Craigslist cuts off Listpic, cites bandwidth issues, TOS violations

Listpic, the visual searching and browsing tool for Craigslist has been blocked from the service as of yesterday. Craigslist creator Craig Newmark posted on the Craigslist user forums to alert the community to the shutdown last night, citing bandwidth drains and Listpic's attempts to "monetize" Craigslist by piggybacking off its services and using its own advertising. Newmark claimed that so much bandwidth was being used by the third-party service that it was "making it harder for the vast bulk of people who visit our site."

Listpic users could sort through Craigslist classifieds with photo thumbnails.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Listpic provided its users with a fairly simple way to sort and browse through listings on Craiglist by displaying items as picture thumbnails as opposed to Craigslist's pages full of plain text links. The site also featured its own ads, which went against Craigslist's terms of service.

One of the most interesting tidbits that's come out of this is a vague mention of Craigslist potentially building its own visualization tool in this follow-up post by Newmark. Some of the most useful applications of Craigslist have been the ones that take the data and present it in different ways. One of the clearest examples of this are the house and apartment hunting mash-ups like MapsKreig and HousingMaps.com. Both let you browse for places to live by exploring a Google Map.

The saga continues to unfold over on this Craigslist forums thread.

[via DownloadSquad]

[Rivers555555]

http://www.listnav.com/

For a new Craig's List experience, visit www.listnav.com. They offer a picture-friendly way of navigating craigslist. Best of all, this service does not drain any additional bandwidth from Craigslist (like listpic did) and it is REAL-TIME! It is still in it's beta phases, to be patient while it introduces a feature-set you'll be glad you waited for! I'll just leave it at that. The site is http://www.listnav.com. You can also use savvy urls such as sfbay.listnav.com/msg for Musical Instruments in SF Bay for example.

[RogerMason]

Better Craigslist Browser

I just found a better Craigslist browser at http://cl.craigslist.com

[RogerMason]

Better Craigslist Browser

I just found a better Craigslist browser at http://cl.radiux.com

[typo!]

[Rivers555555]

listnav.com

radiux doesn't even work. sure is pretty though. but there are no ads! to view true craigslist ads, listnav.com is all i've found
http://www.listnav.com/

[classifieds]

Thank you for the information on classifieds
http://adlandpro.ws

[Cobalt_Bob]

Check out CL Desktop.
it's the new, better way to browse Craigslist
http://www.cldesktop.com

[julie_rottes]

LaDeLoList at http://www.ladelo.com

LaDeLoList is a Craigslist Browser with a Multi-City Search and Photos Preview...
... photos added to Craigslist search results
... item descriptions on the same page with listing titles
... 3 different layouts, so you can choose a presentation style that works the best for you
... real-time Craigslist searches, so Ladelolist results are identical to those at Craigslist
... links to original listings
... and if you want to Post a listing, there is always a link to the appropriate Craigslist tool
... a sister site to BackChapter (All BackPage on One Page)