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Craigslist cuts off Listpic, cites bandwidth issues, TOS violations

Third-party Craigslist browsing service Listpic has been cut off from accessing Craigslist.org.

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Josh Lowensohn Former Senior Writer
Josh Lowensohn joined CNET in 2006 and now covers Apple. Before that, Josh wrote about everything from new Web start-ups, to remote-controlled robots that watch your house. Prior to joining CNET, Josh covered breaking video game news, as well as reviewing game software. His current console favorite is the Xbox 360.
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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. 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]