We’ve come across two new services that help make perusing Craigslist even easier by focusing on the images that are included with many listings. Craigslist notes which listings have images attached to them, but you must click through to the listing to actually see them. Both of these tools help you see the images up front, before actually clicking on the listings. That saves time, and clicks.
CLHack
CLHack is a destination site that pulls in Craigslist listings and lets users view them by photos. Hover over any photo and expand the view. Click it to pull up listing content. Users can search only listings with photos, browse by price, and search full text or titles only.
This is a really useful way of checking out Craigslist content. However, much like the ill-fated Craigs Little Buddy, which was banned in August, there’s a very good chance Craigslist will be banning them too. So don’t get too comfortable with it just yet.
CraigsToolbox
CraigsToolbox is a really useful tool that any heavy Craigslist user will want to start using right away. It’s a plugin for Firefox and IE that changes the experience on Craigslist directly, so you just continue to go to the site directly. The difference is, listings with photos are pulled right into the results page, so you can view them before clicking. The plugin is free to try, and costs $9.99 after a free trial period.
The demo video below shows it in action. And unlike CLHack, CraigsToolbox is unlikely to be banned. First because it’s harder, and second because its effectively just a GreaseMonkey-like change that doesn’t decrease user engagement with the site.
Thank you Mike! ☻
is this the end of it all. 15 years of innovation for classifieds. do we need more websites to buy or sell from. The end of innovation is near. The great flood is upon us.
Yes, douchebag, the sky is falling. And you are still making reply comments to the first post to promote your spam directory which is a Ning site. You have no tech, no idea what NLP is or how to implement anything.
You are a washed up LAPD (a cop) on disability, and your “get rich quick” bullshit is an abomination.
Both tools look great, specially the add-on. CLHack too adds a much nicer interface to Craigslist, but instead of banning they may they should think buying it off and adding the same feature to Craigslist.
In that case we may at-least have to stop depending on third party services to “enhance the Craigslist” experience.
My personal favorite is http://www.byebyelist.com - simple, fast, and good.
cl doesnot like any third party tools mess around with their data…see what they did to oodle….they will cut these guys who are crawling cl to build these things
I wonder if TechCrunch postings on these services will hurt or help them more?
+ Tons of new users.
- More eyeballes = more attention from CL, who may ultimately shut them down.
Best of luck to these services though, CL is in need of upgrades in usability areas and these sites look to be aiming to do that for them.
I’m sorry but it took me less than 5 minutes to download CraigsToolbox, take the Javascript out and put it in Greasemonkey without having to pay a penny!
Congratulations for being a douchebag! I hope the day you decide to sell software on the web, other douchebags pirate/hack the crap out of your stuff too.
ya, cause the people that created CraigsToolbox aren’t doing the same thing you are pissed about or anything.
Give it up…
Any chance you want to push the script to one of the greasemonkey script directories?
And, don’t bother with the douchebag that thinks this little code snippet is merits some big payoff. Developers will learn to create meaningful barriers to entry or find a bizdev guy that knows how.
I don’t know about Jas’ script, but I did find this free Greasemonkey script:
Craigslist Image Preview
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/6155
Hope this helps!
??? installed, rebooted - TWICE - and it’s not working at all….stupid app!
JVR
Nice article!
I am running a similar site in Japan.
Check out http://www.chekela.com/oc.php
http://surfcanyon.com is a great tool for both Craigslist and Google Search
Man I spend way too much time on craigs…maybe this will cut it down.
that is nice to know that craig list has little buddy too.
it amazes me how crappy craigslist is to use sometimes. I live in new england, so if Im looking for a car I like to search most of the states around here, because they aren’t THAT far. So I have to go to each site separately instead of being able to search them all at once. It really wouldn’t be that hard to come up with a better search feature
im diggin the clhack
good work.
http://www.remixedby.us/
Built using open source Tibco GI and by x craiglist employee and Tibco GI founder…really easy to use and cool interface…but won’t work well if you have slow connection as it takes a while to load very first time…
been done before. CL will pull the legs out from under these guys, too. they don’t want 3rd parties crawling them. Maybe one day they’ll get a freakin’ clue and do this themselves.
These tools look great but…the main problem with Craigslist still remains. There’s no social aspect, there’s no user interaction inside the community. You post your ad, and it’s just an add, no more. In this way, i think Pikaba.com is a way better. For example: you post your ‘wanted’ request and get the community involved. Other members can recommend you what to buy if you’re not sure, sellers bid for your request so you can pick up the best offer. It’s the same ad listing but integrated with social aspect.
By the way, Pikaba is holding a contest at the moment, where someone can win a free iPhone 3g, details are here: http://www.pikaba.com/c/ContestRules.aspx?m
good for craiglist, more marketing tools, more sells i think
Check out my map mashup for office rentals listed on Craigslist at http://officemapper.com/ — very handy if you want to find office space close to home.
lovin’ the plugin
These are great tool for people searching on CL, but there are also some tools out there for people posting on Craigs List. Glitzr is a cool tool that lets you create rich media ads for your listing. http://www.glitzr.com
Version 2 of craigs toolbox was free, and works great. Rapidshare link: http://rapidshare.com/files/14.....e_prev.rar
Nice!
We’re actually in the middle of testing out our own version as well.
(Its only in Japanese right now…)
http://www.chekela.com/oc.php
I find it interesting that such a simple app like Craigslist is so popular, just goes to show that sometimes simple is best as I’m a huge fan of the site. I hope these two new apps have a lot of success as well as they seem to add value.
Also, check out http://craigslist.remixedby.us
what do you think?
Well, I think it is awsome you don’t feel the need to reply to one of the first few comments
(couldnt resist)
But seriously, CL has continued to maintain their DATA SILO (AKA WALLED GARDEN) for long enough while espousing user-centric values.
Perhaps they are simply worried about brand, but the potential to mashup CLs data would be enormous of they would come out with an open API ala twitter.
There’s another one out there that I’ve used called http://www.ghettofilter.com. Pretty cool.
Greasemonkey script already does what craigs toolbox does and for free
Hey thanks for mentioning CraigsLittleBuddy =)
I was pretty bummed when they banned me. It’s really ridiculous since I had no plans to monetize. Eh…
I actually thought pretty hard about giving the source code away so that other people could just launch clones of the site but I figured they’d just sue me. LOL
Thanks a bunch for the mention!
-Arin
twitter: phatduckk
email: phatduckk [at] yahoo [dot] com
Or you can just use a Craigslist alternative that already looks good without using third party hacked tools:
http://www.bonanzle.com
Has tripled its traffic every month since going public in June, currently has about as many items as Seattle Craigslist.
Bill
Here’s a site that caters to car/motorbike buyers:
http://www.dubpi.com:81/
Last year I worked with a developer on a project called ShareThisPost. Its a social network for CL. It uses greasemonkey and allows you to create a network of friends to share your craigslist postings with and make comments on postings. Check it out at….http://www.jeffpalm.com/sharethispost/about/
Better late than never
The firefox plugin looks especially interesting because I love plugins which enhance sites I already use.
Call me old school but I am not a big fan of the upgrades. I want it back the old way
Another search tool - anyone used it? http://adravage.com