In my last post, I highlighted a virtual tour on one of the listings in our system. Now, let me draw your attention to the fact that the virtual tour is located on what we call the Media tab. The term media was chosen because: (1) the tab can host photos, videos and virtual tours; and (2) we thought multi-media was too long. Since the release, however, we’ve received feedback that users are having a hard time finding the photos, i.e., they don’t immediately recognize Media as the place to click for photos. Because photos are the primary content (we still only have a few innovators linking video), we’re considering renaming the tab Photos. What do you think would be the best name?
We also have a tab called Grid, which contains a row/column (spreadsheet) view of the listings.
This tab also has produced feedback that the word Grid is confusing to users, some thinking it’s a map, others a graph, and others simply not knowing. So, we’re considering changing the Grid tab to be called List or Results or something else. What do you think would be best?
Thanks for participating in the polls and for any comments you have.
I still think WellcomeMat has the best video platform for real estate, but Viddler is a very cool player you might want to check out, too. I love Viddler’s ability to add timed tags and comments.
For virtual tours, my favorite is JustSnooping, because it fits so well inside flexmls Web.
So says Roy Gould, one of the presenters at the TED talks this week, and he proves it with pictures of the universe that brought Robert Scoble to tears and are produced by a new Worldwide Telescope from Microsoft.
If you watched the video now, I trust you were moved. I was. Am. I think what moves me most is that someone (another human) discovered how to expand our vision and Microsoft is enabling that new vision to be shared with the world. Most great innovations come from one or a few minds but sharing them widely is a feat well-done by the large, often faceless corporations we love to hate. This is capitalism shining through, making me feel “truly, wonderfully significant.”
How’s that for some alliteration on a Saturday morning? Here’s the theory:
Jay Thompson did it. How many others that I don’t know about? Isn’t this progression the logical manifestation of blogging, a medium that requires independent thinking and thereby builds an online brand? Certainly, brokerages offer other value to agents than branding, but good agents going independent seems like a nice counter-trend to the intense consolidation of the major franchises.
The WordPress platform is fantastic, primarily because it is extended so easily. Other than Akismet, the best plugin I’ve seen so far is PhotoDropper, which adds a Flickr search inside the compose panel in WordPress targeted only at CreativeCommons photos. So, if you’re looking for a photo of sunshine, type it in and you’ll instantly have lots of free photos from which to choose. How cool is that?
Nick Carr has an interesting post today about problems with eBay’s rating system, which is very reminiscent of the Clay Shirky post I highlighted last summer called A Crowd Is Its Own Worst Enemy. This is related to the MLS because it evidences what I’ve been highlighting on the FBS Blog for months, namely that MLS is more than technology. Nick Carr writes:
By providing buyers and sellers with a simple means for rating one another, eBay has been able, we’ve been told, to avoid lots of rules and regulations and other top-down controls. The community, built on trust and fellow-feeling, essentially manages itself. . . .
Nice story. Too bad it didn’t work out.
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Patti Waldmeir, in a column in the Financial Times today titled “The death of self-rule on the internet,” writes, “For those who were there from the start of this experiment in digitising utopia, including me, this is very disillusioning.” By “radically rewriting the constitution of the democratic republic of Ebay,” she says, the company has closed the book on a certain brand of internet idealism.
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It follows a common pattern that we’ve seen play out in other “social production” sites like Digg and Wikipedia. (Disclosure: I’m on the editorial advisory board of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.) As these sites grow, keeping them in line requires more rules and regulations, greater exercise of central control. The digital world, it seems, is not so different from the real world.
This is what the MLS brings to the social network of competitive real estate professionals, just enough cooperation to allow for preservation of the network of competitors. The MLS is a constant balancing act of rules that often frustrate some, but, overall, strike a balance that allows competitors to cooperate and create more value in the process. The challenge for the MLS today is how to continue that balancing act in the new world of the web. What are the balanced rules that can allow the community to remain loosely joined? Can those balances be struck on a national basis or is there a role yet for local MLSs?
FBS’s GIS Director, Bill Brooks, will be speaking to the Pine to Prairie GIS Users Group on March 5 in Fergus Falls, Minnesota. The GIS Users Group includes GIS experts from County GIS departments and others throughout Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota. This is a great opportunity for Bill to expand FBS’s relationship with these County GIS teams and hopefully enhance the data we can provide our customers in this area.
Hey, it’s Valentine’s Day, so I’m feeling a little schmoozey. But, I really did enjoy myself today at the Virginia Association of REALTORS Legislative and Education Conference. I chatted this morning with Jim Duncan about a variety of personal and business topics. Jim is someone I’d like to sit down with for longer, over a bottle of good wine (since I now know Jim likes wine from his Facebook profile), and solve all the world’s problems.
I also got to meet Jeremy Hart and I had lunch with Candy Lynn and Toni Brown. It was great meet Jeremy and to catch up with Candy and Toni. Actually, I hadn’t met Candy in person yet, though that hardly seemed to matter once we did meet. As Jeremy said, we communicate on-line enough that it seems like we know each other well and have no need to catch up.
I also enjoyed seeing Laura Benjamin and Dick Davis from Roanoke and, even though I didn’t get to speak to her, I saw Linda Kinsman in the audience. Hi, Linda! I hope to see you all again soon.
If you want a summary of the presentation, go check out Scott Roger’s article on VARbuzz.com. (Thanks to Scott and Lisa for setting up everything for me, you were great hosts!) My presentation was a summary of many of the FBS Blog posts over the last year and putting it together provided me a great opportunity to reflect on the issues again. I’m hoping to find time to put the relevant posts together into a paper and make it available for broader distribution. I’m also thinking of putting some audio to my slides, but that likely will be after the paper.
Thanks again to everyone in Virginia for the invitation and hospitality. We’re very lucky to have clients in such a great state.
Seems like Attention! is on a lot of people’s minds lately. Steve Rubel wonders, Could the Interruption Economy Sack Prosperity?
