A Fuller View gets Blogged – rates 8 out of 10, nice

Just back from an awesome holiday in sunny Cornwall (yes it really was sunny!) and was happily surprise to see that good folks over at Blogged have rated A Fuller View. I got an 8 out 10 in the Technology/Internet category which seems pretty fair…

Blogged is new to me - it is a blog rating, search engine and directory site. I am guessing they are also moving into Technorati’s turf… It has a great look and feel and is easy to use. Here’s how they describe the site:

Blogged.com is about discovering what the best bloggers are blogging about right now, and about finding the blogs that will interest you the most. Blogged is updated throughout the day to bring you the latest and most interesting posts from our index of more than one million blogs.

Blogged.com is a place for both readers and bloggers.

For readers we provide tools to read the latest postings on topics that interest them, to discover and explore new blogs, and to communicate with blog authors.

The blogs in our database are reviewed, rated, and categorized by editors, so you won’t experience the frustration of filtering through blogs that are spam, outdated, or irrelevant. You’ll be able to find quality blogs that you would be unlikely to have found through a traditional blog search. We also offer time-based searching, bookmarking, sharing, and feedback functions. Anyone can review and rate a blog and help it rise in the rankings.

Blogged is a great place to start your day! You’ve already heard what the mainstream media has had to say, now see what top bloggers think.

For blog authors Blogged can provide fresh insight into how their site is perceived. With easy access to reader comments and ratings, authors can see opinions, suggestions, praises and criticisms. By being listed on Blogged, authors may increase the number of visitors to their blogs.

Globrix.com using car advertising

We saw this car on Parsons Green in west London last week – the Globrix Car. Pretty good way to advertise. We’d like to know if this a one off or are their a fleet of these cars? Nice to see its a small economical and probably pretty ‘green’ car.

Over on AdViking

So from now on the majority of my online advertising and search related posts will be over on AdViking. The focus of AFullerView will narrow or perhaps widen to Web 2.0, local search, green issues, science and whatever else inspire me to post (ie – random stuff, funny things etc). Here the latest posts on AdViking:

• Another Reason Why Brand Ads Matter Online
• Glassdoor.com: Proof for Niche Verticals or Bubble 2.0?
• Is Microsoft Becoming More Aware of Publisher Conflict?

 

Globrix adds New Feature

Globrix has added the MyGlobrix feature to the site:

This allows you to register and save your property searches, and allows us to deliver regular updates to you via email should any new properties come onto Globrix that match your needs.  We now have over 700k properties, and our search engine updates regularly through every day finding new properties that could match your criteria.

Globrix are also reporting they have more than 700,000 listings on the site. Pretty impressive. I’ll have to visit the site and report back with an update review. I am curious to see how the various property sites fair in a economic and real estate down turn…

Vertical Ad Network + Vertical Search = More$

I’ve been reading a series of interview posts with vertical Travel Ad Network CEO Cree Lawson on Sramana Mitra’s blog (part 1, part 2 & part 3) and this got me thinking about vertical search + vertical ad networks (see RWW or my link here). Even in a downward economic cycle I can see many lucrative online verticals. Take vertical serach and ad networks, plus good domain development, plus open source web 2.0 tools and micro-publishing online in general  – add all this up and you’re got a powerful  recipe for success… I guess it might be time to start that side “viking” project in all my spare time.

Beyond Vertical Search – great post on RWW

Just a link this very insighful post – Beyond Vertical Search to Business Networks – on RWW. I wll digest this and then add some thoughts at a later date. I see lots of opps in the vertical search space that potential tie into the beach gig of the future…

Property Site News from the US – new real estate site Roost, Move stock

There are so many property sites in the US and the UK. I’ve got to think this is a very tough year to be launching such a new serivce – ie, in a falling property market (at least falling in the US and the UK). Anyway, Roost has just launched in the US. There has also been a significant move down for Move.com’s stock – this site would make a great addition to one of the bigger search players. Note to GYM: someone should buy Move.com is a great site, with nice search and an excellent management team out in SoCal.

UK Property Site Traffic Comparison

After reading about the recent moves (or see below) in the US property site space I went over to Compete.com to compare some of the UK property sites.

Rightmove and Primelocation appear to be battling it out as the 2 big UK players. While start-up Globrix has quickly gained on Zoomf another start-up in this vertical – both of these I’ve written about before (see Zoomf Facebook post or Globrix investment post for more on these 2) . Note: this is only based on the sample size from Compete, but I would guess it gives a reasonable view.

