Feb 28, 2010 Posted by Admin on Feb 28, 2010 in App of the Week | 0 comments

AOTW : Marketplace (July 5th)

‘Marketplace’ attempts to allow the user to browse Craigslist ‘without the ugly’, and it certainly succeeds at reaching this goal. It’s a very simple and clean interface, with no learning curve at all. Besides just giving the familiar and often overwhelming Craigslist interface a makeover, the additional search options (such as multi region searching capabilities as well as filters) are extremely helpful in finding whatever it is you are looking for. ‘Marketplace’ allows you to add favourites (this helps keep your Firefox bookmarks clean), and provides visual cues for results which you’ve already visited.

There are very little preferences available for this program, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The authour seemed to have a simple goal, to beautify Craigslist, and in this he succeeded. However, given that the normal Craiglist interface, while cluttered and cumbersome at times, isn’t very bad to begin with, it is hard to argue a reason to purchase this program. Enjoy the 25 day demo, and then go back to the normal Craigslist!

• Search multiple regions at a time
• Add items to ‘Favourites’ with a click
• Integration with ‘Mail’ and ‘Safari’ (or your browser)
• Narrow your results with unlimited and customizable filters

The Good Simple and clean looking interface No learning curve, preferences are few and easily set Growl integration Easily filter results, easily check if you’ve visited certain results, and easily bookmark results

The Bad Craigslist isn’t that ugly to begin with! It’s easy to use, so it’s hard to justify paying extra money to browse a free service, despite the usefulness of the filters and multi-region searcing Some small bugs which haven’t been worked out yet (But the authour seems committed to fixing bugs which are brought to his attention in a timely manner)