Company News & Analysis category archives

Google takes a run at Facebook today by releasing their new platform boringly titled “Buzz” with an equally uncreative logo (the conversation bubble is so 2009). Not that it really matters. Google could announce they changed the brand of TP in the executive wash rooms and people would take notice. Google is hedging a bet [...]

Back on December 23, I wrote an article here on GeekEstate Blog about a Wordpress plugin that Diverse Solutions was developing that would allow IDX listings to be fully indexed by search engines.
Earlier this week, the plugin came out of beta testing and has been released for general availability.
Here is part of the Diverse Solutions [...]

Say hello to iPad. Today was the long awaited day that the Apple “tablet” device was unveiled. It’s being touted as magical and revolutionary. The jury is out on those statements but I have to say that with exception of one big glaring omission, I like it. It has the potential to be a bit [...]

Last night, Diverse Solutions announced their new plugin, dsIDXpress (currently in beta testing).
I’ve been fortunate to be an early tester of this plugin, and can sum its potential up in one word:
Awesome. Radical. Kick ass.
OK, that’s four words. Work with me…
What dsIDXpress does, in a nutshell, is create search engine indexable pages of listings. This [...]

At Pubcon Matt Cutts anounced that your site speed may become a search engine ranking factor in 2010.
Makes sense since good websites load quickly…and Google makes it’s money by placing good websites at the top of their search results.
Resources:

Video from Google on site speed
Google’s site speed tool and best practices

If I were Craig Newmark — the “Craig” in that little site known as CraigsList — I’d be looking over my shoulder with my eye on Seattle.
There lies the corporate home of Zillow, where they just rolled out the latest addition to the second most visited real estate web site on the planet (after PhoenixRealEstateGuy.com [...]

I first heard this rumor from an agent at NAR last week.  Check out the video below of Matt Cutts of Google talking about how they are seriously considering using site speed as one of the many factors in ranking a site. After listening to the video it does make sense. There’s nothing worse than [...]

The Google team has done it again with their Cities in 3d program. You can now take a “virtual tour” through the streets of Los Angeles, San Diego, or Washington, DC. Here’s a preview video showcasing Los Angeles:

WOW is all I have to say. Think this will change the future of how consumers search for [...]

For those who were using Walk Score’s real estate tile, you now have public transit data on your website (for the 40 cities covered) as a result of the addition of transit data to Walk Score.

You can learn more over on the Walk Score Blog.

Realtor.org released a new home page design this morning.
And unless you are a fan of circa 1990 web design, the change is long overdue.
Here is what it looked like yesterday:

Here’s what it looks like today:

Thoughts on the redesign
My initial thought was, “What’s up with the still ugly left side navigation?” Todd Carpenter, the NAR’s Social [...]

Google and Twitter has been big news across the blogosphere today… unfortunately it provokes a “meh” response from me. Why? Because a simple plugin for IE or Firefox called WebMynd (that has been around for quite a while) already did this and much much more.

Finally, Google’s Street View product comes to the streets of Canada. The other day Google added the streets of Canada to their street level photography project. You can see all of the cities/towns that have been included in their initial launch here. Interesting that Victoria BC has been left off the list. [...]