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Archive for May, 2008
A few years back, I watched MLSNI turn off their consumer facing website because members took the stance that this was reducing broker/agent centric website exposure. Ironically, seemingly overnight, this almost perfectly coincided with the flash flood of Syndication Portals (Trulia, Zillow, GoogleBase, etc).
At first, the industry was very apprehensive to giving their listings away for free. Over time they eased up, and saw how they can leverage these advertising vehicles. In all essence, they are just a more refined online classifieds model (such as the newspapers, but focused). More and more of these advertising sites began to appear, somewhat diluting the benefits, increasing the work for exposure (see Andrews Syndication Article to battle this issue) and calling more attention to what was really going on. These sites were filling a critical void in the consumer marketplace.
Today, Mark and I were walking back from the Hilton after sitting in and listening to the Business Issues Committee meeting here at the midyear meetings. (Hopefully more on that soon from an expert!)
In any case, we passed a bus stop bench and saw a bunch of books sitting on it and we couldn’t resist taking a picture or two. (Click on the image for a larger version.) The fact that two of them were HTML books really amused us.
I’m not exactly sure what that collect of books says to me other than “disgruntled web designer.”
Previously on CRT’s blog, we talked about my trip to AZ….
I got an e-mail from Dru Bloomfield today saying the video from our panel on blogging is up on the SAAR site. You can watch it here on SAAR’s site, but be warned, it clocks in at about an hour and a half.
On a completely unrelated and egotistical note, I hate watching myself on video as I always seem to do something that ends up annoying me. In this video I seem to be doing some Mr. Burns hand-wringing thing from time to time.
The Bloggers’ Lounge and WiFi HotSpot at NAR’s 2008 Midyear Legislative Meetings & Trade Expo officially open today.
Technically, the HotSpot was operating yesterday, but it wasn’t officially open. It’ll be open 24/7 until the end of the show. The Bloggers’ Lounge is open from 10am to 6pm today through Friday.
WiFi Flyer
All the RETS buzz these days seems to be about the new RESO Syndication standard. It promises to make the lives of syndicators (Google, Zillow, Yahoo, Trulia etc), aggregators (ThreeWide, Point2), brokers and even MLSs easier. With a common data format to use, the workload of everyone will go down significantly. But right now there is one actor in that list that will be left with a syndication tool gap; the broker. What is needed is a simple easy to use tool that can allow the broker to create a syndication file reliably, even if they don’t have their own listing database.
Syndicators, aggregators and MLSs are all technology companies that already share data online with various parties. Moving to a new common standard is fairly easy and once done will help improve their efficiency. However, many brokers are small operations with little or no IT staff. What they need is a tool that can run without a database, on a desktop machine. It needs to be able to read from a RETS source, and output a syndication file. That file can then be uploaded to a syndicator or aggregator, or put up on a web site to be pulled down by same. At the April RETS meeting in Philadelphia I demoed a proof of concept tool at the RETS Exhibition that did just that, called the RETS Proxy (I even won a prize!). While this tool is not ready to fill the tool gap, the design I showed has serious limitations, it is basically that idea that I am going for.
With such a tool, brokers can make effective use of the standard. We at CRT will look into filling this tool gap, I for one plan on taking my proof of concept and expanding it to fill the above requirement. We also look forward to others stepping up, maybe filling in the gaps that we missed. The more tools the broker has, the easier it will be for them to use the standard; a standard that would be useless without their data.
Every once in awhile you get bit by the Law of Unintended Consequences. What is this law you ask? To quote wikipedia:
The Law of Unintended Consequences states that any action will produce some unintended consequences…
This maxim is not a scientific law; it is more in line with Murphy’s law as a warning against the belief that we can control the world around us. In other words, each cause has more than one effect, which will invariably include at least one side effect. The side effect can potentially be more significant than any of the intended effects.
Our blog got hit with that big time since late last week when I installed and turned on the WP-SuperCache plugin. I thought I’d been installing a performance improvement, but I ended up breaking the comment system due to a bad interaction with Spam Karma 2 (SK2). Most people who’ve been trying to leave a comment in the past few days have been shunted to the moderation queue or blocked as spam.
After some web searching I found two sets of directions to fix this. The first is a plugin from Priv for SK2 that makes SK2 notify WP-SuperCache when its updates things. The second was some code modifications from quenting I needed to make to both SK2 and WP-SC to make some ‘magic’ anti-spam stuff that SK does work.
The end result is comments work again and should not have the false positives. Of course, I have to wait and watch the next few days to see if it actually is working… So comment away! 
I have installed a package called DD-WRT on by consumer grade Linksys WRT350N router. DD-WRT gives me professional grade options that the manufacturer does not offer and utilizes the hardware to its maximum. This fusion of Professional software and Consumer equipment makes my network setup prosumer.
DD-WRT is a good approach if you have a small office, have staff hooked up via wireless and don’t want to waste money. I just followed installation instructions on their wiki and things went smoothly. There is a step that might make you uneasy though; you have replace the manufacturer’s firmware in order to get DD-WRT functionality. As long as you don’t stop this two minute process in the middle it should work for you too. Although I am using a different model than the one in the instructions, everything went as expected.
This short list does not do DD-WRT justice, but here is what I like most about DD-WRT:
- Linux (but of course)
- Static Addresses
- DHCP Server
- MAC Address cloning
- NAT
- Graphical Bandwidth Reports (eye candy, true, but useful too)
- OpenVPN
- SSH Access (yep, you can log into the router! Can you say NMAP?)
- Access Policy (lock the kids down except for certain times)
But there is so much more.
DD-WRT is available for many routers in addition to Linksys. I was surprised to see DD-WRT installed routers for sale on EBay! If you have an old router laying around, or if you pick up one on the Internet, give DD-WRT a try. It I didn’t have the WRT350N, I would have used the much cheaper WRT54GL. You should read the compatibility list before purchasing to make sure the device is supported though.
Today, a call triggered an idea, triggered a quick project, triggered this post. And where did this trigger all start from — well from one of the great REALTORS I met at this years REALTOR Land Institute Conference. Todd (sorry didn’t get your last name) called me this morning and asked for some recommendations on a quick way to follow up with other REALTORS after a showing.
I’m sure there are some gadgets and sites that are out there, but the first thing that came to mind was linking a web form to a Google spreadsheet. What this would allow, would be a very easy way to create a web form that you can email to the agent, that would then update a spreadsheet for further data slicing and dicing.
This of course is one of those things that probably makes a little more sense through a demo, than explaining over the phone and/or sending some links. So Todd - here is a quick and dirty proff of concept ‘Showing Feedback Form’. It links directly to a Google Apps spreadsheet, which can be downloaded into Excel for pure data fun.
Posting your listings online should be a standard procedure. And from a marketing point of view, the more places a listing appears, the better. The downside is that if you want your listings on half a dozen sites, you have to enter listings manually to each site or invest money in developing an automated system. And if the price changes, you need to update each site individually. So even if you want your listings everywhere online, the amount of time you have to invest in posting and updating often makes widespread listing aggregation more trouble than it’s worth.
Fortunately, some powerhouses in the listing aggregation realm recognized this problem, too. In January 2008, Google, Yahoo, Zillow, and Trulia began working together to create a single, standardized feed that would facilitate the marketing and advertising of properties on multiple Web sites. And with help from the National Association of REALTORS(R) and the newly formed Real Estate Standards Organization (RESO), they’ve achieved their goal in record time.
