There is much more to the internet that looking at naked ladies and buying stuff on Ebay.

Craigslist is in the Favorites folder of almost every internet savvy surfer in the country as it just keeps getting more and more useful. Unfortunately the amazingly retro look and text based appearance isn’t to everyone’s taste. And the peace sign logo? Please.

However, help is at hand with new Web 2.0 site, CraigLook. It isn’t an alternative to our Craigslist fix, but an enhancement of it that adds much more functionality to the experience. Apart from appearing much more pleasing to the eye, even with a seemingly pre-school theme.

The site offers all the data of Craigslist, with the bells and whistles most of us expect from our websites. There are image previews, a slideable search radius tool, as well as selection boxes for the search function.

The site is easy to navigate and to use. It has an intuitive interface as well as easy to use selection criteria that even suggests stuff to search for. The most useful part of the site so far is the warning at the top of any search screen that tells you how many expired adverts are on the page. This to me is the single best time-saving device on the site.

Search for a region and a slider will appear on the left menu where you can select a suitable search radius. Say you wanted to search for Freelance Writing in New York. You can set the slider anything up to 250 miles from the city to broaden your search. The results will dynamically appear as you move the slider outwards to include those within the search radius. This is a genius idea, and perfect for those who don’t want to travel too far for their interviews.

There are the usual filters, like city, state, category, price and other options. The page builds and renders quickly and the changes made to the range slider are also quick to load. There is a freeform search bar at the top of the screen so you can move your search on without having to return to the home page.

The returns themselves are in much the same format as the standard Craigslist. The title, city, category and when it was posted, along with a line of text about the advert contents. They are easy to read, and to navigate but the best trick of all is that they load in page.

A little java like applet opens up the advert and nestles it within the search page. This is a genius way of saving a couple of clicks and precious minutes when searching for something. It makes using the site a dream, and so quick I’m going to visit more often.

While it isn’t the pinnacle of innovation, it is just the thing we want to see from the internet. People taking ideas and running with them. Improving the user experience and making the web easier to surf.

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