Geebo review

June 7, 2008 in Uncategorized by Trench Reynolds | 8 comments

Ever since I posted about the CEO of Geebo.com throwing down the gauntlet at craigslist I’ve been meaning to do a review of the site. Well, here it is.

Right of the bat the front page of geebo is a lot more pleasing than craigslist’s straight out of 1995 start page. Geebo is way more organized and clean than craigslist could ever hope to be. I’m all for minimalism in web design but craigslist just looks like crap while geebo looks very sleek and clean.

I was impressed by the lack of crap on geebo. The personal ads seemed to be legit and smut free. The ads for merchandise for sale also didn’t seem like the leery ads on craigslist.

The only thing I don’t like about geebo is the fact that you don’t have to sign up for a membership to use geebo. As I’ve stated before, craigslist biggest problem is the anonymity they allow their users. However with that said I e-mailed Greg Collier, CEO of geebo, and this is what he had to say when I asked him if he thinks that would be a problem…

We monitor every listing so if something forbidden gets through, it is usually yanked within a matter of 1-2 minutes, or less. Once the posting is removed we immediately block their IP address, notify them that they have violated geebo’s terms of use, and watch to see if they continue this behavior from another ip address, blocking those as well. Eventually, they move on once they discover that their postings are not sticking”.

Wow, a website that is proactive about criminal activity rather than reactive. What a novel concept.

Geebo gets the highly vaunted Trench Reynolds Seal of Approval (bark bark).

Random Posts

  • Kerri

    I went to the Philadelphia section of Geebo. Perhaps the reason why there is so little crap is because there is so little stuff on there at all. Imagine if Geebo grew to the size of craigslist. Do you honestly think that they would be able to keep up with checking on every individual ad? Not sure how true the actual numbers are but I read somewhere that CL has 40 million users and 30 million posts a month. There are 43,200 minutes in a 30 day month. That means that in order to keep an eye out and make sure there is nothing on there that shouldn't be you would have to look through about 926 ads per minute. This would require alot of additional labor. Craigslist would have to start running ads or even worse charging people money to post anything. CL is far from perfect but it is a long way till anyone comes up with anything half as good with half the users of it.Oh and how could you say that Geebo looks good at all? Once again craiglist isn't perfect but I honestly think it is easier to navigate and better put together then that. If they expect to come anywhere near CL then they need to make the site better then CL, not better then CL USED to be! Next!!!

  • Kerri

    I went to the Philadelphia section of Geebo. Perhaps the reason why there is so little crap is because there is so little stuff on there at all. Imagine if Geebo grew to the size of craigslist. Do you honestly think that they would be able to keep up with checking on every individual ad? Not sure how true the actual numbers are but I read somewhere that CL has 40 million users and 30 million posts a month. There are 43,200 minutes in a 30 day month. That means that in order to keep an eye out and make sure there is nothing on there that shouldn't be you would have to look through about 926 ads per minute. This would require alot of additional labor. Craigslist would have to start running ads or even worse charging people money to post anything. CL is far from perfect but it is a long way till anyone comes up with anything half as good with half the users of it.

    Oh and how could you say that Geebo looks good at all? Once again craiglist isn't perfect but I honestly think it is easier to navigate and better put together then that. If they expect to come anywhere near CL then they need to make the site better then CL, not better then CL USED to be! Next!!!

  • Kerri

    Ok I wanted to be able to support my argument above a little bit better then just claiming I read it somewhere so here is the website I got my facts from. This site lists both what I have said and also how I found your site:http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080501.wlcraigscrooks01/BNStory/lifeMain#This also matches what Wikipedia has to say about it. Adding to my arguement wikipedia also mentions that craigslist as of 2007 CL has 24 employees. Try having 24 people go through 926 ads per minute every day and every minute without sleeping. It is impossible! Instead of just blaming CL why don't you come up with a reasonable idea on how to FIX the problem? You seem to be an expert on this. How should 24 employees monitor this much and still have time to do everything else they are currently employed to do? How should CL earn the extra money needed to hire more employees to do this w/o sacrificing what it stands for? I personally think that the user flag system, once again not perfect, is a lot better then it could be.

