Cool Tool: ListPic

How many precious hours have you spent mining craigslist in the hope of scoring someone else's amazing castoff at a fraction of regular retail? If you're like me, it's more hours than you care to admit -- many of them spent in frustration, as clicking on promising post after promising post turns up photos of stuff you wouldn't stop the car for during a garage sale drive-by.

To the rescue: ListPic. ListPic is a visual interface tool that pulls all the photos from a given cragislist search onto one convenient page. Simply click on the category you want to search, enter your search terms into the box, and peruse the pictures on your results page. Click on the pix that pique your interest to see a larger photo, read the item description, link to the original craigslist ad, email a link to yourself, or contact the seller.

For a visual illustration of the concept, compare the ListPic search results for "Eames" furniture for sale, above, with the same search results on craigslist, right. There's no contest, is there?

All I have to say is, Genius!

Update: Sadly, craigslist has blocked ListPic's access to its photos, and thus all but shut ListPic down. So ciao, ListPic -- it was fun while it lasted!