Category: Technology (page 16 of 60)

by John Rowles

IDX Search Entrepreneur

Author website

No, that’s not me with The Hoff and a Google Search Appliance, that’s Google’s UK Sales Mgr.

RealSearchUSA.com will be a network of Independent brokers connected by a unique function – a natural language Real Estate search engine. Our goal is to create a true consumer benefit: A Google-inspired (and powered) natural language search experience that leads to a good, local independent broker. The success of our network will be determined by Word of Mouth (or, more accurately, Word of Email, Word of Facebook, Word of IM, Word of Twitter…).

Here’s the thing about that: We, as the technical force behind the network, have no control over what happens after we hand a homebuyer off to a broker, but that is the part of the experience that will drive WOM for both the broker and the network.

Since we work on an exclusive territory basis to preserve the competitive advantage of a unique user experience, we need to be sure that we are working with the right brokers if we want to see that WOM, so we are being selective about who we hook up to the network.

That’s why I am announcing RealSearchUSA here on BHB: If we can network Web-smart brokers together at the Search Result level, not only would we be off to a good start, we would be taking concrete steps to strengthen the independent brokers who are poised to shake up this industry whenever a recovery gets going.

In most cases, we can place a Google-powered Real Estate Search box on an existing Web site, as we have done here for Mike DiMella at Charlesgate Realty in Boston. It is a network based on an upgrade to Search, which is the function that most Real Estate Web site users are looking for in the first place, but here is the kicker: This search function will also make you a node on a network of independent brokers like you.

Allow me to explain the node thing:

We build Real Estate Search Engines using Google’s Enterprise technology. Our goal is to provide the best Real Estate Search experience for people who like the way Read more

by Greg Swann

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

I have very alpha software that makes a KML file that Google Maps will eat to make something like this:

View Larger Map

It’s kinda-sorta like ZeeMaps, except I get a true Google Maps map, which I can then customize and embed.

I start with a list of addresses, which I can type if I absolutely have to.

There’s more: I’m going to build in the ability to create an engenu folder structure from the list of addresses, so that a site like this essentially builds itself.

For that kind of engenu site, I’ll cut my time from 40 minutes to 20 minutes, on the order of two minutes a page for brand new, original, knock-your-socks-off content.

by Greg Swann

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Long-time real estate weblogger Jim Duncan moved to a new brokerage recently — Nest Realty. As a part of their launch, they’re building custom real estate yard signs, the prototype for which you can see above.

Jim asked for my thoughts on the signs, and I’m going to go into this at some little length. All of this touches on the stuff we’ve been talking about since last week.

First, I think these signs are striking, very interesting graphically. The grid layout is sweet and fine, a very clean style of communication.

Second, I want that middle sign to be a hell of a lot bigger. My guess is that it’s 18 x 12, a very common size for real estate signs. We do our middle sign at 24 x 36. Jim’s sign is in much better taste than ours, but I need for people to know that they’re seeing a custom sign, so I think I need to grab them by the throat.

Third, my belief is that for custom signs to work, they have to have that paragraph of small text we use on our signs. The marketing objective of the signs is to stop traffic, not simply to promote a fleeting awareness of a home for sale among passing drivers. We’ve been using that paragraph of small text from the beginning, long before it was possible to make custom signs. We know from hours of observation that people slow down, stop, read the sign, take the flyer — all because they had to slow down to find out what that small text was saying.

There are some nice marketing ideas at Nest’s main web site, and the site for this particular home is worth a look. The HDR photos are incredible, and I want for them to be a lot larger.

This is a case where I don’t find the web presentation of the home to be at all satisfying, and that’s another one of the points that I hit all the time. We know from talking to our open house visitors that people will spend hours at a single-property web site if you Read more

by Cheryl Johnson

Real Estate Broker, Investor

Author website

I drafted this article a few days ago, before Greg posted his video demo of engenu.  Coincidentally, I think my post here serves as a pretty good introduction to the engenu functions that are covered in the video.

I like Greg’s description of  engenu’s functionality here.  (About two thirds of the way down in the post, below the photos.)

And once you own the basic, core engenu concept of folders become pages, what Greg is describing is logical,  and actually quite easy to do.

But I think I a simpler, pared down example of folders becoming pages becoming a web site will help everyone get from here to there.

Suppose I want to build a very simple, single property web site.

I want a page with the property description to be the main entry page.  I want three sub-pages.  One with neighborhood information, one with my bio, and a contact me page.

If I was working in WordPress, I’d log into my WordPress Dashboard, create each each page, set the front page display to the property description page, and activate the Pages widget to display a list of pages in the sidebar, or handcode them into sidebar.php.

To build the same site in engenu, the paradigm shifts to setting up the structure offline first.

I have found it is quick and easy to just create folders with my FTP program.

First I’d create an empty folder named “123 Green Street”.  Yes, that folder could also contain PDFs, and images which will automatically become a slideshow,  but hold that thought for the later.

Then I open the empty “123 Green Street” folder, and create three empty sub-folders inside of it:  “Neighborhood Information”, “About Me” and “Contact Me”.

In the FTP program, I move back up a level, and upload the “123 Green Street” folder to my host/server.  Since the other three folders are nested inside of “123 Green Street”, they get uploaded, too, in one quick zap.

Now I go to mysite.com/engenu and process the whole shebang through engenu.  All four folders became pages, with 123 Green Street set as the Read more