  • Kerri

    Ok I wanted to be able to support my argument above a little bit better then just claiming I read it somewhere so here is the website I got my facts from. This site lists both what I have said and also how I found your site:

    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080501.wlcraigscrooks01/BNStory/lifeMain#

    This also matches what Wikipedia has to say about it. Adding to my arguement wikipedia also mentions that craigslist as of 2007 CL has 24 employees. Try having 24 people go through 926 ads per minute every day and every minute without sleeping. It is impossible! Instead of just blaming CL why don't you come up with a reasonable idea on how to FIX the problem? You seem to be an expert on this. How should 24 employees monitor this much and still have time to do everything else they are currently employed to do? How should CL earn the extra money needed to hire more employees to do this w/o sacrificing what it stands for? I personally think that the user flag system, once again not perfect, is a lot better then it could be.

  • http://craigscrimelist.org Trench

    craigslist doesn't even have to check every ad. The only thing that would discourage most of the crime on their site is to require registration.Their flagging system is a joke.Sometimes smaller is better. I'd rather use a site like geebo or flugpo before I use an obviously corrupted site like craigslist.

  • http://craigscrimelist.org Trench

    craigslist doesn't even have to check every ad. The only thing that would discourage most of the crime on their site is to require registration.

    Their flagging system is a joke.

    Sometimes smaller is better. I'd rather use a site like geebo or flugpo before I use an obviously corrupted site like craigslist.

  • Kerri

    Corruption comes with the size. Its impossible even if it did have user registration to keep all corruption out. The bigger you are the more likely it is to occur. I guarantee if either geebo or flugpo grow to that size (and I hope they do as it gives me more places to look for things) they will have a large share of it themselves.CL has helped me out in so many ways and I guess this has hit a sore spot for me. I have sold a car and bought a car (the one I am driving now). Found apartments, including one one time when I was living in a shelter with no money. I found someone willing to work with me and pay them what I could afford till I got back on my feet. During those times it even helped me make money by doing a few odd jobs for people. A few awesome people in the strictly platonic section when I first moved here and other great roommates too. Finally I joined a band that I found on CL and my life has definitely never been the same since then.Because of all I mentioned above I am sorry if I am taking this a little too personal but I guess I can't help it.You say smaller is better, and sometimes it is but I dont think so in this case. Classifieds are about more choice. I doubt I would have found half the things I did on a site as small as Geebo or Flugpo. Like I said above I wish them both well as more choice is always better and I will check on them once in a while to see how they are doing. Until then though CL will continue to be a huge part of my life.I still think they both need to improve their layouts though.Kerri

  • Kerri

    Corruption comes with the size. Its impossible even if it did have user registration to keep all corruption out. The bigger you are the more likely it is to occur. I guarantee if either geebo or flugpo grow to that size (and I hope they do as it gives me more places to look for things) they will have a large share of it themselves.

    CL has helped me out in so many ways and I guess this has hit a sore spot for me. I have sold a car and bought a car (the one I am driving now). Found apartments, including one one time when I was living in a shelter with no money. I found someone willing to work with me and pay them what I could afford till I got back on my feet. During those times it even helped me make money by doing a few odd jobs for people. A few awesome people in the strictly platonic section when I first moved here and other great roommates too. Finally I joined a band that I found on CL and my life has definitely never been the same since then.

    Because of all I mentioned above I am sorry if I am taking this a little too personal but I guess I can't help it.

    You say smaller is better, and sometimes it is but I dont think so in this case. Classifieds are about more choice. I doubt I would have found half the things I did on a site as small as Geebo or Flugpo. Like I said above I wish them both well as more choice is always better and I will check on them once in a while to see how they are doing. Until then though CL will continue to be a huge part of my life.

    I still think they both need to improve their layouts though.

    Kerri

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