Tired of Junk Mail! Now there’s hope!

Tired of spending your mornings and filling up your recycle box with junk mail?  Now there’s hope.  The Direct Marketing Association has created a great site called DMAChoice.org.  The site allows you to opt-out of credit card offers, catalogs and other types of direct mail for up to five years. The site also allows you to remove your name from email lists as well.  You can trust this site because it is sponsored by the governing of the direct mail industry and they are highly credible. Cutting down on junk mail will not only save you time, it will also help [...]

By |2009-05-30T13:34:49-07:00May 30th, 2009|Main category|0 Comments

Twitter users beware of spymaster aka spammaster

got a pile of direct messages from people I follow on twitter today that looked like this. When you go to the site, it asks you to be an exclusive first user of thier twitter game.  To sign up, you enter your user id and password so they can access your twitter followers.  It dynamically sends this message to every one of your followers and spreads like a spam virus.  There is nothing harmful, but it will take over your twitter account and autopost to your friends.  The only way to get out of the game is to block the [...]

Threewide hires Michele Routh-Combs as Vice President of Partner Relations

Threewide Corporation Appoints Michele Routh-Combs as VP of Partner Relations Morgantown, WV - June 28, 2009 - Threewide Corporation announces the addition of Michele Routh-Combs to the Executive Management Team as Vice President of Partner Relations. Routh-Combs brings 18 years of experience in real estate and real estate related technology and marketing. She is a well-known leader in real estate, recognized by many from her role at RE/MAX International where she served as Senior Technology Marketing Analyst and was involved with RE/MAX International’s Approved Supplier Program from 1999 through the end of 2005. Routh-Combs will manage strategic partner relationships for [...]

Investor needed for growth company

WAV Group was recently contacted by a 5 year old company that sells technology products to MLSs.  Our current workload does not allow us to help them, but we offered to post this to our blog in the event that any of our readers may be interested.  The company is well established, has significant revenue and could be profitable if they were not in a significant growth ramp. They are looking for $500k to $2M in the form of a converitable bridge loan or equity.  The company’s product has been “site licensed” by more than 35 MLSs in the past [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:26:28-07:00May 26th, 2009|Main category|0 Comments

ZipRealty sets a new standard in school district search

Like ‘em or not - Zip continues to focus on offering one of the best property search websites in the industry to consumers.  Does anyone know of a brokerage that offered the opportunity to post ratings about homes before zip?  I know that this is a listingbook feature too.  Was Zip first? EMERYVILLE, CA–(MARKET WIRE)–May 19, 2009 – ZipRealty (NasdaqGM:ZIPR - News) (www.ZipRealty.com), the first national real estate brokerage to allow home shoppers to post ratings of MLS-listed homes and agent service, now allows buyers to scout for homes in specific school districts within the 36 markets the company serves. The [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:26:28-07:00May 20th, 2009|Broker-Agent Information, Main category|0 Comments

Scraping vs Indexing of IDX data

MIBOR - the Metropolitan Indianapolis Board of REALTORS has recently responded to a complaint regarding a violation of their IDX rules and regulations - specifically the "anti-scraping" regulations. MIBOR has correctly responded to the complaint ruling that an IDX property search page which allows data to be copied and re-purposed is in violation of their rules.  I begin this post with this acknowledgement to clarify that MIBOR is in no way behaving badly.  Indeed, they are enforcing their published rules and regulations correctly. This issue has created a very difficult situation for MIBOR, NAR, and the unfortunate member of MIBOR [...]

Microformatting enhances SEO for real estate

Microformats in plain english: Microformats is specific website coding standards (called Semantic information) that allows search engines to “read” the addresses and categories of inforamtion on your website, display the information in search results (like google maps), and allow the consumer to quickly download a vcard or address book card directly from the search result using a browser extension like Operator for firefox. As mentioned in the WAV Group White Paper on Localism - Geo Targeting strategies for real estate websites - search engines are often unable to view listings on most IDX Property Search solutions.  Companies like Trulia, Zillow, Loopnet and others real [...]

Social Brand Marketing for Real Estate Brokers

Last week the WAV Group launched the first of its kind Broker Social Brand Marketing effort in Vancouver Canada.  We believe that any brokerage with 100 or more agents has a tremendous opportunity to command a sigificant voice in the Social Networks that surround the communities they serve. As this chart shows, Real Estate Broker Brands are lagging behind other consumer brands on making an online social statement.  Amazingly this is happening at a time when Real Estate is among the top news makers.  If you are a brand marketer, you must be astounded that there is no mention of [...]

Microsoft Virtual Earth plus Photosynth is good for MLS and Real Estate

In a move that may separate Microsoft Virtual Earth from Google maps, Microsoft announced integration of Photosynth - an application that allows you to automatically stich groups of photos togethers into a three dimensional viewing experience.  This has tremendous implications for the mapping functionality imbeded into MLS systems including Cyberhomes (FNRES) and Marketlinx and others. Although Virtual Earth is much less popular than Google Maps, it is vastly superior on many levels - which is why leading technolgoy companies are opting to pay for Microsoft over Google.  This combination essentially combines mapping with virtual tour experiences.  This combination will have relevance for agents working within the [...]

By |2021-06-01T13:58:16-07:00May 7th, 2009|Main category, MLS Insights|0 Comments

tweetopics: Twitter for Real Estate – twitterstate continued

On the heals of helping nearly every member of a brokerage in Brittish Columbia register on Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter, and Gmail I found myself listening to @cyberhomes and @nik_nik deliver a webinar on using twitter for real estate As a continuation of our popular blog post – twitterstate: Twitter for real estate, I thought that I would add a new post that lists some helpful tools that twitter bloggers in real estate should consider usiing Websites offering Twitter tools, and tips http://www.twitterlocal.net http://www.twello.com http://www.wefollow.com […]

WAV Group Releases Virtual Tour Whitepaper

There is a tremendous opportunity today for brokers and agents to differentiate themselves  and, as a result, grow their market share through better use of virttual tour technology.  According to the NAR 2008 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers report 41% of the people that bought homes in 2008 were first time buyers.  Their average age was 30 versus 47 for repeat buyers.  This growing base of home buyers and sellers, with less wrinkles,  look for visual information first in their Internet searches.  Unfortunately our sources tell us 75% to 90% of listings on MLS systems today do not have virtual tours.  This means, listings [...]

Intermountain MLS Joins Twitter

Although they are just getting started, the Intermountain MLS of Boise ID has joined twitter to communicate with members, and probably consumers. You can follow them at http://twitter.com/imls Here are a number of thier posts – I especially like their process of announcing market statistics – this information is valuable to both the members and consumers – reinforcing the authority of the relationship between organized real estate and consumers. IMLS is proud to be hosting Rick DeLuca once again June 11th.#fb14 minutes ago from web   March Statistics are Now Available. Visit http://tinyurl.com/d7klpf11:23 AM Apr 14th from web [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:26:29-07:00May 2nd, 2009|Main category, MLS Insights|0 Comments