Comments on: How to skin a cat – Remax.com and Roost.com http://www.vendoralley.com/2009/06/04/how-to-skin-a-cat-%e2%80%93-remax-com-and-roost-com/ Where Real Estate Gets Its Dirt. Mon, 08 Mar 2010 19:49:41 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 hourly 1 By: Rob Bynder http://www.vendoralley.com/2009/06/04/how-to-skin-a-cat-%e2%80%93-remax-com-and-roost-com/comment-page-1/#comment-406 Rob Bynder Wed, 10 Jun 2009 15:11:53 +0000 http://vendoralley.com/?p=2280#comment-406 Thanks for the great review, Greg. My company was the design partner for RE/MAX. That was a thoughtful review and comparison. As you're aware, the redesign of RE/MAX was a huge undertaking and we're very proud of the project and are thankful for having such an amazing client in RE/MAX. Marnie and her team had great vision and challenged us to design a best-in-class solution that would hold up against both the nimble Web 2.0 players like Roost as well as the major competitors. We feel (technical issues aside for now) we achieved that and are continuing to refine and improve the site with RE/MAX and technical partner eNeighborhoods. Thanks again for the thoughtful review and comparison. Thanks for the great review, Greg. My company was the design partner for RE/MAX. That was a thoughtful review and comparison. As you’re aware, the redesign of RE/MAX was a huge undertaking and we’re very proud of the project and are thankful for having such an amazing client in RE/MAX. Marnie and her team had great vision and challenged us to design a best-in-class solution that would hold up against both the nimble Web 2.0 players like Roost as well as the major competitors. We feel (technical issues aside for now) we achieved that and are continuing to refine and improve the site with RE/MAX and technical partner eNeighborhoods. Thanks again for the thoughtful review and comparison.

]]> By: Marnie Blanco (VP eBusiness, RE/MAX International) http://www.vendoralley.com/2009/06/04/how-to-skin-a-cat-%e2%80%93-remax-com-and-roost-com/comment-page-1/#comment-405 Marnie Blanco (VP eBusiness, RE/MAX International) Wed, 10 Jun 2009 13:40:35 +0000 http://vendoralley.com/?p=2280#comment-405 Thanks for the all the feedback! Great to see an inside/outside point of view! The big push for remax.com right now is to get the site cruisin! We have added so much content to the new design that we need to serve it up faster than ever. Interesting food for thought on perhaps making the expanded map the default view and perhaps having more listings show as the default view. Better yet, we should just let consumers who have a "My RE/MAX" accounts decide their defaults - as you noted, lots of personal preferences out there! Good objective opinions. Thanks. Thanks for the all the feedback! Great to see an inside/outside point of view! The big push for remax.com right now is to get the site cruisin! We have added so much content to the new design that we need to serve it up faster than ever. Interesting food for thought on perhaps making the expanded map the default view and perhaps having more listings show as the default view. Better yet, we should just let consumers who have a “My RE/MAX” accounts decide their defaults – as you noted, lots of personal preferences out there! Good objective opinions. Thanks.

]]> By: Infosam http://www.vendoralley.com/2009/06/04/how-to-skin-a-cat-%e2%80%93-remax-com-and-roost-com/comment-page-1/#comment-404 Infosam Thu, 04 Jun 2009 23:06:56 +0000 http://vendoralley.com/?p=2280#comment-404 Roost might be fine in Maberry, but it sure choked in the city. Ran a big general search "Houston,TX" and it spent a couple of minutes pulling down 16,000 records. From there the U/I got real sticky and brought the browser to its knees. The sliders didn't slide and I couldn't cull the selected set of records. Not sure I see a compelling reason for a consumer to wrestle with the U/I to get a narrowed down set of records that the client side app can handle well. Roost might be fine in Maberry, but it sure choked in the city. Ran a big general search “Houston,TX” and it spent a couple of minutes pulling down 16,000 records. From there the U/I got real sticky and brought the browser to its knees. The sliders didn’t slide and I couldn’t cull the selected set of records. Not sure I see a compelling reason for a consumer to wrestle with the U/I to get a narrowed down set of records that the client side app can handle well.

]]> By: Greg Robertson http://www.vendoralley.com/2009/06/04/how-to-skin-a-cat-%e2%80%93-remax-com-and-roost-com/comment-page-1/#comment-403 Greg Robertson Thu, 04 Jun 2009 20:34:58 +0000 http://vendoralley.com/?p=2280#comment-403 Derek, The "expand the map" view reminded me of the way Redfin does it, but a bit cleaner. The map control didn't take long for me to get used to. It's just that some of these tools you wouldn't expect on a website. And the lines between "application" and "website" are fading quick. My review was pretty narrow, I didn't come close to talk about all the things your site does, and does extremely well. Congrats to everyone involved! Derek,

The “expand the map” view reminded me of the way Redfin does it, but a bit cleaner.

The map control didn’t take long for me to get used to. It’s just that some of these tools you wouldn’t expect on a website. And the lines between “application” and “website” are fading quick.

My review was pretty narrow, I didn’t come close to talk about all the things your site does, and does extremely well. Congrats to everyone involved!

]]> By: Derek Overbey http://www.vendoralley.com/2009/06/04/how-to-skin-a-cat-%e2%80%93-remax-com-and-roost-com/comment-page-1/#comment-402 Derek Overbey Thu, 04 Jun 2009 19:34:24 +0000 http://vendoralley.com/?p=2280#comment-402 Greg, Thanks for the review. We appreciate your feedback and look under the hood. One point that I wanted to make about the search results page. I'm not sure if you noticed the "expand the map" function in the upper left corner of the map pane. If you click that, the map becomes the "hero" of the session and the listings shrink to the upper left hand side. Because our site functions much more like an application, we keep everything above the fold in the search results page. This is why the scroll bar is not used. It may take some getting used to but we think it is a much better experience for consumers. Thanks again for the review. Derek Overbey Sr. Director of Marketing & Social Media Roost.com Greg,

Thanks for the review. We appreciate your feedback and look under the hood. One point that I wanted to make about the search results page. I’m not sure if you noticed the “expand the map” function in the upper left corner of the map pane. If you click that, the map becomes the “hero” of the session and the listings shrink to the upper left hand side. Because our site functions much more like an application, we keep everything above the fold in the search results page. This is why the scroll bar is not used. It may take some getting used to but we think it is a much better experience for consumers.

Thanks again for the review.

Derek Overbey
Sr. Director of Marketing & Social Media
Roost.com

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