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CMLS is gonna be a monster hit this year!
Russ Bergeron has taken over the effort of MRED, LLC hosting the CMLS Conference in Chicago this year due to Bud Fogel’s departure. And the event is shaping up to be one of, if not the largest CMLS conferences ever!
Attendance is way, way, up! The conference hotel (The Westin) is sold out of rooms. All sponsorship tables are sold out. And it’s only July!
So if you haven’t already paid your CMLS member dues or signed up for the conference I suggest you do so….now.
Details can be found at the new Council of MLS website.
Hope to see you there!
Inman Connect SF 2010 Recap Part I
I’ve been remiss to offer my insights on last week’s Inman Connect SF. Too damn busy. Brian Boero from 1000Watt Consulting summed up things pretty well, you should go read his “fuzzy notions” recap. I have to agree with Brian, it was truly one of the best Inman RE Connect conferences I’ve attended.
And I’m not just saying that because the Premium Member Lounge (Brilliant Tim, brilliant!) : )
I didn’t get to catch too many sessions (see this post) but one I did get a chance to see ( and from the front row) was the “debate” on the main stage titled, “Is the MLS System Broken“.
I’m going to focus on 3 people at that session.
Michael “Invisible Hand” Wurzer. Mike is a good friend, so I might have some bias here (duh!) but I really can’t help but thinking what a great asset he is to our industry and I’m not just talking about vendors. His arguments were clear, concise, and he didn’t pull any punches. I talked to some people that thought the suggestion that the market will decide when to “fix” the MLS industry was “pollyanna”, but Michael lives and breathes these issues everyday. So if you got a better solution, prove it.
Joel “Fail Forward” Singer. I’ve been very critical of Joel’s organization, the California Association of REALTORS®, and their efforts to start a statewide MLS system (calREDD) in California. On stage he was a bit light on details but you just got to respect a guy who goes up there in front of all his industry colleagues, after the rough two years he’s had, and still comes out swinging.
And lastly I come back to where I started. Brian Boero. Brian’s “geek chic” vibe is like Steve Allen and Ira Glass had a baby. Stay with me here… Brian is able to capture the essence of the conversation, ask great follow up questions, shut up when he needs to, and always get the biggest laughs. It’s a remarkable thing to stand in front of 1,000 people and accomplish this, and Brian makes it look effortless. Bravo.
Stay tuned for Part II of my Inman Connect SF recap in which I ask, “Inman Innovator Awards WTF?”
Cloud CMA Promo Video
[REPRINTED FROM “LIGHTNING | TWICE” , THE OFFICIAL BLOG OF W&R STUDIOS]
I’ve wanted to do a short promo video about Cloud CMA for sometime now. I’m a big fan of the task management software “Things” from Culture Code. I got really inspired from this video for their new iPad version. I’m also a big fan of the “There’s an app for that.” commercials that Apple put out. So with those two videos in mind I got started.
What normally gets my creative juices started is music. And I had a particular song I wanted to use, played on a particular instrument.
The song is “Singing In The Rain“, I thought this would be clever music to use with a product named “Cloud”. Not sure if anyone would get the reference but I thought it was fun. I also wanted no vocals, just the music.
As for the instrument I was dead set on having the song played on the ukulele. The bright strumming sound was perfect for the vibe I was going after. I did actually find the song done on a ukulele on You Tube, and even a version on iTunes. But they either had vocals or just didn’t match the song I had in my head.
So where do you go when you are looking for a ukulele player to record a song you have in your head for a real estate web app?
Craiglist!
And I totally lucked out. A guy by the name of Abe Lagrimas responded. I Googled him and found a few videos including one where Abe plays Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirt” on the ukulele. Needless to say, if your playing Nirvana on a uke, your exactly the guy I’m looking to work with.
We negotiated a price then discussed a few things on the phone and after a couple iterations Abe e-mailed me over the audio files. They were just perfect! Abe produced the song exactly the way I imagined it in my head.
So in my original vision I just wanted music and images. But as I got to editing the video I realized it was close to impossible to make it work with just music and images.
So I took a few hours and wrote a script. I decided to do a play (homage?) on Apple’s “There an app for that” commercials.
With the the script written, I needed to have someone do the voice over. That part was easy. My wife Jenn did the recording in one-take, just like a pro. And it came out amazing. She really knocked it out of the park.
So without futher adieu…Here is the offical premeire of the Cloud CMA Promo Video -“There’s A Report For That!”