Rightmove vs. Primelocation (Jan ‘08):

Globrix vs. Zoomf (Jan ‘08):

Follow-up Note: Here is an excellent comparison of all the UK property portals:

http://www.estateagencynews.co.uk/north_articles/bnorth0807.asp

And this from Primelocation:

What this [the comparison on estateagencynews] doesn’t tell you is the change in market share. Although we are clearly second place to Rightmove, Primelocation was the only portal to gain market share during 2007 which we primarily attribute to our television advertising campaigns (according to Hitwise).

Moves in the US Property Vertical

A bunch of interesting moves in the property space in the US:

• Trulia Releases Free Publisher Platform (Greg Sterling) – looks like a powerful set of funtionality for publishers.
• Zillow Adds 10 Million Homes, Adopts Real Estate Data Standard With Yahoo and Trulia (Tech Crunch) – the standard is interesting, need to see if there is a similar effort here in the UK. Also check the chart below on how Zillow & Trulia are taking market share from Realtor.com (owned by Move).

Press Release: Globrix BETA site goes live

I got this via email today… So, simply here is the complete PR:

Next generation property search engine offers new free promotional opportunities for agents; site launch backed up by massive national advertising campaign in Jan 2008

Next generation property search engine Globrix (www.globrix.com) launches its BETA test site today, offering estate agents across the UK a way of breaking free from the conventions of traditional online listings sites. Globrix will enable agents to include their properties on the site automatically and for free, meaning they can promote the properties on their websites to a national audience without the costs and hassle traditionally associated with online listings.

Globrix will take a new approach to property search. Rather than charging agents to list properties on a centralised site, Globrix works like an internet search engine such as Google, automatically indexing the properties on agents’ websites in a searchable database. When a user searches on Globrix they are delivered links to relevant properties on the estate agent’s original site. In this way Globrix can deliver estate agents valuable web traffic direct to the properties on their website easily and for free.

Globrix is also bringing a new user experience to the property search market. Whilst traditional property listings sites have offered the ability to search by area, price and number of bedrooms, Globrix gives users a massive flexibility in the way they search:

• Price – rather than specifying a price bracket and being restricted by that throughout their search journey, Globrix users specify their price bracket using an intuitive slider control.
• Mapping – As well as searching via a traditional search results list, users can also view and search for properties matching their criteria on a map, meaning they can look for matching properties outside of their core search area.
• Filters – Once the initial set of search results has been delivered, users can filter the list of properties they’re looking at by a broad range of criteria such as property type (e.g. house, flat, maisonette etc), number of bathrooms and bedrooms, outside space (garden, roof terrace, balcony etc), keywords (Victorian, conservatory, wooden floors etc), stations (train and tube) or tenure (freehold or leasehold)

In addition to the free listing available on the site, Globrix is also offering a limited range of paid advertising opportunities for agents on the site. Agents can purchase location keywords, for example to secure a ‘Property of the Week’ slot for a particular area or a ‘featured agent’ banner. The site will also carry limited banner and contextual advertising for related property services such as mortgages, insurance, home decor, and retail. The limited advertising inventory has been designed to give maximum exposure to advertisers with minimal disruption to the ease of use of the website. Further value will be delivered to agents through the regular publication of a wide range of statistics around user’s search behaviour, showing how house hunters are using the site.

The site is launching in Beta today and properties are being added every day with near-total UK coverage expected by early 2008. Backed by national media group News International (who own The Times, The Sunday Times, The Londonpaper, News of the World, The Sun and their associated websites), the site will benefit from a massive UK marketing and advertising campaign intended to take Globrix into the top tier of property websites by number of users within months.

Agents can be automatically listed on the site using Globrix’s web search technology, however, the site also welcomes data feeds from agents in a broad range of formats (Rightmove format, xml, RSS, webservices etc.) Agents interested in being listed on the site or in buying advertising should contact sales@globrix.com.

Daniel Lee, CEO of Globrix, said: “On the rest of the internet it is free to include your website on a search engine so why should property sites pay for the privilege?

“We’re looking to create a service that offers the best to both agents and consumers. For agents we’re offering free inclusion and links directly back to their websites, for consumers we’re offering an impartial search service backed up by an easy-to-use interface and cutting edge search technology.

”With the backing of a partner like News International we’ve got access to the resources and expertise to build a significant audience in a short period of time. We want to work with agents to develop Globrix as a resource for them to access this audience in the most effective way they can.”

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