[ericd]

So, I wrote/write PadMapper, and I'd say not really. Thanks for looking out for me, though :-)

The map UI is clearly inspired by it, but the data sources are very different. If I understand correctly, RentHop mostly focuses on getting information directly from and making money from rental brokers, whereas PadMapper just tries to index everything it can (PadMapper takes direct listings from a lot of the top agents/agencies in NYC/Boston as well, but lots from Craigslist and other places)

As a result, there are data quality differences (RH's is probably cleaner in some ways if it is mostly direct), but also as a result RH necessarily has less selection and a larger percentage of RH's listings probably come with broker fees. Ultimately, which setup you prefer is down to whether you'd prefer to work with a broker, I think.

[jquery]

How do you index from craigslist? They are notorious for sending "cease and desist" orders to companies who try to index them. Do you have some special agreement with them or is a matter of being a small enough fish they haven't noticed you yet?

[binarysolo]

Probably via RSS feeds, not through scraping.