Google Maps and Craigslist Sitting in a Tree

April 8, 2005 3:26 PM

You got Google Maps in my Craigslist! This is some incredible RESTfu. This is the future, folks.
posted by bbrown (42 comments total)

I got this from Kevin Fox's blog—he's a designer at Google.

http://fury.com/article/2127.php
posted by bbrown at 3:27 PM on April 8, 2005

No satellite?

That's bullshit.
posted by sharksandwich at 3:30 PM on April 8, 2005

Not working so well in Safari, but it's a cool start. I have to go open some other browsers and try it.
posted by evoo at 3:32 PM on April 8, 2005

Impressive.
posted by euphorb at 3:38 PM on April 8, 2005

Very Cool tool.
posted by bitdamaged at 3:38 PM on April 8, 2005

I want amazon's local A9 combined with Google maps. So say I look up a street in portland, I want to see what the street looks like on the street level in the right frame, so I can "walk" up and down it while moving the google map at the same time.

I wish companies really had open APIs that could let programmer creativity blossom like this, without having to resort to massive page scraping that can be broken/banned at any time.
posted by mathowie at 3:39 PM on April 8, 2005

Pretty slick, though they need to hurry up and add satellite images (scoping out the neighbourhood surrounding a prospective apartment seems like one of the few things Google Satellite is really useful for).
posted by IshmaelGraves at 3:40 PM on April 8, 2005

awesome.

This is the future, folks. OK! So where's my jet pack?
posted by crunchland at 3:43 PM on April 8, 2005

How about a MeFi api? Then we could have posts by users in the zipcode on google maps.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 4:16 PM on April 8, 2005

Wow...
posted by Windopaene at 4:20 PM on April 8, 2005

Wow. I mean, wow.
posted by andreaazure at 4:21 PM on April 8, 2005

very impressive.
posted by jcruelty at 4:27 PM on April 8, 2005

Hot. But I want the pony Matt wants.
posted by NickDouglas at 4:35 PM on April 8, 2005

Wow.... now that's really cool.
posted by crawl at 4:45 PM on April 8, 2005

Awesome. However, some posts are missing- I haven't figured out why yet.

I think this is the CL search that matches the SF-North bay rental $100-$1500 search, but many (~%75) of the results aren't shown on his page.

Is this a bug, or am I doing something wrong? I really want to use this tool to find my next place!
posted by Four Flavors at 4:51 PM on April 8, 2005

At one level, it just seems so obvious... so natural to combine the two capabilities. But I suppose all really good ideas seem that way in hindsight.

The best part here, is that both of these impressive resources being combined are free. That's what really makes me smile.
posted by zeypher at 4:55 PM on April 8, 2005

[this is f'ing awesome]
posted by davejay at 5:56 PM on April 8, 2005

Ha! Am I the first to go see an apartment now based on this? one happened to be up right where I wanted it, good price, and with a "purr" tag. "purr," indeed.
posted by whatzit at 6:01 PM on April 8, 2005

Bravo!
posted by mwhybark at 6:19 PM on April 8, 2005

This is so very cool...wow.
posted by schyler523 at 6:38 PM on April 8, 2005

Garrr! Cities are by drop-down but that may be a limitation of craigslist.org.
posted by nj_subgenius at 6:59 PM on April 8, 2005

Too effing cool! Damn!
posted by shoepal at 8:16 PM on April 8, 2005

Is it just me or is this web site working like ass on everyone elses version of Safari, too? I can not get it to work at all now. I thought it might be server load, but nothing seems to be rendering correctly. Google Maps and Craigslist work fine on their own, but what I'm seeing on that site is definitely not what previous commenters seem to be seeing.
posted by evoo at 8:20 PM on April 8, 2005

And Redfin's investors just said "Doh."
posted by newton at 8:28 PM on April 8, 2005

Awesome...I just found a place on craigslist and used the google map satellite view to get a really good sense of where it was relative to my old place. And to think I could have done it all in one step!
posted by duck at 8:33 PM on April 8, 2005

Try changing the price range, and watching the clustering define neighborhoods.
posted by dmd at 8:42 PM on April 8, 2005

dmd: You must have had better luck with that than I did. I tried something similar in Boston, and it really just started to show where the bigger places and the absurdly priced were (at the higher end) and a regular city map (at the low end).
posted by whatzit at 8:56 PM on April 8, 2005

i want the rooms for rent version of this bad. :)

this is so f'in cool.
posted by freudianslipper at 9:13 PM on April 8, 2005

Wow.

