Online Real Estate Technology

Forget Gen Y and Z – the new wave of kids are being called I-babies.

Women are now using phone applications to help them know when the best time is to conceive.

They are the new generation of iBabies, children born with the help of an application telling a couple the best time to conceive.

For just a few dollars, women can receive an alarm on their iPhone alerting them to their most fertile days of the month.

‘When we see couples who are trying to become pregnant we advise them to use the same tracking procedure and now it’s available on iPhone it’s great as it is convenient and not costly,’ said Dr Joel Bernstein, medical director of Fertility East.

‘All these trackers do is just work out the perfect time to have intercourse.’

Dr Bernstein it’s becoming common practice, because technology is so ingrained in our lifestyles.

View the original article here

I first wrote about Augmented Reality applications back in October after I had returned from the Inman Technology conference in San Francisco, if you’d like to read that article, here’s the link to refresh your memory Augmented Reality What is it? 

I’ve been patiently waiting for the technology to start to be implemented here in Australia and now its finally arriving with news the Commonwealth Bank have announced the release of their new Augmented Reality iPhone application.

Here’s the media release from the bank:

“Building on Commonwealth Bank’s vision of banking in 2013, the Group is announcing its next digital innovation with the release of its iPhone augmented reality application for anyone buying or selling a home, or simply looking to keep on top of the property market.

The new iPhone application will take property search to a new level, revolutionising the way home buyers search for a home allowing them to make smarter property decisions with virtual reality insight in to any Australian home anywhere, anytime. 

The technology is supported by two industry leaders realestate.com.au, the nation’s number one property portal and rpdata.com, Australia’s leading property information and analytics company.

The core functionality of the application utilises ‘augmented reality’ where rich data including past sales history (on more than 95 per cent of properties in Australia), current property listings and recent sales, is mapped on to a real world view through the iPhone’s camera.

Users can also switch to a list or bird’s eye view to pull in insights on properties matching their search criteria. Home hunters can then track their ‘dream house’ in their favourites, send to a friend and make informed decisions with access to detailed suburb profiles revealing demographics, median price, property hotspots and capital growth trends.

According to Mark Murray, General Manager Consumer Marketing, “We are leveraging new technology and continually innovating to deliver convenient, relevant and real-time services to make buying a home easier.

“As Australia’s biggest home lender we have teamed up with rpdata.com and realestate.com.au, to help Australians make an informed decision when it comes to making their biggest financial commitment.

“The new iPhone application will be an industry first in Australia.  Home buyers and sellers can easily access a host of customised information, tools and insights on every home in Australia – for free.

“The application is a significant milestone in our 2013 vision of banking, bringing virtual reality property search to customers right here, right now,” added Mr Murray.

A video demo of the iPhone augmented reality application will be available next week with the application available for download from the Apple App Store, coming soon.”

If you can’t wait to see how the application will work, you can take a look at the video here.

As I mentioned in the opening paragraph I can’t wait to be able to download this application and start playing with it, this hopefully will be the start of more Augmented Reality applications like this, and I’d also like to see the use of GEO Fencing technology and location based applications being employed by business here as well, the use of this technology has many benefits to the end consumer.

Whilst this application is aimed at the real estate buyer, this opens up the potential of this technology to all types of businesses, imagine the impact this type of technology has for restaurants and tourism.

Being able to access prices, menus, consumer reviews and book a table or a room directly from your phone opens up a new world of opportunities for business in this country.   

Well done Commonwealth Bank and I hope this is the start of more of these applications being widely adopted by both business and consumers.

Real Time search on Google

Ok, if you been putting off starting a blog or using social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, it’s time now to think again and very seriously. With the launch yesterday of Google real time search, it opens up a world of opportunity for bloggers and social media users to get their efforts at the top of the search rankings, Google now pulls information as it happens from sources such as friendfeed, Twitter and Facebook as well as blog posts and news feeds.

This is essentially Googles answer to Twitters and Facebooks search engines which provide up to the minute updates on trending topics, and it was a natural extension for it to be applied to search engines, after all they are trying to give you the best response to your search query.

Real time search will enable information to be delivered as it happens, by clicking on “Latest results” or selecting “Latest” from the search options menu to view a full page of live tweets, blogs, news and other web content scrolling right on Google.

You can also filter your results to see only “Updates” from micro-blogs like Twitter, FriendFeed, Jaiku and others.

Latest results and the new search options are also designed for iPhone and Android devices when you need them on the go, be it a quick glance at changing information like ski conditions or opening night chatter about a new movie — right when you’re in line to buy tickets.

So there you have it, create your blog and start writing, and by creating good quality content on your blog or social media network, you might just end up in the number one spot on Google.

It’s the freshness factor that is also important when it comes to getting your information ranked high on Google and now with real time search, you can get fresh up to date information on trending or newsworthy stories as they happen.

If you’d  like to start a blog and don’t know where to start, visit Blogging for Business Packages and get started today.

