Has Craiglist Flatlined? | Hacker News Reader

Has Craiglist Flatlined?

websimple.com

15 pointsa5seo20 comments

There's a difference between flatlining and reaching the peak.

"Flatlined" means "dead" in common parlance, not "holding steady as the absolute ruler in classified ad space". Idiots.

They also are really pushing international sites onto their own domain. If I put in vancouver.craigslist.org it shoots me over to the .ca domain name. Mexico goes to .com.mx and so on.

Weird. I still go to Craigslist for local listings and jobs. Is this just FUD?

I'd say so. It's all I ever use for buying/selling. Already had two big hits for xmas presents.

I haven't even heard of the other ones listed in the article.

and some might argue, stifling innovation because of their unwillingness to monetize

You get water for free* from your tap but that didn't stop marketers from convincing everyone to pay $2 a liter or more for it.

Good for Newmark for taking the road less traveled, I doubt they are in danger of losing their crown any time soon.

So, I've been crawling Craigslist for a while. It does appear that it is slowing down somewhat.

"Craigslist", not "Craiglist".

I find the suggestion in the headline less interesting than the wave shapes from July '09 to July '10. Any insights here?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophenia

I guess apophenia's alway ironic when there really is a pattern because then you'd have meta-apophenia?

(It seems it'd be surprising if there weren't seasonal effects, eg, students looking for a place to live. I almost feel like you can see a peak each July -- I probably do really have apophenia here.)

What does overall US internet usage look like over the same period?

I think we're seeing the effect of them removing the "adult" ads.

Craigslist doesn't innovate. It's full of spam and scams. It's not that convenient to use. They are only alive because they are popular, not because they are good.

It's a classified service it only works if there are lots of people using it. Popular is Good in that niche.

No, Craigslist is more convenient and better than any other thing like it, because they refused to listen to every idiot that told them they need to be more innovative, or that they should fill up their space with ads and "user interface". Their infrastructure is rock solid. What should they be doing different?

Would be cool if they let me mark items I'm interested in so I can come back to them later.

Ctrl-B.

Well that's obvious, right? But that's an inferior solution to CL supporting bookmarking. Why would I want to clutter up my Browser with temporary CL bookmarks that I will have to delete at a later time? Not good UX.

It's incredibly convenient. The people I know who have been scammed on it were all trying believe in something that was too good to be true. If by "doesn't innovate" you mean "doesn't 'upgrade' their interface to the latest Web 9.0 technologies every six months," that too is a selling point for everyone except the edge cases who populate HN et al.

When I go to Craigslist I see the same familiar, endearingly cluttered interface that's been there since I was in my teens. The search bar is conveniently located up top, it's fast, and it works. When I go to one of their competitors I see a bunch of corporate logos and some bullshit like "Experience an open marketplace powered by Vast." You're telling me this is better? Oh wait, it has check-in!

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