Hope You Enjoy!
gr
TIP: If you want to see this video without the black bars across the bottom and top just click the video again and it will send you to You Tube where you can view it in full glory.
Inman RE Connect Conference, open for business
I’m still buzzing from Inman’s Connect Conference last week. I’ve got a lot of take aways that I’ll be writing about but, I did want to comment on a common thread I heard from a lot of vendors. The conversation goes something like this…
Me: How did you like the conference this year?
V: Great, but I didn’t get to see hardly any of the sessions.
Me: Why?
V: Too damn busy with all the meetings I booked!
This doesn’t mean nobody attended the sessions. Quite the contrary, every time I tried get in to the General Session it was standing room only.
It seems to me that Inman has turned the corner and has become more than an industry “networking event”, and now is a great place to meet and clients and get some business done.
This trend is far from new, but what many vendors are beginning to realize is that it’s far easier to conduct business at an event like Inman Connect than it is at NAR Midyear. I’ve written about this before, but it seems like NAR puts up so many barriers to vendors to actually conduct business at their events. For example: You must have a booth to get a Suite, if you want a Suite in the hotel or a good booth location you have to have spent money with NAR for the past 20 years or so. And if you don’t follow these rules you’ll get thrown out of the hotel/event.
Will there be a day when vendors stop playing NAR’s “reindeer games” and take their ball somewhere else to play?
Is July the new May? Is San Francisco the new Washington D.C.? Only time will tell.
LPS Real Estate Group gets back to big game hunting with re-sign of GMLS
I’ve got a lot to share about the past 4 days at Inman’s Real Estate Connect Conference but some of the biggest news I heard was LPS Real Estate Group signed up GMLS for their new reInsight product. GMLS has over 33,000 members which makes them one of the largest MLS providers in the country. This is huge news for LPS who’s Paragon product has proven to be a good solution to small and mid-size MLS providers but never really broken thru to the “big leagues”.
I talked with Rich Lull, LPS’ Senior Vice President, MLS Solutions and he expressed a lot of optimism about reInsight as their solution for large and mega MLS providers. Rich told me that demos of reInsight are going extremely well and it was the product he needed to give his seasoned team to “go big”.
Good luck and congrats!
GEEK ALERT! Don’t Miss “ConnectTech” at Inman this Tuesday and the MLS Innovation Track this Wednesday
My partner in crime, Dan Woolley, is once again moderating a workshop, dubbed ConnectTech at the Inman Real Estate Connect Conference this week. It starts at 8:30AM and goes to 12:30PM
Great program this year. Here’s what you can expect:
TUESDAY, July 13
8:30 a.m. – 9:10 a.m.
HTML5 Is Coming, Are You Ready?
Sasha Aickin, Engineering Manager, Search Team, Redfin @redfin
Josh Sharfman, CTO, California Association of REALTORS® @CAREALTORS
Tantek Çelik , Co-founder, GMPG & microformats.org
9:15 a.m. – 9:55 a.m.
Social Web – implementing FriendConnect, Twitter OAuth, FB Connect
Geoff Cramer, CEO & Founder, SocialMadeSimple, LLC @geoffcramer
Richard Lacy,Site Director, Frontdoor.com @Lacy_Blog
T.A. McCann,, CEO, Gist, Inc. @tamccann
10:00 a.m. – 10:15 a.m.
ConnectTech Sprints: Mobile Development Best Practices – Focus on Android
Greg Carpenter,CEO, Boopsie @boopsie
10:15 a.m. – 10:30 a.m.
ConnectTech Sprints: Geolocation and the Web – What Are The implications For Real Estate?
Ian White, CEO, Urban Mapping @urbanmapping
10:30 a.m. – 10:45 a.m.
Creating Augmented Reality Apps for Real Estate
Rob Cross,Director of Distribution, Trulia @trulia
Michael Coutinho, Engineering Manager, Trulia @trulia
———————————————————————
Also don’t miss Mike Wurzer on Wednesday where he will be ably moderating Innovation Track 1: The MLS.
Vendor Alley Tip:
GET THERE EARLY, THIS ONE ALWAYS FILLS UP!
The last session featuring Lauren Emery, Jim Harrison, and Teresa King Kinney talking about RPR, CoreLogic, and Realtor.com looks very interesting
Here’s the program
Wednesday, July 14
2:00 pm – 2:45 pm
The Standards Imperative: How to Create a Meaningful MLS Data Standard in 2010
The world of technology, data and media is changing fast while MLSs remain tangled in a world without true standards. Learn how we can fix that – this year.
