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Name: Robbie
Nickname: Robbie
Member since: 2005-12-16 23:41:33
Website URL: http://www.caffeinatedsoftware.com/
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OpenSearch is beyond cool – it’s the new cold

April 14th, 2009 at 8:42 pm

RSS has always been kind of a geek centric technology since it’s presence is kind of invisible in your typical web browser. I think Visual Search, Web Slices, & Accelerators other newer IE 8 technologies are probably more end-user accessible and more obvious.

I think it’s ultimate success will depend if IE’s competitors copy IE 8’s good ideas and how many web developers support it. Maybe it’s doomed to be a Microsoft only web technology for 5 years (like AJAX was), until somebody else somebody names it after a household cleanser and supports it on another browser?

Seattle Area Open House Information Sources

February 24th, 2009 at 12:01 am

The ironic thing is that the large brokerages (or I should say the brokers with large web site budgets and proactive IDX vendors) are going to be the first brokers to create web sites that develop a means to share open house information with consumers (once they agree to share with each other).

The small brokers, generally don’t have IT staff to take advantage of all the data the NWMLS offers their members. Perhaps it’s a tactic to slow down Redfin? Or maybe the big brokers don’t have the budget or desire to keep up with Redfin right now? Anybody know if any other MLS shares open houses data from members yet?

Oh well, I’m sure the large brokers have had this discussion in past regarding data sharing issues. I’m sure they’ll eventually share the open house data with each other & NWMLS members.

OpenSearch is beyond cool – it’s the new cold

February 17th, 2009 at 7:46 am

Todd,

Not everybody uses only 1 web site to find something. When I search, I tend to use multiple “good ones” and not just one site. It might be I just haven’t found “the one good one” yet, I like second opinions, or perhaps in the greater Seattle area we are blessed with many good ones.

I do think OpenSearch support is a feature that all good ones will soon have. Besides, Redfin already has OpenSearch 1.0 support (and I suspect after they read this blog post, they’ll consider adding 1.1 or 2.0 support to their backlog :)

Clint,

You haven’t heard of Amazon & Wikipedia, or you haven’t heard of OpenSearch? OpenSearch is a technology standard (like HTML or RSS) and not a search engine per se. Search engine companies are very likely to take advantage of the technology. In fact, Google, Yahoo & Microsoft all support OpenSearch 1.1 (suggestions). Although, of “the big 3″ currently only Microsoft supports the newer OpenSearch 2.0 standard (visual suggestions & urls with suggestions). However, I suspect Google will embrace OpenSearch 2.0 eventually (since they were one of the first to embrace 1.1 suppport).

OpenSearch is beyond cool – it’s the new cold

February 16th, 2009 at 12:51 pm

Dustin,

I don’t think it’s a simple either/or proposition. If you aren’t already on the site, the opensearch provider is far more convenient because you don’t have to navigate to the site first, in order to be able to search on it. Having a search bar in the browser (regardless of the site its pointing to), is just so dang convenient.

Once you’re on the site, I suspect some users would use the search refinement tools on the site (because it’s more powerful), and others would continue to use the browser search bar instead (because it’s easier to use). I just want the visitors to enjoy their time on site enough to consider doing business with my client and/or visit the site again.

I think you bring up an excellent point in that most sites don’t even have text search backends (let alone good ones). This might be why Google wins by default so often.

I also think part of our differences are due to that you’ve only seen the present implementation of OpenSearch 1.1 in Firefox, and I suspect you haven’t yet played around with the forthcoming implementation of OpenSearch 2.0 in IE 8. The newer standard leads to a more compelling in browser search experience and I find I’m using it more & more.

I think the other problem is that in the big scheme of things, very few sites even support the OpenSearch 1.1 suggestions standard (let alone the draft 2.0 standards). Most sites that do support it, only support OpenSearch 1.0 referrer standards (which as you point out, isn’t that compelling).

For example, Amazon doesn’t have suggestion support in Firefox, so I can understand why you think the experience isn’t compelling vs Google (because in Firefox, Google does have suggestion support & Amazon doesn’t). It’s entirely likely that Google will be among the first sites to exploit this newer technology.