So, uh, guess what I've been working on for the past week or two?

http://www.indiesoft.com/craigsmaps/

His is a shitload better. Mine's got satellite, but his is much better.

Fuck.

Well, I'm gonna go drink and watch TV cuz I just got a whole lot more free time.

Fuck.
posted by Coda at 10:11 PM on April 8, 2005

Doesnt work that well for LV. Googles street/address geocoding is about 2 yrs out of date (which is a big deal considering 7 people move to LV every hour, 24/7/365).
posted by SirOmega at 10:16 PM on April 8, 2005

Coda: I like yours better because it lets you narrow down the search rather than look at every apartment. I think you should stop watching TV and finish up your version. (By Finish up I mean add other cities, since it looks finished other than that).
posted by duck at 10:50 PM on April 8, 2005

Well, I like my version too, and it's possible that I'll continue to work on it - I still need a place to live come July, and I'll be damned if I'm going to deal with the data without a geographical overview. I'm just gutted that someone else 1) had the same awesome idea that I did, 2) made a much, much better implementation if it than I did, and 3) actually got it done, published, and recognized.

And his is super sweet since it seems to be a hacked up version of Gmaps' javascript, whereas mine hands off those duties to MyGmaps.com (which itself is awesome) and that gets around all sorts of issues I've faced (placemark limitations, etc.) And his seems to scrape CL directly - mine uses CL's RSS feeds, which are limited as well.

Grrr. Still, kudos to him for an excellent hack, and for actually getting it done.
posted by Coda at 12:01 AM on April 9, 2005

pheh.
Great idea, BUT, like 80% of listings on craigslist about NYC do not include addresses, so they just don't show up on this. which is why there's such a disparity between the craigslist listings and the map.
posted by Edible Energy at 12:58 AM on April 9, 2005

I really love the internet today.
posted by mileena at 1:22 AM on April 9, 2005

Wow. This is really good. Love how clicking on the listings pops up images. Slick, slick, slick.

So, uh, guess what I've been working on for the past week or two?

That's what you get for trying. The moral of the story is, never try. /homer

BUT, like 80% of listings on craigslist about NYC do not include addresses

More incentive for them to provide addresses. If they're really serious about renting the place, that is. Of course, since 80% of the listings are probably done through realtors, it's in their best interest for you to NOT know the address. Once you know the address, you can simply contact the owner/landlord/management company directly and avoid the ass raping extortion er, realtor fees.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 1:26 AM on April 9, 2005

It's a shame he doesn't include all of the North American cities on craiglist.
posted by armage at 6:10 AM on April 9, 2005

This would probably be cool if his bandwidth hadn't been eaten up by all of my MeFi brethren.
posted by fenriq at 9:11 AM on April 9, 2005

Coda: I like yours better too, especially for using the extra search functions (price, purr/woof tags) that Craigslist makes available.
TV is rubbish anyway, go finish! (You're doing one for Boston, too, right?)
posted by whatzit at 4:54 PM on April 10, 2005

Wheres Vancouver?
posted by Iax at 5:00 PM on April 10, 2005

Hi, everyone - I'm the author of the Craigslist/GoogleMaps app. I'm thrilled people are enjoying it as much as they are!

To answer a couple of the questions above:
* FourFlavors: as EdibleEnergy said, the reason so many listings don't show up on my site is because they either have invalid addresses, no address at all, or addresses that don't geocode to a specific latitude/longitude.
* Satellite images and Safari support will hopefully come soon.
* Vancouver will be the next city up, in the next day or two, and then more cities after that. Also, I'm working on the next batch of UI-goodness for the site, so that should be fun.

Thanks, everyone - the feedback has been great! :)
posted by paul.rademacher at 8:31 PM on April 10, 2005

paul.rademacher:
Thanks for joining/posting about our questions. you've created a tool that will undoubtedly make many people's lives easier. I'm very excited about using to look for a new place this month.

This posting is in the East Bay, but in your listing it's returned in the North Bay search. CL doesn't show it as in the North Bay, it's in the East Bay.

This listing contains a valid google map but doesn't show up in your listing for North Bay $1250-$1750.

I'm posting this stuff in the hope that pointing out these anomalies will result in a better tool for everyone. I think that this is a great tool.
posted by Four Flavors at 10:14 PM on April 10, 2005

paul.rademacher: Awesome app. Needs the cat/dog option. This is a must-have for many of us! It's the best reason to use CL.
posted by MrZero at 6:29 AM on April 11, 2005