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by jpcx01 6346 days ago
They need an API, badly. Very dumb of them not to have one already. It would be a huge value add to their service. I don't know what's the problem. Either they dont have the technical resources (unlikely), or they've made a conscience decision not to provide one.

I think the biggest problem with Craigslist is they seem like they don't give a shit about their own site. May or may not be true, but it's definitely the perception of a lot of entrepreneurs who envy their success, and are frustrated by their lack of innovation.
2 comments
sounddust 6346 days ago
Craiglist is a text-only site. What on earth would you do with an API? You can access everything on the site using RSS feeds. People have done many creative things with those feeds: Google maps mashups which display apartment listings on top of crime maps, for example.

The only thing I could imagine an API being used for would be to allow postings from software outside of craigslist. You want to know what 99% of people would use it for? Spamming Craigslist.

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jpcx01 6346 days ago
RSS was a welcome addition, but its not quite there yet. Any decent mashup still needs to screen scrape.

Screen scraping craigslist is easy, and I don't mind it at all. Only problem is the fact that if you happen to become successful, they'll shut you down, so there's much of a point.

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bluefish 6346 days ago
I'd be surprised if the Craigslist team doesn't "..give a shit about their own site". On the contrary, I'm quite sure they care about it very much. Perhaps they're not interested in doing more via features and would rather spend their time doing things like setup the Craigslist Foundation (http://craigslistfoundation.org/). The thing about Craigslist is that it's dead simple, which is appealing to most people who use the web and don't want to understand what's going on under the hood. Something like an API might entertain you and I but I doubt it would serve their larger user base.

Still as others have posted, nothing is stopping someone else from coming along and creating CL service that's just better than CL itself. I would welcome one, especially one that handled rental listings better, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

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