myRealPage releases Listing Showcase : a flexible way to showcase your listings

I am very pleased about the addition of Listing Showcase, a new module to extend myRealPage listings product. Listing Showcase fits very well with other myRealPage Listings features, such as Pre-Defined Searches. Whereas Pre-Defined searches make your websites (even if your website is not with myRealPage) information-packed, Listing Showcase was created to make your listings look COOL!

We have created 3 different types of Listing Showcases for the first release: Multi-Listing Slideshow; Multi-Listing Band, and Featured Listing. See samples of these showcases at the end of the article.

Here are a few neat things about this feature:

• Each listing showcase can be configured with listings that are:
  • individually picked by you
  • are all your or your office listings
  • any of your predefined searches, or any Reciprocity listing by MLS®  number (the system will display the necessary listing broker/agent text and Reciprocity logo where needed; but you are responsible for disclaimers)  -- (So imagine now targetting a neighborhood in your city with a predefined search and displaying a running slideshow or a sliding band of the search results in prominent place on your website!)
• Each showcase has its own custom settings that allow you to fine tune its behavior; for example, Multi-Listing Slideshow can be configured to display more than 1 photo per listing in the slideshow
• Showcases allow you to fine tune, where appropriate, display settings, such as borders, colors, background, etc.
• Each showcase can be embedded into a 3rd party website (your WordPress blog, or another website that’s not with myRealPage) or into myRealPage website through the Listing Showcase weblet. The Listing Showcase weblet will allow you to override the width of the showcase to tightly fit it to the space into which you are inserting the showcase on myRealPage website.

Listing Showcase will now provide an excellent platform to add new showcase types so that your listings can look their best and get the attention you want them to get.

This feature is included free of charge with the regular Listings or Listings+Website subscription.  If you have ideas or suggestions on how to improve this feature or what other types of Listing Showcases to add, drop me a line at bill-<at>-myrealpage.com. You can also read the official release about Listing Showcase on myRealPage Blog.

Below are the Listing Showcase types released with the first version of this feature:

Multi-Listing Slideshow will take several listings and create a nice slideshow which includes pan-and-zoom (Ken Burns) effect. You can even specify how many photos per listings to use if you would like to showcase only a couple of listings. See the video below:

Multi-Listing Band is designed to create a slider like control with the listings’ arranged horizontally in a row; where the slider can scroll left and right.

Featured Listing is a familiar widget which simply creates a little listing presentation that can be conveniently placed on sidebars in websites.

MyRealPage launches Javascript Data API, pushes the platform to a new level

MyRealPage has released the first installment of its Javascript Data API. The API is designed to provide web designers and developers with richer tools to create dynamic and highly customized content on MyRealPage websites. 

As of this release, web designers and developers will be able to interact with MyRealPage Virtual Office Website (VOW) through the javascript calls. For example, it is now possible to signup and login a user into their VOW account; display their saved searches, favorite categories and listing email alerts, and more. It is also possible to obtain blog posts and listing information from the website owner account in order to create dynamic “feature” widgets.  These tools will make it possible to build widgets and user interface elements by 3rd parties using data from website owner’s services. Combined with MyRealPage Custom Template support, the API will also make it possible to incorporate dynamic data-driven elements inside static HTML.

Here is an example of how one would interact with MyRealPage Javascript API:

mrpapi.loadVowService( function() {

mrpapi.getCurrentVowProfile( function( profile ) {
displayProfileInfo( profile );
} );
});

function displayProfileInfo( profile )
{
...
}

[UPDATE] We have also included an easy to use Template support for javascript. It makes it possible to store small template files in MyRealPage WebDrive and retrieve them as needed and then merge them with javascript data. This makes it even easier for designers to separate the code from the presentation and have more control over the look and feel of the resulting web views.

The full documentation for the API is coming but if you would like to get a jump start, drop me a line to: bill-<at>-myrealpage.com

New Image Editor for MyRealPage Website and Listing Photos: fully integrated right inside your Private Office

Check out the new image editor which we have integrated for website and listing photos. It’s the work of the good folks at pixlr.com. The image editor is incredibly well written and sports functionality you would expect from a desktop software. It’s very fast and responsive and offers a lot of very advanced features. (For easy and fast cropping and resizing, you can continue to use our other built-in image editor).

