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Category: Technology (page 58 of 60)

January 9, 2007

Time mag on the iPhone . . .

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Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

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Very worth reading.

Does this phone obsolete the Zune? Duh. The iPod line? Much of it. All other smart phones? Ancient history. Tablet computers? Most. Laptops? Lots of them. This is the first expression of the convergent mobile device — maybe the practical expression of convergence, period.

Next: Mad scrambling to knock off a device protected by 200 patents.

Then: Better versions of the iPhone from Apple.

If vertical markets were not infested with mental midgets who write MSIE-only crap, this might have been the silver bullet for Microsoft. It may turn out to be that yet.

This was a big day…

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January 9, 2007

Microsoft to add video games to Zune . . .

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Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

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Wow… Evidently news doesn’t travel that fast…

But seriously: This is like Greek drama. How would it feel if your absolute best effort turned out to be a complete pig on the day of its introduction? And then, only a few months later, it had every last one of its teeth kicked out — by your arch-nemesis. And then, after that, you had to make make a lame-ass announcement that your little toothless brown pig will be even more obsolete — eighteen months from now. This is a day for falling on swords in Seattle…

January 9, 2007

More on the iPhone . . .

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Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

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Apple. TUAW. Engadget. TechCrunch. Sign up to be the first one in your area code to get one.

Realtors should raise hell right now with MLS systems and computerized forms vendors: You have six months to support this device. I’ve been a Treo user since before Palm reabsorbed Handspring. This is the best Realtor phone yet…

Think about live-blogging with this phone… Think about conference-call podcasting… This is laptopia reborn…

January 9, 2007

Apple TV will present on-line videos in big chunks . . . ?

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Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

The Unofficial Apple Weblog, live-blogging from Steve Jobs’ Macworld keynote address:

Apple TV Price $299. I want one. Ships February. Taking orders today. “Enjoy your media on your big-screen TV.”

Okay…

This is Carmen Sandoval from today’s episode of Flipper Nation — blown up to display on the 70-inch Sony Bravia LCD HDTV announced yesterday at CES. Yes, this will look better at living room distances — but how much better? Somehow, I don’t think this the last word in convergence technology.

On the other hand… Jobs is demoing the iPhone — with OSX on-board. More about this later…

Further notice: Tabbed browsing — on a phone!

Further, further notice: This is a rockin’ phone. Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GSM, EDGE, SMS, email, video voicemail (selectable, like email!), tabbed Safari web browser, iPod, OS X with syncing to everythng via iPod sync, 5 hours phone, 16 hours audio, 2MP camera, touchscreen keyboard (one hardware button), widescreen iPod movies, iPhoto support. How much? $499 for a 4GB unit, $599 for 8GB. Both require a 2 year contract with Cingular (exclusively). My take has been that the next generation of mobile phones would eliminate the laptop from the real estate world. This might be the one…

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January 8, 2007

Metro Brokers’ new map site: First we take Colorado, then — the world!

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Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

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Colorado real estate brokerage Metro Brokers announced it’s new map-based search engine at Inman Connect. From the Denver Post:

Starting today, consumers will be able to go online to find all homes on the market in Colorado.

Denver-based Metro Brokers Inc. is launching ColoradoHomeStop.com at the Inman Real Estate Connect conference in New York.

The company spent two years and more than $2 million to develop the site, which ultimately will incorporate the state’s 22 multiple listing services into one site, said Mark Eibner, chairman of Metro Brokers’ information technology committee. The initiative was paid for by the organization’s 2,000 members.

The advertising-free site takes the map-based real estate search to a new level of interactivity, building proprietary AJAX technology onto the Google Maps mapping platform.

Metro Brokers partnered with WhereToLive.com to integrate the company’s real-time SmartMap search technology into the website.

Among the features it offers are:

Street-level, aerial satellite and hybrid views of the property;

A photo tour of each property;

Neighborhood and school information specific to a property;

A map of each property and driving directions.

Users also can print property brochures, request additional information, schedule showings via the web and compare up to four properties side-by-side.

Metro Brokers has purchased the ColoradoHomeStop domain name in all 50 states in anticipation of launching the site – and the real estate company – nationally.

My take? Highly detailed. Kinda slow. The initial view if you don’t specify a search is every listed home in Colorado, so that’s gotta grind some gears. But zooming in takes a while per double-click, with more waiting for the map to re-render. The site makes very intelligent use of Ajax tabs to cram a lot of detail into one browser window.

(Hat tip: Dave Barnes)

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December 23, 2006

Wikipedia founder proposes Google alternative . . .

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Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

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From The Times of London (via TechMeme):

[Wikipedia founder Jimbo] Wales believes that Google’s computer-based algorithmic search program is no match for the editorial judgment of humans.

Google searches are conducted using an algorithm that calculates how many other websites are linked to a certain site, which in turn gives the material found by the search a ranking. Therefore, the first result in any Google search is the website that has the most links pointing to it.

Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia written by thousands of contributors from around the world, known as “Wikipedians”, using free open-source software.

Mr Wales aims to exploit the same network of followers and the same type of free software to create his search engine.

“Essentially, if you consider one of the basic tasks of a search engine, it is to make a decision: ‘this page is good, this page sucks’,” Mr Wales said. “Computers are notoriously bad at making such judgments, so algorithmic search has to go about it in a roundabout way.

“But we have a really great method for doing that ourselves,” he added. “We just look at the page. It usually only takes a second to figure out if the page is good, so the key here is building a community of trust that can do that.”

Mr Wales believes that the reputation already fostered by his Wikipedia community and the transparency of his technology will build sufficient trust in his search engine to bring in advertising revenue and make the Wikiasari venture profitable.

I like the idea in principle, but I can see two gaping holes: One is simply that pages that are highly worthy but hugely unknown will not be ranked. And, more obviously, the kind of bogus rank-spamming evident at sites like Digg is a real risk.

A mash-up using Google for raw results filtered through Wikiasari’s vetting might be a great short-answer search engine, though…

A further thought: Jimmy Wales already has access to a fine database of social site rankings: Wikipedia itself. Starting there and making ranking easy through the search-engine UI, he might have a product…

Pat Kitano has more.

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December 15, 2006

Web sites offer exciting options

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Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

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This is me in today’s Arizona Republic (permanent link). Sadly, this is news. In other words, this is the first mention of the Zillow.com upgrades in the Republic.

Web sites offer exciting options

Depending on whom you talk to, the real estate industry is undergoing a revolutionary change – or is not.

The “Realty.bots” arrived in force in 2006, national Web sites offering free home evaluations or free for-sale listings for homeowners.

Some Realtors and consumers view these as harbingers of great change. Others yawn and dismiss them as gimmicks.

Zillow.com, one of the biggest of the Realty.bots, just upped the stakes with an upgrade that will add the following new functionality:

  • Owners or listing agents for any of the 67 million homes in Zillow’s database will be able to list those homes for sale at no cost.
  • Owners will be able to post a “Make Me Move” price on their homes, the price at which all objections to selling will have been overcome.
  • Zillow is creating a real estate “wiki” to serve as a sort of Wikipedia.org-like encyclopedia of real estate.

The wiki — a user-built and maintained encyclopedia — is a nice idea that may grow into something great in time.

The Make Me Move feature seems like a gimmick right now, although it may turn into a vibrant clearinghouse for homes.

But the big news is that owners and Realtors will be able to list their homes on a site that already draws around 3.2 million visitors a month.

On the one hand, that number is huge. It rivals Realtor.com, the 900-pound gorilla of real estate Web sites.

On the other hand, it could be a big yawn: Millions upon millions of homeowners and buyers are not going to Zillow.com or to any real estate sites.

Surely this will change over the long run, and Zillow is positioning itself to be the one-stop-shopping national real estate Web site. This bodes ill for Realtor.com and all of the other Realty.bots.

Real estate is local, not national, and a real estate transaction involves hundreds of intricate details for which expert advice is essential.

So what does all this mean for consumers and Realtors? Time will Read more

December 13, 2006

David versus Goliath: Rolling out a brand-new map-based search portal when everyone is looking the other way . . .

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Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

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The universe of map-based listings portals was upended last week with the announcement that Zillow.com was coming into the game, along with 58 million of its little green friends. Whatever long-term effects this might have, the short-term consequence has been a deafening silence from all directions. We haven’t even heard the blustering ‘guy talk’ one might expect in these circumstances (“Two legs?! Only losers need two legs!”).

But there is in fact a place even harder than the hard place the Realty.bots found themselves in last week: Imagine being on the verge of rolling out your brand new map-based listings portal when Zillow made its announcement.

This is the predicament Galen Ward and Doug Cole found themselves in last week as they prepared to go live with ShackPrices.com, a brand new listings portal based in and (for now) devoted to Washington state.

Here’s the company’s official press announcement:

ShackPrices.com is a snappy Google maps-based real estate search site that makes finding a home better by augmenting each real estate listing with data about what is nearby, including the distances to nearby landmarks, nearby schools and nearby bus stops. ShackPrices also helps home buyers learn about cities and neighborhoods through links to reviews, statistics and photos.

We cover all of Washington State right now and we plan to expand to other states in the coming year. As part of our mission to make finding and buying real estate easier and better, we will be introducing a service to help home buyers find the best local real estate agents in the coming year.

Readers here will know Galen Ward from his contributions to Rain City Guide. And the site is everything we would expect from Galen, fast and robust, esthetically beautiful and rich in practical details. The fit and finish is beyond excellent, in stark contrast to Zillow’s offering, and the extra features — neighborhood details, nearby amenities, etc. — are the best I’ve ever seen.