OpenSearch is beyond cool – it’s the new cold

February 16th, 2009 at 11:04 am

Ardell gets it – even if she doesn’t think she does :) . The only reason people use Google, is because your brand & online experience isn’t strong enough for people to visit you in the first place instead.

It could be that it’ll take 2 or 3 years for Visual Search / OpenSearch 2.0 to become as common as RSS is today. It might be like Ajax was, and doesn’t take off until somebody other than IE 8 (which admittedly hasn’t been released yet) comes up with a solid implementation. I do think it will happen eventually though.

OpenSearch is beyond cool – it’s the new cold

February 16th, 2009 at 9:28 am

It all depends on what you are searching for. When I want to buy a new book or movie, I go straight to Amazon in my search bar and bypass Google since I know Amazon will have better product information, let me buy it, sell it to me at a very competitive price, and ship it to me quickly for free (I love Amazon Prime). Google just wants to show me ads for Amazon’s lessor competitors. Sorry, Google is slowing me down in this case.

Similarly, if I wanted to look for houses on the market in Fremont, I’d go straight to RPA’s search provider (or perhaps Redfin’s), type in “Fremont”, since an NWMLS member will have more accurate data. On Google I need to type “Fremont, WA houses” before it presents me with page after page of out of date listings. Sorry, Google slows me down again in this case too.

I agree, if you don’t know where the best answer is, then Google is probably still is your best option. Also, keep in mind Google pioneered support for OpenSearch 1.1 suggestions and I suspect will implement OpenSearch 2.0 suggestions shortly after IE 8 gets released. Google is many things, but slow to copy good ideas isn’t one of them.

Put another way, if people want to improve the stickiness of their web sites and promote their brands (instead of Google’s), providing an easier way of getting at your site’s content is one way of doing it.

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

October 21st, 2008 at 8:25 am

After surviving the dot com boom & great tech wreck of 2000-2002, I still don’t think we’ve recovered from the last recession yet.

I wonder which real estate tech company will be next to let staff go? Trulia doesn’t appear to be planning to cut staff at the moment.

At least the job market for Software Engineers in Seattle still seems somewhat healthy, so hopefully they won’t be unemployed for long.

PS – If anybody from Zillow or Redfin is interested in Exchanging their career. Let me know… ;)

Another one bites the dust…

September 27th, 2008 at 10:41 am

It’s encouraging (to me at least) that congress appears to be as mad as the rest of us on Main Street are. It’s also good news that the government was able to sell WAMU’s liabilities & assets to JP Morgan Chase and avoid bailing them out.

What are they doing now?

February 27th, 2008 at 9:35 pm

It appears that our Zillow friends had Z3 ship party earlier this week…

Flying under the radar with the stealthy SecondSpace

February 10th, 2008 at 11:16 am

Geordie,

I think another problem is that the small MLS systems are less likely to have the ability of syndicating listings than the MLS systems in the big cities do. So even if a listing agent wanted to promote their listings on Landwatch or ResortScape, they likely have to enter the listing twice, instead of living in digital listings land like the big boys do. That will hinder growth.

I think the small MLS systems will be interested in playing, for the same reason the big ones playing with Trulia, Zillow, and Realtor.com. The more eyeballs you get looking at a property, the easier it is to sell a property. If you don’t effectively promote your listings on the internet, you prevent interested buyers who are out of region, from ever considering your listing.

One question I do have, I assume the small MLSes aren’t interested in joining forces with the larger NWMLS because their members want to have the autonomy and independence they currently enjoy, despite the advantages of being in the NWMLS would bring them (easier access for big city buyers).

Best Pizza Delivery in Seattle

February 10th, 2008 at 2:11 am

I’m a fan of Domino’s, it’s fast, cheap, and tasty. I also like Garlic Jim’s.

A Fistful of Feeds

September 17th, 2007 at 11:40 am

30 feed formats! I thought I was thorough, and I only have about 10 feed formats right now.

Regardless, I think we’ve made a strong case on our ends (producing end). The trick is making a strong case on their end (consuming end) and more importantly, our mutual customers (brokers & agents).
Perhaps the more interesting question is why haven’t Zillow & Trulia customers demanded they support RETS? I’d like to think that Z & T aspire to be responsive to customer needs. And if their customers wanted them to consume RETS instead of YAXS (yet another XML schema), they’d be willing to do it. (Especially if it would put them in a stronger competitive position vs their common foe, Realtor.com).

