Author Archives: Galen

Listing Jacking

Posted on by
4

If you want a look at one possible future for the real estate world, read job jacking and replace every instance of job jacking with listing jacking and replace every job company with your favorite web-based real estate search companies. Sure, real estate isn’t quite so spread out, but it’s getting there.

I think it’s a silly complaint. People post jobs so they can find applicants and people list houses so they can find buyers. Most limits on where the jobs or houses are displayed are not in the interest of the lister.

You've tried to explain RSS and failed

Posted on by
9

RSS can be electrifying.

Or someone has tried to explain it to you and failed. Whatever the case may be, your problem is solved by the Oprah-style explanation of RSS.

RSS is a way to get a quick list of the latest story headlines from all your favorite websites and blogs. RSS makes it a lot easier and faster for you to get the storeis you care about from around the web.

I use NetVibes for my RSS feeds because it allows me to organize my feeds into topical groups and to see which stories I haven’t read yet.

Is Trulia totally clueless?

Posted on by
44

In a post I’ve been meaning to blog about, Trulia asks Is the MLS Totally Clueless? Why is “the MLS” totally clueless (they mean all 1,000+ MLS systems)? According to Trulia, because they don’t allow For Sale By Owner properties to be shown alongside MLS listings. (Is Trulia right, is this dumb? Probably, but I’ll leave that for another discussion.) What is Trulia’s solution? They don’t allow For Sale By Owner properties to be shown alongside their broker listings (see answer number 1). Sounds like someone shouldn’t be throwing stones.

Will Trulia ever allow FSBO listings? My guess is the moment that Trulia gets enough traffic for consumers to care if their house is listed on Trulia, the tables will turn on the brokers they are so eagerly courting right now. FSBO: check. Smaller links to broker sites: check. Data added by users: check. I don’t think they’ll do this out of greed, rather they’ll do it because they have to: if they keep the site the way it is, with limited information about properties and links to agent sites, the rest of the industry is going to pass them by.

Note: Trulia is not a member of “the MLS” and does not need to follow any MLS rules. There was some reader confusion about this.

Screaming rent controllers

Posted on by
14

Renter, Reader or
User?

Two entirely unrelated shorts today:

We used to have a lot more screaming readers at RCG, but like any good troll, they became bored and moved on. It’s really too bad, because my new favorite do-right-by-your-users-blog tells me that screaming users are good.

Over at AHI, there is a good write up (read: I agree with it) on rent control. If New York wants to benefit all of the poor and not just those who were lucky enough to find and stay in a rent controlled apartment, they should give rent subsidies or a form of the earned income tax credit to those earning under a specific income (New York is expensive – $80,000 a year?).

Welcome to Seattle, we'll get to that in 8 years

Posted on by
8

New Orleans is halfway done with a wireless network in less than a year (and while cleaning up after a hurricane no less!), but Seattle is thinking long haul. We’re discussing a city-wide high speed broadband network by 2015. Doesn’t it seem like such a techie city would have started on this a few years ago?

We’ve only been discussing the plan for the viaduct, our 1-in-20-odds-of-collapsing-in-the-next-ten-years waterfront highway, for 5 years now. I expect a draft viaduct replacement plan to be ready for high speed download in 2015.

Five reasons to ditch Outlook for Google Apps

Posted on by
7

If I had a 5-30 person office, I would jump on Google Apps in an instant, particularly if I didn’t already have an imap server and all the other hardware and software jazz Microsoft likes to sell you so Outlook will actually work.

Here’s why:

  1. You will never run out of space on your email account: Every email account comes with 2+ gigs of storage.
  2. You can easily add and remove email addresses from a web-based panel (no more calling the tech guy for basic tasks).
  3. Your employees can access their email from anywhere and on any operating system (the Mac guy can keep his Mac!).
  4. You get my new favorite Calendar system – it’s really easy to add events, invite others, and manage multiple calendars including group calendars (we use group Calendars for the very infrequent events that we must all attend at ShackPrices). Also, you can access your calendars from other people’s computers.
  5. Your employees get all the nice little touches that are quickly being added to Gmail – the ability to preview word documents, excel spreadsheets, and pdfs without opening up a new program, in-browser chatting with other gmail users, and the ability to send voice mails (to anyone!) from Google Talk.

You can already download all your email from gmail to any email program and Google will be offering an API, so you can hire a programmer (or download plug-ins) to access all the rest of your information should you ever decide to quit.

Via John Battelle’s Search Blog (a great blog if you haven’t checked it out)

Cheap inbound links

Posted on by
22

Normally paying for links to your website or blog is a quick way to lose money (and arguably Google ranking), but in this case, I think Google will oblige. Ruby Inside, a blog devoted to the Ruby on Rails web development framework, is offering $100 for the best Ruby on Rails how-tos and tutorials if you get your post in before Sunday. What a great way to encourage more documentation on the web!

Normally I wouldn’t link to such a brazen request for links, but

a) I use Ruby on Rails for web development and have been disappointed only by its lack of documentation and my lack of skill
b) They’re offering $15 just for linking to the contest

Just because users can post doesn’t mean they will

Posted on by
11

In spite of all the hype for social websites, there have been a rash of noble attempts that come up short recently. No one has quite figured out the right way to start an open dialog about individual homes yet.

ShackYack, “the only real estate site where you can comment and rate the product, just like amazon, netflix, ebay etc.,” launched in late May. Apparently they have found that houses aren’t mass produced and sold by the millions like iPods and people really don’t have much to post about them. That said, part of the reluctance to comment on properties is probably the buggy interface and their newness on the market.

However! Propsmart’s interface isn’t buggy. In fact, it’s one of the best out there and they encourage comments too. But a random sampling of homes on the site shows no comments.

Why would you want to publicly comment on a house unless you’re the owner or an agent looking for leads? The house, along with your comments, is going to be off the market in a few weeks and, unless you’re an agent, you’re going to be out of the market in a short period of time too. And if you’re an agent, blogging seems like a more public and permanent way to go.

That said, Propsmart’s blogging service appears to be stillborn, with the last post being posted over 2 months ago. Even blogging systems aren’t always a hit.

I feel like I’m picking on PropSmart here, but I’m really not. Whenever you introduce new services, some will be hits and some won’t. Their search site and their interface in particular are great and they are definitely the most straight-talking real estate search company out there (possibly the only one?).