The site draws upon MLS listings, so the inventory is very large from day one. The browser window is tab-based for maximum information density with a minimum of confusion. The underlying AJAX programming makes Read more

October 28, 2006

Tab-surfing: Cataloging my collection of good posts…

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Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

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It really is a matter of browser tabs. I live in Safari for the Mac, and if I see something in Vienna, my RSS feed reader, that I want to explore, I’ll open the window, then slide the tab over to another open window that is already full of tabs. I end up with a sort of codex of open browser windows, each one stuffed with elemental goodness. Every once in a while, I catalog my collections of tabs. At that point, the marginal cost of doing so publicly is nil, and there’s a good chance I can share with you something important you might have missed. Now you know my secret method…

It’s a six-month-a-versary at The San Diego Home Blog. It turns out all the great RE.net raconteurs are in San Diego. Kris Berg has some thoughts on MLS fragmentation, as well.

Jeff Brown, the other great San Diego spinner of yarns, wants you to think about the relative merits of stocks versus real estate.

Bonnie Erickson has thoughts on the call for underperforming Minnesota Realtors to have a glass of Kool-Ade, as does Daniel Rothamel.

Dustin Luther at Rain City Guide has four posts (so far) on the Seattle Blog Business Summit. My skeptometer may need re-calibration, but I’m wondering if there is a difference between being well-known and being well-thought-out. Austin Bay got to interview Donald Rumsfeld this week, you tell me why. Robert Scoble, who praises Zillow.com because it’s always wrong in his experience, advises webloggers to “write well.” Ya think?

Here’s real news, in any case: WordPress 2.0.5 has been released.

John L. Wake at the Arizona Real Estate Notebook has found someone with the perfect solution to high land costs in San Francisco and Manhattan…

BloodhoundBlog is four months old tomorrow. Technorati says we’re linked by 180 weblogs so far. RSS Pieces has advice on how to boost traffic 40% in one hour per day. Here’s my advice, an elaboration on the philosophy of the inestimable Robert Scoble: Write well, write wisely, write often — and don’t please anyone more than you please yourself. Quantity matters a whole lot less than Read more

October 23, 2006

Google Mobile Maps supports Treo . . .

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Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

I never get lost, which sometimes annoys and sometimes enthralls my best-beloved. The Swann Boys as a bloodline are endowed with an extra-large kinesthesia gene. I can find my way around in cities I have been to only once, decades ago. Whenever we travel, I do all the driving, because even when I don’t know where I am, I am in the process of mapping the whole place in my mind.

This turns out to be a real advantage in the real estate business. I never forget how to get to a house I’ve been to before. I know at once when the listing agent’s driving directions are wrong — as they are at least 20% of the time. I know every back-way sneak-around in Greater Phoenix.

Cathy is a great driver, and she is not directionally-challenged. But in strange neighborhoods, she doesn’t know by the magic of kinesthesia where she is. She maps her showings, which I never do, and then works those maps carefully as she drives.

So here is great news, which Cathy discovered yesterday: Google Mobile Maps is supporting the Treo line of cell phones. This might be old news. I had looked at GMM when it was new, but it was useless to us without Treo support.

This is not the ultimate perfect mapping solution. We grow so fast that no mapping software can keep up. But it’s a big improvement over schlepping a 100+ page map book.

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October 20, 2006

Online searches fun but offer too few details

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Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

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This is me from today’s Arizona Republic (permanent link). This is the every-other-week softer-side-of-Greg column. The fireworks will resume next week.

Online searches fun but offer too few details

Have you played with any of the national real estate search engines? You’ve probably been to Realtor.com, but you may not have made time for RealEstate.Yahoo.com.

Two new entrants can be fun to play with: Trulia.com and PropSmart.com. Because these systems don’t have access to MLS systems, they depend on voluntarily submitted listings.

Ultimately, though, national real estate sites throw away too much detail to offer more than an exploratory glimpse into the homes they list.

What do I mean? Is the roof shingle, tile or slate? Is that pool I can see dimly in the gee-whiz satellite photo in-ground or above-ground?

I don’t even like locally available consumer-level MLS access. Some systems provide more detail than others, but there is nothing like the kind of control that comes from having full access to hundreds of unique data fields. If you can’t search to a very short list of high-probability candidates, one of which is the home you will end up buying, what you have is not a home search but a wish book.

If you’re doing a transcontinental relocation, you need more search power than you currently have available. At a minimum, you need a Realtor to feed you more rigorous results than you can get on your own. Moreover, you probably wouldn’t know how to do the search you want done anyway. The idea that Realtors have lost control of the MLS is absurd. If you want to make that data dance the way I do, you have to do it as much as I do.

The other end of this is that for a local search, a buyer doesn’t need much from the MLS to pick out her next house. She might have picked it out years ago and is just waiting for it to come onto the market. This is why an $800,000 house may actually entail less labor for the Realtor than a $200,000 house, because the home search doesn’t have very much to Read more

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