If you've ever used craigslist before then you know, it's just not very good. That's not to say you can't find what you need on there. The site is full of amazing deals and goods and services of all kinds, but navigating it involves opening new browser tab after browser tab, going back and forth and generally losing your way.
For those of you who are tired of the craigslist user experience from circa 1996, head on over to craiggers, the site that lets you interact with Craigslist the way you ought to.
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As the craiggers' tagline says, the site is simply "craigslist data, better than craigslist!" It allows users a number of simple functions you've likely unconsciously wished for for years but didn't even realize you were desperately missing. For example, the site separates navigation into a number of columns, so you don't need to open listings in new tabs or hit the back and forward buttons all the time. Click on a result and it loads in the same page. Hit the down arrow or click on a different entry and it loads in the right most column without ever leaving the page.
Beyond navigation - which is quite an improvement already - craiggers adds on a new layer of functionality when it comes to searching. No longer do you have to search simply within a single geographic area. As the site points out, "there are cases when searching outside your immediate community benefits both seekers and providers," giving the example of searching for a stolen bike or adopting a dog. When you search on craiggers, you can specify that you want to see results from neighboring locations and it will show you those as well.
Furthermore, if you wanted to search craigslist repeatedly, say for a job or an apartment, craiggers will not only let you save the search to repeat later, but it will also send you an email notification twice a day of results.
craiggers: An Example for Developers
For those of you out there interested in more than simply craiglist searches, there's another interesting aspect to craiggers - it was built using the 3taps API. We first wrote about 3taps last month when the company launched at the Data 2.0 conference, explaining how the company wanted to "democratize the exchange of data."
Through the 3taps API, data from craigslist, eBay, Indeed, Etsy, Amazon and a host of other services is available in real-time, making mash-ups like this possible. Craiggers was built by the 3taps team as an example of the potential of its offering and we think it makes quite an argument.
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