Vancouver Sun Business: House hunting goes mobile with new text services

My favourite local real estate columnists, Derrick Penner penned a great new article about what is happening with mobile technology in the real estate industry.  Shopping for a home goes mobile was published on the front page of today’s Business section in the Vancouver Sun.
There are some good quotes from Vancouver Realtor Kye Grace (@KyeGrace) throughout the article. He says “There’s no doubt that mobile is where it’s at… and in all reality, the consumer is going mobile.” I need to talk to him to see what system he is using.
The article mainly talks about old technology, using a call to action on a For Sale sign. This method is over supplied and under utilized by consumers. Realtors tell me all the time that they aren’t getting the traction they were looking for. This is why we focus on MLS search and delivery. We Make Mobile MLS Easy!
The article also mentions an iPhone app. Of course, the App Store is dominating the mobile space and can’t be ignored. 3locations is working on phone apps that combine the MLS with the best practices of social networking.

3locations Mobile MLS

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1000watt Consulting sees the future on a small screen

This week I came across an article on Inman.com  (the best source for real estate news) that was a reprint off the 1000watt blog where Brian Boero spells out a compelling explanation of why real estate applications and MLS services will better serve the home buyer on a portable device. Boero states that “The handheld device will be the locus of real estate technology innovation in the coming years.”
Of course, I can only agree. Your phone is your most personal device and still predominately advertising-free. It can deliver a more focused user experience when you optimize the “limited-capabilities.” Boero calls it a “liberating” experience for the home buyer and “most importantly, the experience is portable, which is perfectly suited to real estate.”
Location awareness, embedded maps and geo-coded MLS information can be combined to deliver a simple and reliable service that is hard to replicate on a PC that is designed to provide much more. Boero explains that “This is why I think the Zillow iPhone app is better than Zillow.com. It’s why I am so excited about the numerous IDX-based native iPhone apps in development as I type.”
I look forward to Brian’s reports and experiencing for myself the best new real estate applications for your phone.

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Rogers & Fido added to Twitter for two-way SMS in Canada

As first reported by Adam Ostrow of Mashable, Twitter on May 5th, 2009 enabled Roger’s and Fido’s customers the ability to post and receive updates by SMS text messaging. Similar to a deal with Bell Mobility earlier in the year, there will be no additional fees for tweets as long as heavy users have an unlimited texting plan so they can avoid overage charges.

This will, no doubt, put pressure on Telus and Virgin, Canada’s other major wireless providers, to strike a deal with Twitter.

SMS might not be a big deal to you, if you access Twitter through an application on a smartphone, but this development actually represents a huge opportunity for the company in Canada where smartphones only represent approximately 20% of the total cell phone market.

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