Optus brand reputation management non existent

I recently invested in the new iPhone and have really enjoyed exploring the technology, however just recently I’ve noticed a recurring problem and that is my iPhone will drop out during both received and dialed phone calls.  So you can imagine my frustration when on a call and the call drops out, this happens at least 2 out of every 10 calls. So like most people today, I decided to search for the problem or I should say solution on Google, and what did i find? loads of information on the problems the iPhone network, in particular the Optus 3G network is having, and why there are drop outs. This information ironically, being provided by forum sites and other disgruntled consumers experiencing the same problem, nothing from the network that I’m with, which is Optus.

The number one result on my search query on Google is a forum site and contained within this site are numerous complaints about the drop outs, all citing the Optus 3G network not being up to spec as the cause of the problem, there are also complaints about Optus customer service and the lack of responce by Optus to customer complaints, some taking up to 2 weeks just to get a return phone call. But the interesting thing to me is the total lack of input from Optus on this site, now surely you’d think that a service company would be either monitoring this site or at least have a strategy to deal with all this negativity about their product and service, and don’t think that Telstra is any better at dealing with complaints, because they are not.

This brings me to the impact that social media has on brand building, consumers now have the ability to complain publicly about issues they are having with any company, and a simple search on Google will usually brings these forum and blog sites up at the top of the search, making them easily accessible to anyone wanting information or to complain about the service or lack of it from any company.

Business today needs to be very aware of the impact these sites can have on generating business from the web, and an effective web based brand monitoring strategy needs to be implemented and service related industries including real estate offices and agents really need to make sure they have both a monitoring and response strategy in place… Now I don’t know if Optus monitors or is even aware that these sites are on the web, but they should, the comments, complaints and opinions of current customers should be a prime concern, because if I’d read this forum before getting my iPhone, i would never have used Optus, and to allow the comments found on the forum site to continue without company moderation or input is just plain stupid.

So beware, take your on line reputation very seriously, you don’t want your brand or reputation destroyed on the web, imagine if you did a Google search on a prospective employee and found complaints and comments about them, complaints about their lack of service and response or their rudeness in dealing with clients, would you then hire that person? No I didn’t think so, well it works both ways.

You can no longer take your reputation for granted, you need to set up your strategy and a good place to start is by using this 3 phase process:

• Monitor

• Manage

• Repair

Start by monitoring what is being said about you or your brand on line, and you can do this by simply creating a Google alert for your brand name or keyword, if your brand is mentioned on the web then Google will notify you via email once a day of who,what and where you were mentioned.

This is the easiest and cheapest way to keep track of your reputation.

When I was at the Inman technology conference in August, the subject of Augmented Reality was being bandied around during the technology sessions and I thought it time to have a look at how it will impact not only the working real estate agent but also the consumer.

Firstly, what is Augmented Reality?  The concept has been around since the early 90′s, but it’s really only been in the last 12 months that the technical world has gone ga ga over it and if not for the onslaught of Twitter, you’d probably have heard a lot more about it by now.  So here is the technical explanation for what it is:

Augmented reality (AR) is a term for a live direct or indirect view of a physical real-world environment whose elements are merged with (or augmented by) virtual computer-generated imagery – creating a mixed reality. The augmentation is conventionally in real-time and in semantic context with environmental elements, like for example sports scores on TV during a match. With the help of advanced AR technology (e.g. adding computer vision and object recognition) the information about the surrounding real world of the user becomes interactive and digitally usable. Artificial information about the environment and the objects in it can be stored and retrieved as an information layer on top of the real world view.

Ok, there it is, simple really, but what does it do and how can you use it in your real estate business. The easiest way to explain how the technology will work is this, Imagine a consumer being able to stop in front of a house for sale and simply point their smart phone at the house and within seconds being able to view as well as save all the information about the listing. From there the consumer can look at the pictures, watch a video, email the information and even contact the agent direct.

To watch the technology in action here’s a video from Layer, an Android-based application that uses your handset’s GPS location, digital compass and accelerometer to call up geotagged information and superimpose it on the world around you.

The iPhone application for this technology is now available for download from the Itunes store, so  you can imagine the potential this has for the future, and it’s not just real estate that will benefit.

Any business can and will benefit from this technology, lets imagine you’re walking down a street looking for a good place to eat, you hold up your mobile phone so the screen shows what’s in front of you. What you see are things you couldn’t see before, brightly coloured makers that show restaurants and bars, turn the corner and you’ll see the new view on your screen, click on any of the markers and you’ll see customer reviews, menu and price information.

This is just a small part of what this technology can do, so I hope I’ve opened the door just a little for you.

There’s one lesson in this for the real estate industry, don’t get left behind, make sure you keep up with developments and new technology such as this as it emerges. Your very future may well depend on it.

I’d suggest also reading the post on using QR codes for real estate

Back in December of last year I wrote a post on the future of the Internet in 2020, and in that post one of the predictions was that mobile devices would be the primary connection tool to the Internet and social media for most people. Well I thought I’d revisit the progress of that statement and look at if the mobile device is in fact having any impact on searching trends.

Some new research from a company in the US SRG, has found the mobile phone is displacing the PC among US women in terms of usage – especially in the 12-24 age group, the survey has found that young women spend twice as much time with their cell phones as women over age 40.

