Listing Videos: They’re That Easy
Filed under: Conference & Expo, Marketing & Prospecting, Selling, Social Media, Technology
By Robert Freedman, Senior Editor, REALTOR® Magazine
Making informative and even entertaining videos of your listings seems like a complicated undertaking involving a professional camera, lights, editing equipment, and a lot of knowledge of how all that equipment works, but in fact you can be uploading videos tomorrow without too much trouble.
I’ll be talking about this at 1 p.m. today at the NAR Expo booth at the 2009 REALTORS® Conference & Expo in San Diego. Maybe you won’t be posting videos tomorrow when you’re back at the office but you’ll certainly see that it’s pretty easy to do. Read more
NAR’s IDX Rule Changes Need More Study
Filed under: Breaking News, Midyear Meeting, Technology
By Brian Summerfield, Online Editor, REALTOR® Magazine
The NAR Board of Directors voted Saturday to send two recommendations regarding acceptable use of IDX data back to the Multiple Listing Policy Committee because the committee is currently reviewing all IDX policies with an eye toward updating them. The action came at the board meeting that concluded the national association’s 2009 NAR Midyear Legislation Meetings & Trade Expo in Washington, D.C.
IDX, or Internet Data Exchange, refers to a system and process that allows multiple listing service participants to display each others’ property listings on their web sites.
The recommended changes to the IDX rules were as follows (underlined sections indicate proposed additions, strikeouts indicate proposed deletions): Read more
NAR Offers Details on Property Database
By Brian Summerfield, Online Editor, REALTOR® Magazine
The NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® plans to roll out an online database that it hopes will catalog comprehensive information on nearly 150 million residential and commercial properties nationwide. Read more
MLS Committee Approves Update to IDX Policy
By Laura Melcher, Manager, Editorial Development, REALTOR.org
The Multiple Listing Service (MLS) Committee on Thursday approved a decision to update the Internet Data Exchange (IDX) Policy to reflect the difference between site “scrapers,” which steal listing data with malicious intent, and site “indexers,” such as Google or Yahoo.
Social Media Tips from NAR’s Todd Carpenter
By Laura Melcher, Manager, Editorial Development, REALTOR.org
At today’s Communications Directors’ Networking Session, NAR Social Media Manager Todd Carpenter described a recent “blogostorm” in which he and other NAR staff entered an Agent Genius blog debate about rules prohibiiting “scraping” of MLS listings on the Web. The original blog posting, by Paula Henry (an Indianapolis REALTOR®), garnered hundreds of comments and generated rapid-fire debate about the distinction between search indexers, such as Google, and site “scrapers,” which steal data.
Todd presented the Agent Genius discussion thread as a great example of why being engaged in such a debate is vital to remaining relevant in the minds of the social-media savvy, an increasingly large group. In other words, participation in social media should not be seen as optional, either for associations, individual members, or their companies. As he said, a given debate is going to go on regardless of whether or not you are involved, so you might as well get involved and do so in a professional and productive way.
