MapsKrieg Versus HousingMaps
Craigslist is great when it comes to unloading junk or buying someone else's, but for browsing apartment listings it bites harder than dogs on mailman limbs. HousingMaps.com made the experience more intuitive by combining Craigslist apartment listings in North America with Google Maps, in what's known as a mashup -- two Web services (usually) combined by a third party to make an entirely new site. Some other examples of mashups include Chicagocrime.org, which fuses Google Maps with Chicago crime statistics, and DoubleTrust.net, which allows you to search Google and Yahoo! simultaneously.
Now HousingMaps has a competitor, MapsKrieg, which also joins together Craigslist and Google Maps. Like HousingMaps, MapsKrieg allows you to search a city for apartment listings, which get mapped out as points on the city grid -- much nicer than the pages of text results you get on Craigslist. Clicking on a point opens up a bubble with the listing title, pictures (if there are any), snippets from the original post as well as a direct link back to it.
Where MapsKrieg beats HousingMaps is in the number of cities that are searchable -- MapsKrieg covers hundreds of cities, where as HousingMaps is limited to just a few dozen major metropolitan areas. MapsKrieg's maps are also much bigger than those on HousingMaps, covering the entire browser window as opposed to just part of it.
Unfortunately, that's where the advantages end. MapsKrieg only allows you to filter results by city and housing type, whereas HousingMaps lets you choose a price range. And the reason HousingMaps's street grids don't take up the entire screen is because the site includes a box of descriptive text links, which scroll you to the listing on the map and open a window straight to the Craigslist posting.
In the end, MapsKrieg is great for anyone living outside of HousingMaps's metro areas -- not so much if HousingMaps already has you covered.
From Geek Sugar
Related Links:
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Hung @ May 14th 2007 11:50AM
Hey, this is MapsKrieg's creator. I don't know if MapsKrieg is really "competition" for HousingMaps, just something I whipped up to help me find an apartment for myself. And I figured I'd just add a bunch of cities because I could. I really like HousingMaps, but it didn't have the city I was looking for, unfortunately.
Thanks for the critical review! I've been thinking about how I can improve on MapsKrieg, so I take all this commentary into consideration.
hater critic @ Jul 19th 2007 10:20AM
Hung you are a genious! it's better than the other site because your has more cities to choose from which is great!
jorge @ Sep 20th 2007 6:29PM
I found another one http://freemap.iwantto.us
David @ Dec 25th 2007 8:45AM
Found http://www.cribq.com . Only a few cities, but some pretty cool stuff in addition to maps. I especially liked being able to zoom into a neighborhood and only see the listings there.
waymaneluy @ Mar 19th 2008 10:51AM
I've used http://www.streeteasy.com/ before. It's pretty straightforward and used googlemaps too. They seem to pull from broker sites though and not craigslist.
Joe Irvine @ Jul 7th 2008 6:50PM
I guess I am late for the party :(. I just finished working on my craigslist-on-maps site.
http://www.rentrent.org
Rentrent.org offers better search interface on top of craigslist listings. I got motivated to build this site because I saw some limitations in Craigslist interface. I just hope that the site helps people search for the apartment they are looking for.
Why is it better than others?
.Allows user to filter by numer of bathrooms.
.Allows user to search by exact number of bedrooms.
.Allows user to search by very granular amount she is willing to pay.
.Color coded properties.
.All the information you need about a property is on a balloon.
.The map interface gives user the visual idea about where exactly each rental property is.
Currently I am seeking some feedback. Thanks in advance folks.
Joe