Maybe agents & brokers are so elated at getting free internet promotion of their listings and the opportunity to bring Realtor.com some real competition for their listings, that they forget the software engineering time & effort involved to enable the scenario? After all, many folks have been getting free Realtor.com promotion via their MLS for nearly 10 years, that they’ve forgotten how much work went into getting that infrastructure implemented in the first place. (I can only imagine how much effort it took for the industry to create the web based MLS / IDX infrastructure that we all take for granted today).

It could also be that big brokers consider the software engineering cost to be small and since they can spread out the fixed cost over hundreds or thousands of listings, so in the end, it’s just a small added cost of doing business to them. The small brokers and agents really have no idea of the effort involved required to create this infrastructure (so they are really at the mercy of their MLS or IDX).

Granted, I think RETS will become the standard in the MLS / Broker / IDX space. The trick is convincing brokers and vendors beyond real estate’s “inner circle” to support and advocate for it.

A Fistful of Feeds

September 17th, 2007 at 9:30 am

I completely agree that my perspective is probably skewed because I really only deal with the NWMLS on a regular basis. Also, I remember Greg complaining about his MLSs download / feed limit issue some months ago (can’t find the post that I read that in), so it’s entirely possible that brokers and agents in other parts of the country can have as many download agreements with as many different vendors as their heart desires (in which case, this only a technology problem).

I think if you can make the case that Zillow or Trulia supporting RETS will enable them to get more listings, more data in each listing, get updated listing information quicker and more reliably, and be cheaper to improve (and ideally implement) than their existing schema’s are/were I think they’d consider supporting it. Especially since Zillow embraced Trulia’s format, I suspect that they are pragmatic and aren’t married to their schema. It’s just a means to an end for them.

I know I would consider it if I were them. Especially since it could 1) improve my standing among my customers, 2) give me more listings data in which to attract eyeballs and 3) narrow the competitive listing gap advantage that Realtor.com has.

I don’t know if it would save them dev & test hours (somebody still has to write and test the code to consume the schema and integrate it with their respective back-end), but it would save them PM hours (the RETS spec is already written) and marketing/technical evangelizing hours (it’s THE INDUSTRY STANDARD) and it would save some of their customers effort (who presumably already have the ability to provide feeds written to the RETS schema).

After all, Zillow & Trulia employees read this blog. If you can make the business case that supporting RETS as their V2 feed spec (or in addition their existing standards) will provide them and their customers more business value than not supporting it, they might do it.

Zillow & Trulia are big, but they aren’t Microsoft big. Besides even Microsoft has been known to bend to the winds of change. (remember the browser wars?)

A Fistful of Feeds

September 16th, 2007 at 5:45 pm

Micheal, Let’s assume for the sake of argument that Zillow, Trulia, & everybody else in the RE.net advertiser community decide to consume RETS as their schema.

The root problem is that MLS members don’t have the authority to give these vendors direct digtal access to their listing data, directly from the MLS source, without denying another vendor data access. (the 2 feed limit problem)

The other problem, is that most members don’t have the technical ability to provide a feed or to get direct data access of their listings from the MLS to begin with, without the assistance of their IDX vendor or their MLS. (Which is why the NWMLS dropping Realtor.com feeds was a big deal around these parts – it’s the I don’t have software engineering skills problem)

Given this reality, there’s no incentive for Z & T to support consuming RETS because their clients to date (individual agents and brokers) don’t have the ability to produce it themselves or the authority to give access to their RETS feed on their MLS’ server to them.

Since Z & T want listings, and they can’t get a RETS feed, they decided to come up with their own standard that would do the job. They don’t have time to wait for a wide deployment of an industry wide standard that’s under deployed and has political issues surrounding it’s deployment. Trulia’s proprietary standard may not be comprehensive as RETS, but it is relatively cheap to support and widely deployed (which as we talked about in the past) is ultimately more important than being an open standard. They want to bring down Realtor.com anyway they can. They only thing worse than multiple standards is a standard that doesn’t come.