The survey also revealed that more than 80% of US women now use a wireless device and 17% use a smartphone, such as an iPhone, BlackBerry or models from HTC, Samsung, LG or similar. Among those in the 12-24 and 25-39 age groups,  smartphone ownership is now 23%. In contrast 11% of women ages 40+ own a smartphone.

When asked about the top benefits of owning a smartphone, the top answers among women were convenience, the ability to send texts and email, and access to social media online.

When asked what technology had the most impact on their life in the past two years, women overall picked the internet, followed by the PC/computer, and cell/wireless in a distant third spot. This changed amongst young women, where a wireless device took the #1 spot:

Technology with the most impact on my life

So how does that impact on how they use social media?

The study found that more mobile usage and smartphone ownership is enabling women to bypass the traditional PC to upload their pictures to social media sites:

• Nearly 74% of 12-24 year-olds say they have taken a photo with their cell phone in the past month.
• Young women are twice as likely have used the internet browser on their cell phone in the past month.
• 22% of 12-24 year-olds used their mobile device to access Facebook, MySpace or Twitter in the past month, making them four times as likely as older women to have accessed social media such as a Facebook profile or MySpace page on their mobile phone.

From that research and the upward trend of smart phone usage, particularly amongst women, who are the bigger users of social media, you don’t need to be Einstein to work out that the smart phone will be the primary connection tool for the Internet and social media online well before 2020.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this, so please leave me a comment on this post.

Ever wondered when visiting a new city how safe you were, or when you’re looking for your dream home and find one in what looks like a great suburb, but you don’t know how safe that suburb really is? If this is you, then here’s an Iphone application that is just made for you.

Lethal is a new Iphone & Ipod touch application available through Itunes. The application draws on information in various data bases which has been compiled from government and academic sources. The app uses a lethal index system which tells the user how dangerous that area is. There’s a “Wildlife” index, a “Crime” index as well as “Disease” and “Disaster” indexs.

This application is ideal if you want to know what strange animals, or “beasties” might be lurking near you when you go out walking or if you want to check out how safe you are in your current suburb, this little beauty will give you the score. If you are travelling or sightseeing and start wondering how safe you are, this unit uses GPS to find you and then let you know how safe you are in your current location.

Unfortunately, this application will only work in the US at the moment, but if you are planning a trip to the states, this would be an absolute must have before you leave.

Just imagine the impact this would have if launched in Australia on property searches or suburb choice.

The application is available at a small cost from Itunes and I’ve included a screen shot for you below:

New Iphone & Ipod Touch Application

For all those Iphone users, I’m sure you have begun to rely on this little tool for just about everything in your business, but ever got to the point where trying to find all the applications and search functionality whilst stopped in traffic or working in a rush and madly trying to type away at the keyboard gets a little frustrating? well a new application will help solve this for you and it’s available via the Itunes store. It’s called vLingo, the application will allow you to speak to your Iphone and have it understand the spoken command.

This little application takes the recent voice search app from Google to the next level and allows you to perform Google searches as well as local map searches and voice dialing from your contacts list in one application. If you are a social media user you will be able to update your Facebook profile and, if like me, you use Twitter.com to update friends or contacts, you will be able to do this via voice as well. vLingo transcribes the spoken word to text and sends them to your social sites.

If you are a Iphone user, give this a try and let me know how successful it is? Here’s a screen shot of the application.

vLingo Screen Shot

I was quite excited about this story back in June/July, when I first came across the story of Dash, the web enabled GPS unit which allowed users to search for real estate via the web and the GPS unit. In fact I reported back then that Coldwell Banker had signed a deal to distribute their properties exclusively, which I thought a great idea and a real win for them. Well it seems that the company were a little ahead of their time with the concept but not with the hardware. The company had commenced selling their units at $600 each plus the monthly subscription fee, which it seems a lot of consumers thought too expensive. There are now a lot more slicker units on the market which incorporate GPS and don’t charge consumers above their monthly fees for connection.

News this week from gigaom.com, is that due to the sluggish economy, the company is slashing 50 jobs and changing it’s business model from consumer to B2B. So we’ll now have to wait for the big names in GPS units such as Tom Tom or Navman to look at integrating this into GPS units. The big companies are now offering traffic network updates on their units and this has rolled out in NSW,Victoria and Qld, so don’t despair, the Iphone and other new GPS enabled phones are having an impact on the mobile search platform and hopefully with new software applications coming out all the time, such as Utoprias The Future of The Mobile Real Estate Search on Iphone  all may not be lost.

I highlighted in an earlier post a company in the US called Utopria and their mobile search platform for the Iphone, The Future of The Mobile Real Estate Search on Iphone  , well the company has released an update on their software, and given that Google have released Google Earth as a free application for the Iphone, I thought it relevant to revisit the post.

I’ve included a video for you to view and see how the software and application called mediapod works, lets hope they have plans to release this in Australia in the near future, but until then, enjoy the future of mobile searching for real estate properties. This allows the agent to include a video introduction as well as including a host of features for the consumer.