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Save Padmapper: Craigslist is wrong to shut them down. An open letter to Craig
- flatline3 14y agoI 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?
- whichdan 14y agoThey 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/ http://www.padlister.com/
- bitcrusher 14y agoAre 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.
- whichdan 14y agoPadLister is run by PadMapper. Check the copyright at the bottom of the page.
- ericd 14y agoYeah, 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 :-/
- whichdan 14y agoCraigslist is ranked #9 in the US on Alexa. I think it's completely understandable that you're running PadLister, especially since it would take some sort of internet voodoo to make a dent in Craigslist's traffic.
- ericd 14y agoYeah, I'm not delusional...
- psc 14y agoIt's clear that there's a good number of people who really love your product, and PadMapper is clearly a better product than Craigslist—the only thing going against you is the network effect. I don't know the specifics, but maybe there's enough of a support base that PadLister could take off the same way as AirBnB did.
- eurleif 14y 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/ http://ubermedia.com/
- astrodust 14y agoWrite a letter to Craigslist? You may as well stuff it in a bottle and throw it in the ocean.
- steadicat 14y agoNot 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.
- mullingitover 14y 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 14y agoThat does not provide value to Craigslist: that provides value to you. Please explain how they provide value to /Craigslist/.
- wpietri 14y agoBy maximizing the number of people who find ads relevant to them. It's easy to miss relevant stuff on Craigslist. I used PadMapper to find my current place. I was the only person that week who put in an offer; had I missed his ad his place would have stayed unoccupied another week at least. That provides value to the landlord, of course, but since Craigslist charges landlords for access, increased value to landlords means increased revenue potential for Craigslist, which is certainly of value to them.
- thezilch 14y agoCraigslist has been quoted, to an audience of investors, with not caring to maximize revenues. Regardless, don't you think Craigslist would see the effects of PadMapper going dark, and that would be the judge of it being a lucrative venture?
- leelin 14y 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 14y agoI'd wager 90% of their listings come from craigslist -- not really sure how they'll be 'more than fine'.
- ericd 14y agoYou'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.
- rdl 14y agoActually, the quality of the craigslist listings on Padmapper, and on craigslist in general, seem to have fallen over the past year, too. Not sure if it's the overall market or just craigslist. I was trying to disprove it by looking in Menlo just now, but unfortunately(?) just found an utterly amazing place for $2100 which is about 50% less than I would have thought, which kind of goes against this. Not from Craigslist, but from a property management company. Just focus on making the SV/SF market amazing using padlister or partnerships with property managers. Displace Craigslist in real estate in their home market.
- ericd 14y agoYeah, when it comes to housing, the barbarians are at the gate, in the form of scammers/spammers, and Craigslist isn't really set up structurally to deal with them very well.
- potatolicious 14y agoMaybe. I've been apartment hunting with PadMapper in NYC lately, and it's amazing how much of the postings on Craigslist (particularly no-fee) are just outright bullshit. It's a much higher proportion than the other big NYC-local sites that do no-fee search. For my geographical area at least, the removal of Craiglist might improve the signal-noise ratio.
- staunch 14y agoCraigslist 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 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.
- Estragon 14y agoExactly. 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?
- mullingitover 14y agoThis 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.
- Estragon 14y agoYou seem to be implying that the forums which don't directly contribute revenue have no impact on the network effect which makes their job advertisements valuable. That doesn't really make sense to me.
- staunch 14y agoCraigslists supposedly generates > $100 million in revenue per year from rental listings. That's at risk if something like Padmapper replaces them.
- Toph 14y ago
- J3L2404 14y agoThey may be wrong in shutting them off, but they certainly have the right.
- mullingitover 14y agoThe 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.
- bitcrusher 14y agoI am curious as to what the catalyst for killing PadMapper over LiveLovely or any of the other aggregation sites out there?
- ericd 14y agoThere's a wave of these C&D's coming out, a lot to sites much smaller than mine.
- rcavezza 14y agoWhy 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_kwkfi5tqEi1qzqh0wo1_500.png http://www.mdaniels.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/tumblr_kw...
- Mc_Big_G 14y agoWho wants to start a Kickstarter campaign to develop an open api/backend for classifieds? I'm in.
- jarcoal 14y agoI 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.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- jarcoal 14y agoI just checked out my home town and there were tons of units.
- istari 14y agoDear 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 14y agoI'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 14y agoYou 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 14y agoI 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 14y agoGet-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 14y agoIf 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 14y agoThe 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.
- neilc 14y agoCraigslist 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.
- xelipe 14y agoI 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.
- neilc 14y agoCraigslist 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. That is obvious, follows directly from copyright law, and is not in dispute. PadMapper does not have a right to use Craigslist's data [1], but Craigslist sending C&Ds to PadMapper and similar sites is still shitty behavior all the same. [1] Outside of fair use and similar stuff, but that doesn't apply here.
- tlogan 14y agoSo 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?
- wpietri 14y agoDepends 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 14y agoHere'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 14y agoThis 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.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- Mc_Big_G 14y agoThe 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 14y agoThings only get a cease and desist when they become noticeable enough to warrant writing a cease and desist letter.
- cldrope 14y agoCraigslist 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.
- wpietri 14y agoWait, what? If anybody should appreciate breaking the rules in order to create something useful, it's hackers.
- cldrope 14y agoI 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 14y agoThis 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 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4093796
- smartwater 14y agoCraig 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.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- CamperBob2 14y agoQuestion: 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.
- darklajid 14y 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 14y agoThey 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.
- darklajid 14y agoOkay, 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.
- shenberg 14y agoCraigslist isn't a thing in Israel - there are a few competing sites that share one important attribute which craigslist lacks - an interface in Hebrew
- drhowarddrfine 14y agoFunny how HN seems all upset about this. I have never used Craigslist and have rarely visited it. I had never heard of padmaster till now and no one I just questioned in the office had heard of it either.
- maked00 14y agoThese 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 14y agoFirst 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 14y agoPadmapper should offer to be acquihired by Craigslist their service is 100% dependent on Craigslist so they'd have trouble selling to anyone else
- mw642 14y agoWhat 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 14y agoThis happened to Oodle a few years back. It isn't like CL is targeting Padmapper.
- fa_il 14y agoShouldn't users really be the ones to decide who gets to show their listings? Maybe they want their listings shown on PM as well as CL. Or maybe they don't.
- astrodust 14y agoGlad 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.