Shopping the traditional way-with classifieds
by Richard Seltzer, seltzer@samizdat.com, www.samizdat.com
Back in ancient times, before the dawn of the Web, your first step in finding a house, an apartment, or a roommate would probably have been to check the classified ads. That tradition is continued today at numerous online classified ad sites. Many of these sites simply move ad copy verbatim from printed newspapers to electronic form. Others follow old newspaper categories and format because users are already familiar with them, or just out of habit and inertia. Some even keep the cryptic newspaper-style abbreviations, despite the fact that on the Web, space is not limited the way it is in print. Nevertheless, these sites can be very useful. The nationwide sites typically have tens of thousands of listings, and they provide sort and search capabilities so you can limit your search to the geography you want and then quickly pluck out those listings that match your requirements.
* Classifieds2000 www.classifieds2000.com
* Home Hunter www.homehunter.com
* Classified Warehouse www.classifiedwarehouse.com
* Property2000 www.property2000.com: This site is a nationwide site dedicated to real estate.
The problem is that these classified listings are likely to be unevenly distributed, with rich resources from one urban area where they have partnered with major newspapers, and very little in another. To get more listings in your geographic area, check the real estate and classified Web sites that focus on it.
To find those, first check the Web sites of the local newspapers, then check the Yahoo directory which has a section devoted to classifieds http://classifieds.yahoo.com/. For example, in the Boston area:
* Boston.com realestate.boston.com: This site is the online version of the Boston Globe.
* Boston Apartments www.bostonapartments.com: This site serves Massachusetts and New Hampshire and features lots of apartments for rent and some houses for sale.
* Townonline www.townonline.com: This site features classifed ads for Eastern Massachusetts, plus related real estate resources.
While the nationwide sites list a couple hundred homes for sale in the Boston area, Boston.com lists a few thousand. These are all homes that were advertised within the last 7[nd]14 days in the print newspaper, but all in the same brief cryptic form that is typical of newspaper classifieds. That form provides limited information and makes searching awkward.
Copyright 1999 by Richard Seltzer. All rights are reserved.
The following article is based on the introduction from Shop Online the Lazy Way, a book written by Richard Seltzer, which was published in August 1999 by Macmillan. It is available in paperback directly from our online store at http://store.yahoo.com/samizdat or from Amazon.com. It is also available in a Braille edition from National Braille Press (www.nbp.org).
Now that the rights have reverted to the author, he is free to update and revise this online version. Please send email to alert him of changes and interesting new sites that you have encountered.
Back in ancient times, before the dawn of the Web, your first step in finding a house, an apartment, or a roommate would probably have been to check the classified ads. That tradition is continued today at numerous online classified ad sites. Many of these sites simply move ad copy verbatim from printed newspapers to electronic form. Others follow old newspaper categories and format because users are already familiar with them, or just out of habit and inertia. Some even keep the cryptic newspaper-style abbreviations, despite the fact that on the Web, space is not limited the way it is in print. Nevertheless, these sites can be very useful. The nationwide sites typically have tens of thousands of listings, and they provide sort and search capabilities so you can limit your search to the geography you want and then quickly pluck out those listings that match your requirements.
* Classifieds2000 www.classifieds2000.com
* Home Hunter www.homehunter.com
* Classified Warehouse www.classifiedwarehouse.com
* Property2000 www.property2000.com: This site is a nationwide site dedicated to real estate.
The problem is that these classified listings are likely to be unevenly distributed, with rich resources from one urban area where they have partnered with major newspapers, and very little in another. To get more listings in your geographic area, check the real estate and classified Web sites that focus on it.
To find those, first check the Web sites of the local newspapers, then check the Yahoo directory which has a section devoted to classifieds http://classifieds.yahoo.com/. For example, in the Boston area:
* Boston.com realestate.boston.com: This site is the online version of the Boston Globe.
* Boston Apartments www.bostonapartments.com: This site serves Massachusetts and New Hampshire and features lots of apartments for rent and some houses for sale.
* Townonline www.townonline.com: This site features classifed ads for Eastern Massachusetts, plus related real estate resources.
While the nationwide sites list a couple hundred homes for sale in the Boston area, Boston.com lists a few thousand. These are all homes that were advertised within the last 7[nd]14 days in the print newspaper, but all in the same brief cryptic form that is typical of newspaper classifieds. That form provides limited information and makes searching awkward.
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