I suppose you could argue that as an IDX vendor, I should produce a RETS feeds instead (despite the fact the NWMLS doesn’t give me the abilty to consume one). But if none of my client’s downstream advertising partners consume RETS schemas, I’m not going to produce it. However, given the small number of listings my clients have, I don’t have the ability to convince advertisers to support RETS instead of their own schemas even if I did generate it.

As you’ve said on your blog, The MLS Is More Than Technology – The MLS is politics!. This is not a technology problem. It’s a policy problem.

A more interesting scenario is if Realogy, Prudential, RE/MAX or some other really big broker (or a perhaps a few large MLSs in NFL sized markets) tells Zillow they can have all their listings, only if they consume their RETS feed, I’d be willing to bet that Zillow would be willing to accommodate them.

Will that ever happen? I dunno, but it would be nice to see and it would be a major boost to universal RETS movement.

A Fistful of Feeds

September 16th, 2007 at 12:49 pm

Hi Michael,

I do agree RETS & the vertical advertising portals (aka Trulia & Zillow) schemas serve different masters, however there is some overlap in purpose. I also think it would be a mistake to completely discount the advertiser’s efforts, despite their simpler goals.

I think RETS has the following challenges…

1. Scope – Granted, having real estate license course information, offers, referrals, transactions, and other pieces of information in a standard schema is necessary for the advancement of the industry. However, the demand for standardization of this type of information isn’t as acute as it is for listings information. Maybe we need a RETS Lite that just focuses on the things are most important for the typical IDX, member web site, advertising feed and other public facing applications (listings, offices, and members) and is just of subset of RETS?

2. Rules, Roles & Permissions – For example, in the NWMLS, they only allow 2 feeds per member. It’s my understanding that this limiting of feeds practice is pretty common across MLS’s across the country. This policy means that the IDX vendor (or broker IT staff) has to do everything, since they are the only ones w/ both data access and the technical skills necessary to make the listings move from pt A to pt B.

Wouldn’t it be great if a broker could go into their MLS and say I want to provide Zillow and Trulia, and not give Realtor.com a feed of my listings? Why can’t an agent their promote listings via vFlyer’s or postlet’s platform without retyping all that listing information? You could advertise your listings automatically on leading RE portals of your choice with zero or near-zero time and financial investment. The reason why this doesn’t happen is complex and multi-faceted…

  • Broken old policy – A member can only give their data to at most 2 vendors. This policy means you can’t give an advertiser a feed, because you’d lose your IDX feed for your web site. I should note this effects small members greatly, since large brokers can afford to hire software engineers and do everything in house.
  • New policy questions – Should an MLS continue to give all it’s listings to Realtor.com, or should it treat all advertiser’s equally? Should the member have the power to control the flow of their listings to advertiser or should the MLS?
  • Implementation limitations – It appears most MLS’s only have the capability to give a complete listing feed to IDX vendors. If the member has control, they need to ability to give full feeds to IDX vendors and just a member’s listings feed to advertisers. However, this isn’t as big a problem as the above 2, since policy defines technology direction.

Ideally my clients should have the ability to replace me with an XSLT file. :)

3. Deployment, Documentation & Education – This where the advertising portals have a big advantage. Since they are only consuming XML for their own benefit (instead of producing it for the benefit of all), they can just define a good enough schema instead of trying to make everybody happy. And since they are portals, wide deployment is a non issue.

In order for me to get my IDX back-end to consume RETS, I need to find a server that produces it, a member who will give me feed access to his MLS RETS server and invest a fair amount of time to change my code to consume it (and do it in a way that makes sense from a cost perspective). I also think RETS community needs less formal technical documentation. I think the informal sample XML document style of Zillow & Trulia is much easier to grok and understand (and quicker to implement) than the formal XSD approach that the RETS community seems to favor to date. I’m not saying having XSDs is a bad thing, just that having less formality would be welcome.

I do agree Trulia & Zillow joining RETS community would be a good thing in the long run, since their participation has the potential to improve the flow of listings data and lower the costs of everybody. However, I think Zillow’s & Trulia’s “standards” compliment the efforts RETS community since they are making the need for industry listings data standards more visible. They are trying to solve a much simpler problem than what the RETS community is.

There goes the neighborhood. A Redfin sign is on my street!

