, base #, etc). He records them on paper, puts it into excel the next day and A/B tests. He is very successful. A tool that automates all this could be very useful for those of us less willing to devote large amounts of time to picking up women.
  - sedachv 16y ago
    The amount of time it takes him to put this into Excel is miniscule compared to just having a conversation with a single woman. What's really driving his success is his persistence (it's a numbers game). The problem with "bringing pick up artist techniques to the masses" is the same as the guy/girl ratio notification tools. We're very poor in making comparisons based on absolute factors, so we make our decisions based on relative comparisons. This includes the decision of who, if anyone, to sleep with. It's a zero-sum game. Anyone who realizes this realizes that it's in his best interest not to tell everyone about his pick-up technique or the large number of girls in the bar he's at, and anyone who doesn't probably doesn't have the social intelligence to sleep with those girls anyway (that's where the absolute factors come into play). But I hear Mystery is a multi-millionaire, so there's probably a market for such a tool.

pornel 16y ago

I think the fact that many tried and failed could be explained that these are "iceberg problems": http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2010/11/code-icebergs.html http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2010/11/code-icebergs.ht... It's not impossible, just much much harder than it seems.