Google Map Craigslists garage sales?

July 17, 2007 7:38 PM

Looking for a little help building a Google Maps/Craigslist display applet.

I'm looking for a little direction building a map. I'd like to grab the last three days of garage sale ads off Craigslist, and display them on a Google Map with pinheads.

Sadly, my web programming skills are almost zero. I've spent the last ten years writing embedded apps in C and assembly.

So, where should I start with this, or (better!) did somebody already write one?

posted by Marky to computers & internet (3 comments total)

The hard part is going to be parsing the addresses out of the craigslist listings. Unlike the housing entries, the garage sale entries don't appear to have any sort of uniform way of saying "this is the address". If you can figure out how to do that part of it (which isn't particularly webby), the maps part of it should be relatively easy. Check out the mapplets API for more on that.
posted by hades at 8:48 PM on July 17, 2007

Well, Gmail automatically searches emails for addresses and gives "map it" directions on the side, so you could potentially put the housing listings through such a filter. Once you have a list of addresses, it should be pretty easy. (By the way, housingmaps.com is a similar concept; perhaps the creator can offer you some code/help.)
posted by lunchbox at 10:25 AM on July 18, 2007

There was also listpic.com, which pulled housing ads with pictures and was a fantastic search tool, until Craigslist told them to stop. But they might be able to help.
posted by loiseau at 12:36 PM on July 18, 2007