Taking little teeny steps toward single-property web sites on little teeny mobile web browsers on little teeny mobile phones

by Greg Swann

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Little Teeny Eyes by Tom Digby

Oh we got a new computer but it’s quite a disappointment
‘Cause it always gave this same insane advice:
“OH YOU NEED LITTLE TEENY EYES FOR READING LITTLE TEENY PRINT
LIKE YOU NEED LITTLE TEENY HANDS FOR MILKING MICE.”

So we re-read the instruction book that came with the computer
But it kept on printing crazy stuff that reads
Like: “YOU NEED LITTLE TEENY EYES FOR READING LITTLE TEENY PRINT
LIKE YOU NEED LITTLE TEENY SHOES FOR CENTIPEDES.”

So we got an expert genius and he rewrote all the programs
But we always got results that looked like these:
“OH YOU NEED LITTLE TEENY EYES FOR READING LITTLE TEENY PRINT
LIKE YOU NEED LITTLE TEENY LICENSE PLATES FOR BEES.”

Then we tested each resistor, every diode and transistor,
But our electronic brain just raves and rants:
“OH YOU NEED LITTLE TEENY EYES FOR READING LITTLE TEENY PRINT
LIKE YOU NEED LITTLE BRANDING IRONS FOR BRANDING ANTS.”

Now we’re looking for a buyer for a crazy mad computer
That will only give out crazy mad advice
Like: “YOU NEED LITTLE TEENY EYES FOR READING LITTLE TEENY PRINT
LIKE YOU NEED LITTLE TEENY HANDS FOR MILKING MICE.”

So I got spammed yesterday for yet another piece of vendorslut crap. TextMyMLS.com will send a SMS text message containing details about your listing to a mobile phone-using prospect who requests information from you. The text message can also include photos if the prospect’s phone supports them.

What do the text messages look like. Look up and you will see a demo screen, as seen on my iPhone. That’s 100% to scale, y’all, and, no, you’re not getting old. These message might look good on other devices, but on the iPhone they’re useless.

There’s more, of course. TextMyMLS.com is a stealth lead-capture system. When the prospect “texts” for more information, the TextMyMLS system pages the Realtor with the prospects phone number — which is transmitted without the prospect’s knowledge or consent. In addition to the text about the home, possibly unreadable, the prospect also gets spammed with information about the Realtor. And then, of course, the poor punter is stuck having to fend off sales calls for the next 90 days — the statue of limitations on the Do Not Call list.

I hate all the sleazy stealth stuff, of course, but the other night on the phone, Scott Cowan and I were talking about the need for a satisfying experience of a single-property web site from a mobile phone’s web browser. And last week Richard Riccelli sent me a link to Jacob Nielsen’s latest Alertbox newsletter on mobile browser usability.

Here’s where I am: I’m interested in playing a little to see what it would take to come up with a usable mobile-browser alternative to big-browser web sites. What I would want is to build software (1) to detect the browser on entry, then branch to a different site if a mobile phone browser is detected. The alternate site (2) would use multiple CSS configurations (3) to present the most satisfying user experience for each type of mobile phone browser.

Frankly, steps one and three are pretty easy. It’s building CSS configurations that work with the vastly different screen configurations of mobile phones that will be the challenge.

Even so, I need this. You need this. Everyone in web publishing needs this, but Realtors need it more than most. And by branching off of our existing sites, we can deliver the goods without beclouding our URLs.

So: You feel like playing? I need to know what mobile phone browsers look like. If you have something other than an iPhone (which I already have), can you take yourself to this form? In two quick steps, your phone’s web browser will tell me a ton about itself — with luck enough to distinguish one mobile browser from another.

After I collect a bunch of data, I’ll start conjuring, and I may call upon you again to send me screen shots of test pages so I can see how particular CSS configurations are behaving. In the end, if all this mishegoss works, we’ll have an alternative way of publishing single-property web sites to cell phones.

I won’t snatch and grab phone numbers for you, but I’ll help you build sites that will make your prospects actually want to call you. Surely that’s a better way to forge a relationship.

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