Wikimapia, which is basically wikipedia plus location, just added the ability to embed maps into your page. I like the neighborhood boxes and the map interface, but as far as labeling and tying together the world, it’s not quite as good as 43 Places, which lets users map their neighborhoods with more precision than a rectangle.
The amount of open, user generated spatial information on the web is skyrocketing right now.
Update: You can now search the AOL data from your web browser.
As promised earlier, I did some scans through the massive privacy invasion from AOL for some real state search insight. I’ll leave it to other sites to search for the tell you about the disgusting things people search for.
Not many AOL searchers are looking for “seattle real estate” in those words – in fact only 21 of the 20 million queries contained that text and those users largely went to the big Google-optimized sites like Seattle Power Search (the number one result) or the Seattle Times (the number 3 result).
AOL users found Rain City Guide through many long-tailish routes, with relevant keywords like “zilllow” (sic), “small condos,” “seattle real estate,” “earnest money recipt” (sic), and “five factors that determine if an idea is a good investment opportunity.” Guilty-conscience user 917673 came to us while searching for “sellers disclosure for condominium complex.” And User 1636230, who came to Rain City Guide after searching for “seattle real estate,” also visited Winderemere and Seattle Power Search. One searcher also found us when they searched for “dustin dustin.”
Here’s where this data goes beyond our own site (and where it gets creepier): what preceded and followed those inquisitive searches? Can we tell something about these people? Well, User 1636230’s interest in real estate was passing. They searched around for five minutes in March:
- www.happydogtoys.com 2006-03-21 14:12:20 2 http://www.happydogtoys.com
- www.happydogtoys.com 2006-03-21 14:12:20 2 http://www.happydogtoys.com
- hometown realty executives 2006-03-21 15:30:32
- hometown realty executives seattle 2006-03-21 15:30:41
- hometown r.e. executives seattle 2006-03-21 15:31:05
- hometown real estate executives seattle 2006-03-21 15:31:24
- seattle real estate 2006-03-21 15:33:18 1 http://www.seattlepowersearch.com
- seattle real estate 2006-03-21 15:33:18 8 http://raincityguide.com
- seattle real estate 2006-03-21 15:33:18 9 http://www.windermere.com
- locks for love 2006-03-22 10:52:35 1 http://www.locksoflove.org
…
Then decided to look into building their own home a week later:
- lux homes 2006-03-28 15:33:40 1 http://www.luxhomesllc.com
- woodenville builders 2006-03-28 15:34:56 (4 more identical searches)
User-1636230 then went on to search for approximately 10,000 pet related items and for much sadder subjects, including for cancer drugs and incontinence.
What of guilty-conscience-User 917673? They were clearly concerned about their condo and they didn’t want to tell the buyer. Here are three of their searches (of over forty):
- condominium disclosure by seller in los angeles
- arbitration for selling or buying a condo
- consequences of no disclosure from seller
Sounds like someone got a bum deal on that condo!
In looking at the other Seattle Real Estate searches, it seems that the adage that buyers and sellers go with the first agent they talk to does not apply to searches (no big surprise here). Searchers go all over the internet and leave and come back to the same search repeatedly. If they’re as committed as User 917673, they use lots of slightly different word combinations. What I found interesting was watching users hit a site that they are interested in, then go on to search for that company’s or person’s name to see if they can find some background (so it is good to be on a first name basis with the search engines).
I only found 668 occurrences of “cancel AOL.” I suspect and hope there will be a lot more this week.
Yesterday AOL proudly announced the release of 20 million web queries from 650,000 users (screenshot), with each user “anonymized,” but identified by a unique ID. This is appalling – it means that potentially thousands of social security numbers and email addresses are now free for spammers and thieves to harvest, along with a lot of other personally identifying information. Think about what you search for – email addresses, people’s addresses, business secrets and even social security numbers come to mind. AOL quickly realized their mistake and pulled the plug, but not before the dataset had taken on a life of its own.
So, spammers and thieves are having a field day, but now that it’s out, we might as well use it for educational purposes. It’s a big, unwieldy file, but I’ll try to post some real estate search patterns by tomorrow. If you’re hoping to do your own analysis on this dataset, I wager that there will be a nice web interface for you to use within a week (Consumerist thinks so too). I’ll let you know when it pops up.
