Craigslist blocking Airbnb.com http://i.imgur.com/ILEyc.jpg While updating our ads today, this is what appeared on the screen. We can't submit an ad that contains airbnb.com. No explanation why. |
Craigslist blocking Airbnb.com http://i.imgur.com/ILEyc.jpg While updating our ads today, this is what appeared on the screen. We can't submit an ad that contains airbnb.com. No explanation why. |
http://davegooden.com/2011/05/how-airbnb-became-a-billion-do...
These guys are doing a disservice to the American public. Imagine how much more used stuff could be sold on craigslist if their interface and experience was better. One statistic is smartphones, which can resell for as much as $200 after two years of use, yet most people leave them in their drawer. If a platform existed where selling and buying was easier, then people that are too busy to use craigslist would have an alternative to give new life to the stuff that is just sitting in their drawer. More people could own higher quality products instead of buying the cheaper new crap as an alternative. We consume way too much new crap. I bet there are >10 million used iphones sitting in drawers, while cost conscious consumer resort to buying the Motorola Triumph as that is all they can afford for $200. I know a lot of people love craigslist, but it is time for something better. It is time to create an efficient and "beautiful" consumer to consumer marketplace that everyone wants to use. Craigslist is huge, but it serves only a fraction of the potential customer base. I would bet more people would use it if some of its fundamental flaws were fixed.
End of rant... Let me know if you agree. I am actually doing something about this and am always open to input and help...
This comment blows my mind. How quickly we take things for granted is astounding.
CL is a largely FREE site – I for one have sold around $1k of stuff I didn't want on there in the last decade or so – not much, but I paid exactly $0 for that. Try that with eBay or, even better, your local newspaper classifieds.
The entitlement that lurks behind comments like the one above – or at least the hyperbole within it is amusing, at best.
CL works – it's far from perfect, sure, but it's perfectly free for most users and most things – the change it has brought about and the value its given to its users makes it a textbook case for service to the American public in my book.
Now, if we want to talk about how it can be made better, sure, there's a lot there, but don't blow it up to be a crime against humanity, or God, King or Country...
Does that really matter? Take a bloomberg terminal - its literally arcane. If you don't know the specific commands to type, and the stock naming system they and only they use, you won't be getting anywhere.
You would never have someone make an interface like that today. At the same time - it works. Once people get learn it, it moves into muscle memory. Since it obeys internally consistent rules, its also possible to uncover more functionality once the first beach head is made.
If you want more brutal examples - think of DwarfFortress, nethack and other ascii based games. Once you know the command structure, it becomes second nature.
You may not need a beautiful interface. The interface is just a wrapper.
Either improve craigslist or let others build value added tools on top of craigslist. Why stop an app like Bazaar that helped people post things easily? Let people make up their own mind. Using smartphones as an example again, people will trade int their iPhone 3GS for $80, when they can get $160 for it on CL. So there is definitely demand somewhere in the massive gap of services that retailers and B2C companies offer and what exists on craigslist. Making consumer to consumer commerce smoother and easier is a huge opportunity in my mind that is not only lucrative, but fills in a big gap that exists because craigslist is still stuck in 1995.
For those who don't know, Airbnb has a posting-to-Craigslist option. It is not an auto-poster; rather, it formats a post into the html that'll be accepted by Craigslist, then you have to log into your Craigslist account to post to Craigslist what Airbnb's given you. We haven't used this option since we started. It does invite you to go to Airbnb's site so the transaction is not being conducted via Craigslist's email system. It chooses "no email - see below" as the default option and does not include a phone number. You can, of course, since you are the poster and it's not being auto-posted, change anything and everything about the format and the options.
Then you have our situation, the situation that has developed. We indicate our reviews on Airbnb and other services. The other services remain fine and untouched. But we can no longer show potential customers our Airbnb reviews.
It's an inaccurate representation of what happened as well as a year-old story, and I don't think it has much relevance to why they chose to block airbnb.com today.
I bet a lot of other people do, too.
Your company, Suitey, spams the hell out of craigslist.
CL is openly against anything that isn't a human individual expressing their energy by posting ads to another human individual via manually entering text into a mid-90s HTML interface. Anything else is too much like capitalism, man.
2. We don't use the Craigslist posting feature through Airbnb's site. It would make some sense for Craigslist to limit the use of that tool, since they have limited the use of other automated tools (limiting their own utility as a service, but that's beyond the scope of what I'm talking about). This is not being able to type "airbnb.com" into the posting form at all, something quite different. Potential guests ask for reviews, as they should, and we direct them upfront in our Craigslist ads to Airbnb, Homeaway, and other places we have excellent reviews.
I think this is REALLY important. I didn't want it to pass without notice as when I posted the "Airbnb killer" link 10 days ago; that was worth noting too, but this is vital. Ability to link to Airbnb on Craigslist may not be important in the large markets where people will see your Airbnb ad anyway, as in SeoxyS's case, but for the just-getting-going places where Airbnb wishes to grow, it's vital.
Maybe ease of use is the weak point - I personally doubt it - go for fixing it.
At the same time, I do suggest that there is something more complex bubbling under the surface.
GO for building your alternative. Nothing works better to figure out whats going on than an example that can be tested against. Good luck! Interface isn't everything!