DESIGNER COOLNESS ALERT :

What’s really cool about this editor is it can actually edit PSD files: yes, the Photoshop files (it also supports a PXD format which is its own slimmer and smaller version). We have also included support for the ability to upload and edit PSD and PXD files right from your WebDrive. As a designer, it may be possible for you to package a simple banner like file with just a few layers such as text and main graphic and let your client change the text as they see fit! The text layer can include built-in effects, such as shadow, inner glow, etc. Then, they can simply save it back to their MyRealPage WebDrive as a jpeg or png. Not bad for a banner editor out-of-the-box. Can you think of other uses? Let us know!

-- Brought to you by MyRealPage.com

A bunch of small cool features: Street View opt-out, Google Map fine-tuning, CoolIris all-out browsing

We have put together a few smaller features that we thought you may want to know about.

Google Street View Opt-out

We released Google Street View on Zero Day when it came to Canada. Today we added a little update to allow you to disable Street View either for all listings on your website or for an individual listing.  Google Street View car may have passed your listing when there was a construction or the view just isn’t right: now you can choose to disable it.

Google Map fine-tuning

MyRealPage applies a “best effort” technique to determine your listing’s location. Even so, sometimes, due to a rural address or some other circumstances, it may not be possible to accurately establish a listing’s location on Google Map. Sometimes, the location is half a block away from where it needs to be. Now, you can fine-tune your listing’s location yourself, without resorting to handling long decimal numbers for longitude and latitude. You can simply drag-and-drop a listing marker in an integrated Google Map in your Listing Editor in the Private Office:

CoolIris for Cool Browsing:

MyRealPage has also done some tweaks in its Listing RSS feeds. As a by-product of it, we now fully support CoolIris browser add-on. Why would you care? There may be an interesting way to use this feature. If you are a broker with a street-level windows or mall office, you may want to set up one or two TVs and showcase your office listings in your windows. It would be interesting to see if CoolIris could be suited for such a showcase. Check out the video below:

We hope you will enjoy these features.

-- Brought to you by MyRealPage.com

Google Street View comes to MyRealPage listings… automatically

Today Google launched Street View in Canada. Today we are also launching Google Street View for MyRealPage listings. All MyRealPage listings already get automatic mapping with Google Maps, Google Earth and WalkScore. Now, Google Street View is added to this list. Of note are the following points:

• Google Street View link will only show up if Street View is available for the area in which the listing is located
• Google Street View link will make the best effort mapping the property by going through several geomapping steps.
• Google Street View is automatically available in “My Listings”, Office Listings and Search Results, as well as in List views when the listing can be viewed on the map without navigating into Listing Details.
• Google Street View will benefit both customers who subscribe to Listings-only and to Listings+Website products

Hope you enjoy this new feature!

MyRealPage adds Virtual Tour links for your listings on MLS®

Some time ago, we have launched a Media Center for our listings that offered a compact and attractive way to showcase your listings: hi-res photos, videos, virtual tours, as well as Google Map, Google Earth and WalkScore. Now we are making it possible to link to this Listing Media Center on its own, without the rest of the details. Why would this be useful? This can serve now as an external Virtual Tour link which you can submit to your Real Estate board to be part of your listing’s information. You can use MyRealPage Private Office to “decorate” your listing with hi-res photos and videos and you may find that you don’t need to have external hosting for your virtual tours (which of course you may still do: the choice is yours).

This external Virtual Tour link can be generated in the “More…” tab in your Listing Editor, and you can even configure it to include the link to your main website and/or your contact details along with a contact form: please ensure though, that this abides by the rules of your Real Estate board as some disallow branding information in external virtual tour links.

 

Do you have ideas or suggestions? Send us an email to support-<at>-myrealpage.com or post your comments there.

Brought to you by MyRealPage.com

MyRealPage adds CoolIris to its Listing Photo Galleries

MyRealPage has added another great looking gallery to its array of Listing Galleries to provide the best possible showcase for your properties. This one is from CoolIris (http://cooliris.com). CoolIris is more than just an image gallery, it embraces an entirely new approach to browsing the web through rich media, such as images and movies. However, the component we used – the image gallery – is also very attractive and slick. The gallery below shows you a sample presentation in CoolIris of listing photos. (try dragging around and clicking in the gallery below)

You can choose CoolIris to be your default gallery through “Listing Options” under “Listings” tab in your Private Office. We hope you will enjoy this new addition to MyRealPage support for rich media in your listings: it’s available to everyone with Listings subscription.

Special thanks to Peter Colak of http://homesproperties.ca for seeding the idea to incorporate CoolIris into our galleries!

Have a comment or a suggestion? Drop us a line in the comments or at support-<at>-myrealpage.com.

--Brought to you by MyRealPage.com