More on the ramifications of the release at TechCrunch. If you’re going to cancel your AOL account, good luck.
The people who poke and prod Google in the hopes of finding secrets hit a treasure trove of services in Google’s testing area today and it looks like Google isn’t just dinking around with a crummy Google-base – real estate listings mashup anymore. It shouldn’t be much of a surprise, what with Paul Rademacher (founder of housingmaps.com) on board, a Google base full of listings, and a great mapping service, Google is creating real estate search as a distinct service.
If Google real estate search uses the same technology as Froogle, you can expect to see a lot of Seattle-area homes listed for $150,000 with $300,000 in shipping costs shown to you after you try to buy it.
In other news, Trulia is now letting you post their listings on your site. They say it’s for agents and brokers, but do agents and brokers really want to steer people away from their web sites? If a visitor clicks on More details… they are whisked to the listing agent’s website. I predict that it will mostly be used by bloggers and non-real estate people.
Find out for yourself on Slashdot today. The discussion: what brings users to blogs? I tend to read blogs that have daily posts and have something I find interesting at least once a week.
A quick follow up to our previous discussion about using Alexa to measure how many people visit your site (or visit your competitors): Alexa is reporting “geek” sites doubled in popularity overnight. Jason Striegel hypothesizes that this is likely the result of digg users downloading the Alexa toolbar en masse on the day that a top story linked to Alexa.
That means that most sites could probably rig the stats by encouraging their readers to download the Alexa toolbar, or, as I hypothesized, the Alexa toolbar is not a good measure of readership across the entire internet whole, but of people who install whatever they’re offered (mostly internet neophytes).
Zillow, Trulia and RainCityGuide don’t seem to have been affected by the geek onslaught. I think that many Digg readers (myself excluded) might be too young for real estate websites, no matter how geeky they may be.
A friend of mine contacted HouseValues once to get the scoop on their system and now receives (actually pretty funny) high pressure emails sprinkled with phrases like
“If I don’t hear from you by end of day, I’ll ask the next real estate agent on my list – possibly one in your own office.”
“we have an IMMEDIATE NEED FOR A GO-TO AGENT”
“If you are not planning to be in real estate for the next year, then you are not the right candidate for us”.
The qualifications to work with them are pretty rigorous:
1. You can professionally handle 10 to 20 buyers and sellers every month.
2. Plan to be in real estate for the next 12 months.
Lucklily, they seem to find an additional 10 – 20 customers who need an agent NOW every week or two, so my friend feels like he can start picking these low-hanging fruits when he is good and ready.
It’s a late summer here in the Pacific Northwest and I’m still finding a lot of snow where I wouldn’t expect it. I think this will be the first weekend of access to most trailheads, so get out there and enjoy the summer while it lasts.
[photopress:pano1.jpg,full,alignright]
(If you don’t have a super-wide angle lens, but need to “capture” a tight room, I recommend autostitch – it combined three pictures into the picture above)
For those agents that are “paying for the privilege of marginalization,” Craigslist expanded to 100 new cities last week. Only selected agents in New York will actually be paying: in tandem with their expansion, they are charging New York City appartment brokers $10 per listing.
Craigslist is a pretty incredible business – they are so focussed on user experience that fees are only implemented when a section gets too many repeat posts or gets too spammy for Craig, now a full time customer service rep, to keep a lid on. There was a great interview with CEO Jim Buckmaster in the WSJ on Saturday. Here’s a choice quote that sums up their business philosophy:
It’s unrealistic to say, but — imagine our entire U.S. workforce deployed in units of 20. Each unit of 20 is running a business that tens of millions of people are getting enormous amounts of value out of each month. What kind of world would that be?”
O’Reilly discusses research that suggests Seattle is fertile ground for startups, coming in behind San Francisco and Boston at number 3 based on a rough analysis of SimplyHired job postings. Downturn or not, the real estate market here is going to change if a couple more Amazons or Microsofts grow up in the Seattle area.
John Cook has more Seattle-centric observations and points to analysis by (New York-based) Fred Wilson, who claims that New York is number 3, based on an analysis of Conecticut-based indeed.com. Maybe Seattle would hit number 2 if the analysis used job listings from jobster.com, a Seattle based startup.
By the way, for those who travel a lot, I have invites to my favorite Seattle-based startup, Farecast. Let me know if you want one.
