I often get asked “How can I differentiate my website from others?”.
Typically, I launch into the typical response that starts with “by adding more than listings”. What I mean is to create a web community with the website, creating a loyalty by providing service to consumers. Yes, this includes the thought of supplementing the website with a blog about local events, real estate as an investment or preparing the home for sale.
The other day, I received an e-mail from Don Kanare with a question about adding RSS to his website. I have thought about RSS for “hotsheet” publication from the MLS, but never considered it for a consumer website. I even thought about proposing it as a RETS extension.
In his letter, Don mentioned FeedForAll as a tool that could possibly add RSS. I have looked at tools like this yet. This is probably due to the fact that we are an Open Source shop.
[Update 8/29: Interesting thought. I thought I would stop at this point and listen to what others have to say.
http://support.open-realty.org/showthread.php?t=6202
The idea is not new but I still cannot point to an implementation.]
I’ve been thinking of ways to incorporate RSS into my online strategy and have been considering a similar idea. I too am interested in what others have to say on the subject.
That myrealtyfeed.com website is interesting, never saw that for a real estate oriented web site yet. Now if i could have the visitors to my site sign up for an RSS feed of the latest offerings that meet their search criteria , then it would pop up on whatever browser they were on if it supported RSS feeds. Great idea, not sure if many emails actually make it through corporate firewalls.
RSS is neat, but I don’t think consumers are snapping up RSS readers, or using the ones built into their browser. Is having a RSS-based Live Bookmark in the Firefox browser compelling for property marketing anyway?
I like the idea of leveraging RSS, but not using today’s typical RSS readers. Rather, I think it would be more compelling to have ‘latest matches’ for the consumer show up on the desktop, applicable images and all - linking to the property web site. On the other end, the ‘latest leads’ for the Realtor could show up on the desktop. I think using RSS in combination with tools like Konfabulator can lead to some interesting and compelling applications that could benefit consumers and Realtors.
I think that we will see more usage or RSS data soon. It would be slam dunk for hotsheet data (But might help my competition who are not as diligent) and I think it would be great to use for clients.
Don’t forget that many webmasters incorporate RSS feeds from relevant sources right into their webpages.
It can get more eyes on your listings, and certainly more inbound links pointing to your domain.
However, has anyone looked at the downside of this? Even if a small real estate related site wanted to use our RSS feed (if we had one) to add content to their site, they might be able to place a form or a link to the form next to the RSS displayfor requesting more info, and use it in a manner similar to scraping (lead capture, etc).
Any thoughts?
Very Interesting thoughts….and I think its a real “ahead of its time” idea, however it may violate some MLS agreements having to do with VOW and IDX technology.
I wouldn’t worry necessarily about our licensed competitors (other Realtors), I’d worry more about bottomfeeders who troll the internet in order to make money off of OUR data.
If you think I word that a little too strongly, think again. The stories I could tell about several “foreclosure” websites…