Michael Wurzer, CEO, FBS Data Systems, @mwurzer
Robert Overman, CTO and Vice President of New Technology, LPS Real Estate Group, @roverman
Travis Wright, Executive Director, RESO, National Association of REALTORS®, @REALTORS
2:55 pm – 3:40 pm
Naked Crunch: Radical Transparency and MLS Data
Learn how meeting the challenge of consumer empowerment with openness rather than intransigence pays off.
Bob Hale, CEO, Houston Association of Realtors, @BobHale
Justin Lajoie, CEO, Diverse Solutions, @jlajoie
Justin Tracy, CTO, Founder, Real Metric, LLC, @realmetric
3:50 pm – 4:35 pm
What – and Who – You Need to Reboot Your Org
You know you need to change the shape of your organization to meet new realities, but struggle with execution. Learn how to structure your organization for change – and you who need to drive it.
John Heithaus, CMO, MRIS, @MRIS_Real_News
Kevin McQueen, Focus Forward Consulting @kmcqueen
Mark Allen, CEO, Minneapolis Area Association of REALTORS®, @mplsREALTORS
4:35 pm – 5:00 pm
The RPR/FirstAm/Realtor.com Taste Test
MLS operators who have executed partnerships with the Big Three share the straight dirt on what’s working, what’s not and how they see the future.
Lauren Emery, CEO, IRES, LLC @merylau
Jim Harrison, President and CEO, MLSListings Inc
Teresa King Kinney, CEO, Realtor Association of Greater Miami and the Beach, @RAMBMiami
RPR selects Clareity’s Scout to provide online access security.
Huge win for Gregg and his team. Congrats guys!!
_______________________________________
REALTORS Property Resource™ Selects Clareity Security
to Provide Online Access Security
Scottsdale, AZ July 9, 2010 – Clareity Security (www.clareitysecurity.com), the leading provider of online access security for the Real Estate industry, today announced the REALTORS Property Resource (RPR) has selected Scout for SAFEMLS™. RPR will implement Clareity Security’s SaaS platform to ensure authorized access to its data base and reports.
RPR, which is available exclusively to REALTORS®, is a single-source national compilation of data including: tax and assessment data, property data, neighborhood, school, demographic and psychographic information, maps, trends and reports. “We recognize our responsibility to make sure REALTORS® are the only authorized users of RPR. Scout for SAFEMLS was the clear choice to achieve this goal,” stated Dale Ross, RPR’s CEO.
“We are delighted to partner with RPR to protect access to its national property library and professional tool set,” said Gregg Larson, president and CEO of Clareity Security. “RPR made a wise decision to implement strong, proven security early in the product’s rollout to protect the vast information they have licensed from multiple sources, including that provided by MLS partners.”
Scout for SAFEMLS combines access intelligence and zero-footprint, strong authentication to accurately identify risks and cost-effectively mitigate them. The foundation of the solution is an identity-profiling engine for aggregating user access data, creating statisti cal profiles, and detecting anomalies. Powered by patent-pending keystroke dynamics, SAFEMLS is unrivaled in the ability to accurately and transparently identify users, detect account sharing, account takeover, and the differences between individual users.
About Clareity Security:
Clareity Security is the leading provider of security products and services for the real estate and mortgage industries. Clareity’s SAFEMLS® product suite helps MLS organizations and real estate professionals increase subscription revenue by easily and effectively safeguarding sensitive consumer information against unauthorized access via next generation strong authentication solutions for secured online transactions.. Clareity Security is headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona and has offices in Knoxville, TN and Lenexa, KS. Additional information is available at www.ClareitySecurity.com.
Contact:
Amy Geddes
EVP & COO
(480) 444-0014
eNeighborhoods releasing iPhone and iPad app.
Just caught this is my Google Reader today. Looks like eNeighborhoods is releasing an iPhone and iPad app dubbed “Neighborhood Envoy”. It’s available on the iTunes store today. I think it’s great to see eN rolling out new apps. Below are a few screen shots of the iPhone version.
I can’t really give a full review of the product (it requires a subscription to their eNeighborhoods NEXT product), so I’ll comment on what I can see here.
Somebody needs to tell eNeighborhoods to turn down the brightness of the colors they use. The color scheme looks like a circus tent.
The name of the app, “Neighborhood Envoy”. Doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. You would think they would leverage the whole Mexican/Spanish thing they have going on with “eNeighborhoods Mercado” and call the iPhone app something like “Neighborhood Amigo”.
But, in that case they wouldn’t be allowed to launch it in Arizona. ; )
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