I had an email a while back from Ian at NotifyWire.com, and I finally got a chance this weekend to sit down and put some thoughts together on his Craigslist search tool.Notifywire, as you may have guessed, helps you scan Craigslist via a small client you run on your computer. Searches can also be saved as 'alerts', and you can tell Notifywire to drop you a line via text message/SMS whenever a new hit on one of your searches pops up. It's also easy to expand your searches to multiple cities, which is incredibly important when looking for stolen bikes - we've seen time and time again how many bikes pop up two or three major cities away.
There's a pretty comprehensive demo on Youtube that you can watch, too, that explains NotifyWire.com much better than I can.
From my perspective, this is a great tool for anyone looking to find their stolen bike on Craigslist. And, let's be clear on this - a lot of stolen bikes wind up on Craigslist. So many that I've all but stopped posting about stupid thieves getting caught on Craigslist, and only post the fantastic stories like Michelle's epic recovery, and those crafty Austin bike folks who both nailed bike thieves using CL.
I've been playing with NotifyWire for about a week now, using it to scan Seattle, Portland, and other Pacific Northwest listings for my friend's stolen Dahon. I've been pretty happy with it, it's a good flagger and easy to use after a couple of trial runs. And while I started out using Notifywire to look for bikes, I'll admit it, I started putting some searches together for cheap computer gear that I'm looking for. So it has definitely become another great tool to have in the toolbox, so to speak.
Ian gets another shout out for putting together a blog post titled "Finding Your Stolen Property Online", which includes a fantastic Youtube video showing you how to scan for your stolen stuff using Notifywire. (And yes, he drops a gratuitous link and some info about the the SBR in there, which is always appreciated. Thanks Ian!)
Long story short: If you're serious about finding your stolen bike, check out NotifyWire.com. And tell Ian I sent you!
1 comments:
Hey StolenBikeRegistry! Great site! Great info and effort! I'm also trying to shine a light on bike theft and what we as a community might be able to do about it. I've just written up a quick overview of my personal campaign and wanted to share it with you as I think you'd appreciate it:
DontStealBikes.com & KarmaArmy.com
Hello Like Minders. If you're a biker, (skier, boarder, skater, etc),like me, you hate to hear of a bike theft or worse yet, you've had it happen to you. Me too. Quite a while back, my 6-ride old Specialized FSR was stolen out of my locked basement. I immediately launched into what has been my personal campaign against Bike Theft for the past 9 years. Yeah that experience sticks with you, doesn't it?
The whole concept has since evolved into more of an effort to grow an active & targeted community to serve as an Amber Alert for your bike (skis/board,kayaks,etc) to help recover stolen property. With a large enough group [army] keeping an eye out for your gear, coupled with the true connectivity functions of today's social media, we CAN recover stolen gear. All while shining a light on these types of thefts. Who knows, maybe we can even put a few of these criminals behind bars. How cool would that be?
So if you have a moment, please check out what I'm trying to do and let me know what you think. KarmaArmy.com is coming online within 2 weeks, but if you'd like to join up [enlist], you can create an account in 2 seconds and be registered when we come online. FacebookConnect will also be in place to easily populate your profile.
Thanks so much. I appreciate any feedback, comments, thoughts or offers help to promote this effort through both DontStealBikes.com & KarmaArmy.com I could use all the help I can get to get the word out there :)
Know anyone looking for a virtual internship?
@ Ease
Senan (Commander in Karma)
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