Archive for the 'Introspection' Category

We Cannot Allow Ourselves To Have a Syndication Tool Gap!

Published
by
Andrew Tillman
on May 12, 2008
in Internet, Introspection and Tools
. 0 Comments

George C. ScottAll 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.

Welcome, Ana!

Published
by
Keith Garner
on April 11, 2008
in Announcements and Introspection
. 3 Comments

Keeping with my trend of welcoming new people many weeks after they are new people, I’d like to welcome Ana Schmitz to CRT.

Ana joins us as our new Communications Associate. However, she’s been with NAR for over 10 years, most recently in our marketing dept. We’re happy and lucky to have her with us. In just two weeks she’s already jumped into all of her major job responsibilities as fast as we could throw them at her.

Ana is looking to learn more about technology in general and would like to be a rock-star programmer. For some reason, she thinks she can learn that stuff in CRT. She’s already been doing self-study on Java, and for a project we need done, she’ll be learning PHP.  As a welcoming present in our comments, please feel free to leave her other technologies she should look at.

We are too quiet

Published
by
Keith Garner
on February 7, 2008
in Introspection
. 4 Comments

shh.pngOne of the things I’ve always held to for CRT’s blog is “If we don’t have anything to say, let’s not make up something just so we can have a post.” The problem with this is sometimes we’re quiet for over a month.

However, its usually not because we have nothing to say, its because we have nothing LARGE to say. I find myself getting stuck where 1) it’ll take too much time to write up what I want and/or 2) I feel like everything I write has to be HUGE which leads back to number 1. In talking with Liz Luby from BurbFeeder a few weeks ago at the NSBAR meeting, one of the things she mentioned in both her and mine session on blogging is that it doesn’t always have be a giant manifesto or essay.

Recently, like others in the RE tech community, I’ve been playing with Twitter. Since you’re limited to 140 characters, I find myself leaving lots of tweets on there that just have a single thought (when not using it a high latency instant messenger.) In thinking about it, I find that I drop more on twitter because I don’t feel the pressure that I need to write the next great treatise on <insert subject here>.

So, my promise/threat to you, CRT Blog reader, is to post more often, even if its just a paragraph on a single item. (Beware, there will probably be another post within the next day.)