Yes, I admit, I am obsessed with listing syndication. I want our clients’ listings distributed, picked up, mashed up, re-distributed. I would also like to see how distributed data travels on the internet. Maybe a tracking code attached to the permalink by the nodes (websites, mashup sites) as it gets re-distributed?
Online listing marketing has two primary goals:
- Provide information and visualization to help the buyers’ decision-making process and therefore save time for and increase productivity of all parties involved
- Reach as many potential customers as possible. Online listing syndication is the most effective way of achieving exponential exposure if done right
We at RealBird started an experiment
earlier this week. This is not yet a production feature, no alpha, beta
etc. but rather a core experiment. We bookmarked some RealBird listings with
del.ico.us, Yahoo’s social bookmarking service. Since RealBird Publisher already supports tagging for RSS syndication of real estate listings, we reused those tags with del.icio.us
Why is it a good idea?
The concept is the following: Using del.icio.us as a database and
their tagging infrastructure as an associative organizer and query tool, we achieve
the following:
- Listings published via RealBird get more exposure as del.icio.us
bookmarks tend to get indexed effectively by search engines (I’ll post
details on this once the GetClicky service starts reporting on it) - User generated data can be attached to listings by other del.icio.us users enabling better discovery and
categorization. - Using the open API of del.icio.us enables additional mashup applications, hence pushing the listing information to new nodes on the
internet and potentially extend the reach. - The associative search capability of del.icio.us with tags and
related tags creates a new search interface. It is not yet proven that
this is a valuable interface for real estate searches, but it is certainly a new one with potentials.
Click here to experiment with this interface
Why is this not spamming?
One may argue that using del.ici.us for search engine marketing is actually “spamming” search engines. This is true: 1) if the sole purpose is such 2) if there is no value-add generated by this process. In our case I believe both of them are false. A potential, positive search engine result is a byproduct of this integration. The main goal of this experiment is to use the del.icio.us platform as an open database for real estate listings with it’s social capabilities. Furthermore, value-add is clearly created by letting 3rd party, user generated data (tags and notes) attached to the RealBird listings, hence creating an enhanced dataset. In other words, both the real estate data get extended by user generated content, both a new data query interface is introduced via associated tags generated by the data “owner” (real estate agent) and the public.
How to participate?
To participate in this experiment with your listing, all you have to do is post it via the RealBird Publisher listing marketing tool.
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