Contact: Stephen Schweickart / Realty Video USA / 866.720.0204 / Stephen@RealtyVideoUSA.com LeadingRE Launches Cutting-Edge Video Program Video content tool helps LeadingREs 700 firms tap into the power of Internet Video CHICAGO (10/09/08) Enabling their members to take advantage of the rapidly growing trend in real estate video, Leading Real Estate Companies of the World® (LeadingRE), a global real estate network, has named Realty Video USA™ as its newest vendor associate for its Leading Real Estate Solutions™ division, which endorses leading edge real estate products and services for the networks 700 member firms. Realty Video USA™ has just released a turnkey [...]

“Evolution from Talk to Text” read the headline today in the New York Times today. Yesterday there was an announcement on TechCrunch about Verizon raising their SMS fees 15% According to Nielsen Mobile, the typical subscriber sent or received 357 text messages compared to 204 phone calls. Here are some more Nielson Stats from Q2, 2008: 43 Million US mobile subscribers use mobile internet 33 Million receive text alerts 32 Million use instant messaging 4 Million subscriber to mobile video   CALL TO ACTION Mobile Search in real estate is lagging behind consumer demand…..again. MLS and Brokers should strongly consider [...]

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct 10, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) - Trulia.com, the best place to start a real estate search, has created a new business development group to form partnerships with Multiple Listing Service (MLS) providers. The move is in response to growing interest from MLSs and the Association of REALTORS® who want to ensure their members’ listings are available and accurately represented to consumers searching for real estate online. Trulia offers MLSs and associations several unique marketing and educational benefits, including: - Syndication of listings to Trulia.com, with 5 million unique monthly users and 250% annual traffic growth, at no cost [...]

I would like to congratulate WAV Group partner Marilyn Wilson for being selected as one of the top 50 women in real estate.  Her thought leadership and work ethic make for an enormous contribution to the WAV Group and thier clients.   Thanks to the ActiveRain and Steven Swanepoel for producting the list of the Top 100 Most Influential Women in leadership roles in the Real Estate Industry. Congratulations to all of the winners - click more to see the list! Adorna Carroll Amy Chorew Andy Capelluto Ann Bailey Ann Defries Anne Randolph Avis Wukasch Barb Schwarz Barbara Corcoran Bernice [...]

SIMI VALLEY, Calif., September 26, 2008 - Rapattoni Corporation announced today that it will implement advanced technology from RSA to enhance the fraud detection capabilities of Rapattoni Secure Logon and to make the security experience more convenient for its users. Based on PassMark device identification technology, which provides the “know your customer” rule used in online banking, this technology offers customers even more security assurance than traditional hardware tokens. RSA® Adaptive Authentication is an intelligent system that authenticates users by monitoring a series of risk indicators in real-time. This transparent authentication provides a superior user experience as agents are only [...]

Although no information is being reported on Pacific Union, Koneng and Strey and other company owned offices - much of the empire has been sold. NEW YORK (Associated Press) - A unit of Brookfield Asset Management Inc. said Tuesday it is buying the real estate arm of GMAC Financial Services for undisclosed terms. The Toronto-based asset manager’s Brookfield Residential Property Services will buy GMAC Home Services LLC from GMAC Residential Holding Company LLC and Residential Capital LLC. The deal includes GMAC Real Estate, which has about 80 company-owned real estate offices and about 1,000 franchised offices nationwide, and GMAC Home [...]

Social Networking is entering the real estate market place casually.  It seems that for many agents and brokers, participating in these networks is “nice to have” not “have to have."  It is understandable.  Aside from a few dozen isolated examples, social networking has not generated much new business for real estate practitioners. Today I learned about a new social network titled blip.fm.  It allows people to become DJs, sharing music favorites online.  To get started you simply create a user name and enter in your email address.  Pick a few bands or songs that you like, and blip.fm will instantly [...]

New online tool is a huge success so far with Connecticut agents and their buyers and sellers. Listingbook™ announced today that it has launched its system in Connecticut, with the Greater Fairfield County Consolidated MLS (GFC CMLS), expanding the ever growing footprint of Listingbook deployed across the nation’s leading MLSs.  Listingbook is a freeimum service - free to the MLS and members for baseline VOW services, and a small fee is charged to agents who upgrade to the premium service product (includes branding, preimum website, enhanced CMA and reporting). The addition brings more than 8,000 REALTORS® to the companys agent [...]

Hyper-V and Melio clustered file system enable real time infrastructure for the largest Multiple Listing Service in New England. Sanbolic announced that MLS Property Information Network, Inc.(MLSPIN) has deployed Melio clustered file system in conjunction with Microsoft Hyper-V for their new data center. By allowing virtual servers running as file and web servers to concurrently access shared data on SAN storage, Melio FS enables the data center to dynamically respond to changes in web traffic. MLSPIN is the largest MLS in New England and one of the top ten in the nation. It provides service to more than 30,000 real [...]