{"id":11486,"date":"2019-12-02T11:44:06","date_gmt":"2019-12-02T16:44:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.renthop.com\/content-manager\/?p=11486"},"modified":"2019-12-02T11:45:40","modified_gmt":"2019-12-02T16:45:40","slug":"craigslist-freshness-bait-and-switch-problems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.renthop.com\/blog\/craigslist-freshness-bait-and-switch-problems\/","title":{"rendered":"Craigslist, Freshness, Bait and Switch Problems"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n
When Lawrence and I gave our original Demo Day<\/a> pitch in the Summer 2009 Y Combinator<\/a> batch, we cited Craigslist<\/a> as a large part of the New York City apartment<\/a> finder problem. Back then, you could not sort by price, location, or photo gallery. The only thing you could do was “grep for text” that suited you (like the word No Fee<\/a> or Luxury Highrise). Many predicted Craigslist would not last so long, while others, including Harvard Business School professors Peter Coles and Ben Edelman<\/a> argued the network effect would ensure their survival.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n But the one thing Craigslist got right was their focus on Freshness. They mimic a real-life bulletin board, because you can’t sort by anything reasonable (price, distance from a landmark, etc). As new postings come in, they obstruct older postings. Everyone is welcome to continue browsing the older items, to a point, but savvy renters know that anything old is probably already gone – otherwise the agent would have been reposted it again<\/a>.<\/p>\r\nRentHop’s HopScore Considers Listing Freshness<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n