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Ask HN: How would you want the next Craigslist like?

3 points by dudeofjude ↗ HN
Cragislist has been there, since long. A next generation product in terms of technology, in terms of value addition to consumers, in terms of use of user experience I believe is the need of the time.

How do fellows over here, think about the problem?

How would you go about fixing Craigslist?

What are the troubles you face in Craigslist, and what is your idea of the next generation Listing site?

9 comments

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lifeguard
I use Craigslist often for work. They have been slowly improving it and I don't have any major complaints.

Since CL was an early entrant to the space, I think you will have a huge challenge getting a critical mass of users. Maybe you can create an add-on to enhance CL rather than compete with it?

dudeofjude
what kind of addon, would you suggest?
lifeguard
A way to filter out specific strings in post titles?

For example, hide job ads that require applicant to be a specific gender. Or hide spam ads in the socials.

Maybe we should go into business :-)

cdvonstinkpot
That's a tall order upending CL. You'd have to offer some kind of super-astonishing improvement to do it I would imagine.

Personally I wouldn't even try. They're too entrenched as the defacto online classifieds provider to the United States. Like eBay is to auctions.

If you _were_ to defeat them, you'd have to do something like find a way to get orders of magnitude more eyeballs onto each ad somehow. I'd guess that distribution channels would be your best bet in terms of implementing a net improvement. How to do that I do not know, but its my guess that that's the way to add value to the space.

Maybe work out a deal with all the major newspapers' online departments to mirror all the ads on your site on their classifieds sections, so no matter what newspaper someone is reading, your ads are there. But that's a tall order in itself.

You have your work cut out for you that's for sure. Good luck!

kohanz
I think when you have to explicitly ask "What are your pain points with X", rather than being able to passively gather these opinions from your own experience or those of others (through blogs, social media, and personal anecdotes), it likely points to X meeting the needs of its users and not being ripe for replacement.

So, with that being said, to the OP, I don't believe that CL being old is a good enough reason for it to be replaced. What do you find is lacking with CL?

Mankhool
I like CL the way it is. They are finally implementing some changes to the way the site displays results and it is a welcome improvement. As a comparison, I think Kijiji is way too cluttered (by design and with ads) and clunky. IMHO only. Good luck.
onlyup
Craigslist isn't popular in my country. There's nothing on it and I've never heard anyone mention it. We have a couple of similar sites that are popular though.