July 21st, 2007 at 11:52 pm

Yeah, getting more funding in a down market is somewhat unexpected. However, I think Redfin probably appeals to buyers more than sellers, so perhaps a down turn plays to their strength?

Another theory, perhaps the VCs are betting that all this investment during a down market, will be doubly rewarded when the market eventually comes back. If you believe that, the best time to invest in your business is when most of your competitors aren’t investing in theirs.

Real Estately on Rails

June 29th, 2007 at 9:05 am

Random thoughts:

1) If you take it, can you give me the rare and out of print ShackPrices coffee mug? ;)

2) I’m not surprised that they dropped they Shack Prices name, although I’m very impressed they came up with such a great replacement name to build a brand around.

3) I wasn’t really sure how it worked. All I know is HouseValue’s business model and value proposition appears to be broken and I hope Galen & Doug will avoid repeating their Kirkland competitor’s biggest mistakes.

4) & 5) I was shocked to hear referral fees are so high (in addition to the fact that the quality of those referrals is often tims so poor). Given this back drop, the RE referral industry appears to have worse reputation than others in other referral industry segments (LendingTree, AutosByTel, ServiceMagic, etc)….

I’m hopeful Galen and Doug, will run their company with the integrity, cost consciousness, and passion that will make their referral based business model one that will serve it’s paying customers (agents) better than the industry players have to date.

Best of luck guys, I hope you can give “lead generation sites” a good name!

Welcome to the jungle – eBay vs Google

June 15th, 2007 at 8:38 am

I’ve read that about 5 or 6% of eBay’s traffic comes from Google. Granted, other search engines could step and in fill void, but I think eBay needs Google, more than Google needs eBay at this point. Hence the reason, why I think it’s an end of quarter negotiation tactic /point maker. If this continues for more than 30 days, then this becomes a real story.

Bill Gates has said, “We’re going to keep Google honest”. Hopefully, Microsoft, Yahoo and Ask will have the opportunity to earn (and keep) more of eBay’s business because of Google’s arrogance.

Welcome to the jungle – eBay vs Google

June 15th, 2007 at 7:55 am

Yeah, I thought it was a fascinating story as well. Anytime a big company’s best customer is unhappy to the point of leaving or actively exploring alternatives, it’s news worthy. Especially, if you’re Google.

I think Google is very focused on solidifying is search / online advertising dominance and it’s too busy trying to change the internet / software game to Microsoft’s disadvantage to worry about dominating digital real estate. As I said back when you did your GoogleBase matters post, I believe Google thinks real estate is just an interesting diversion. Google is a big game hunter, and Microsoft is the biggest prey of them all.

I can’t say I’m surprised by Google’s slow progress. Other than Move, I can’t think of a single real estate internet/software company that’s making enough money to grab Google’s attention. All the successful companies are small or fledging start-ups who’s long term future is uncertain.

Despite GoogleBase’s slow evolution, the success of their online advertising platform is still the envy of the online world.

Go Dog Go!

June 11th, 2007 at 12:44 pm

Ardell,

I don’t make a distinction between the sign and riders attached to it. Anyway, they put the price on a rider (not the sign as I had indicated). An example sign can be found here.

Signing out of Chicagoland

June 6th, 2007 at 8:37 am

I can’t find it! Maybe California or Arizona can lend us theirs?

BTW – Did anybody else notice the Kingdome on the cake?

More updates from Google real estate

May 31st, 2007 at 8:27 am

Paul, as Galen mentioned, doing it by hand is free (but it will cost you time).

If you’re an agent or have a smallish number of listings, I recommend using a company like Postlets or vFlyer. If you’re a broker or have a large number of listings, I’d hire a software engineer to automatically export your listings directly from the MLS to GoogleBase and a cast of dozens.

Meanwhile, Back In Redmond…

May 31st, 2007 at 8:10 am

Yeah, Google Earth’s lack of color & texture does make the Columbia Tower stand out. (So maybe it’s a feature!). Flying around Seattle & Redmond like Superman in Virtual Earth is pretty dang cool.

I really hope Google adds Seattle (and the Eastside ‘burbs) soon because Google Map’s new street view feature is pretty sweet. I had a blast walking around San Francisco, Mountain View & New York yesterday.

I can’t wait to see what MS & Google do for their next act.