So one thing that I can't quite understand is why realtors have the worst of resources for their MLS solution. If you look around on the web today, there are so many web sites related to real estate. Moreover, the ease of use of these free web sites blowes away any MLS site that I've ever seen. Realtor.com or the Rapattoni web interface all just are really lacking. With the amount of money that goes into real estate, compared to the money that is funneled through these free web sites, you might expect that the Realtor's would come up with something better.
Here's what is even worse, Rapattoni has just come out with their next generation web interface, Version 10!!! You would think that many of the problems that existed in the last version would be resolved.. Nope, not one of the fundimental short-commings of that software have been addressed. Lets take a look and see:
1) The first and most glaring example of lazy software development is the fact that they continue to exclude any browser other than Internet Explorer. Hello! not the whole world uses IE. Yes, I will agree that Internet Explorer is a great program, but there are many reasons why someone would opt for a different browser or be forced into useing a different browser.
a) I'm using a Mac, or linux, or BSD computer and IE is not available to me.
b) I don't like Microsoft and want to use Firefox
c) I like some other browser better
d) I'm using an old computer and it does not have (or cannot run) the latest version of IE
what ever the reason is, or might be in the future, there is just no reason to lock ones self into a particular browser.
Rapattoni, says that their solution is workable since only the realtors are required to have IE. The public access and web pointers sent to client are said to workable on other browsers: This is crap since not all realtors use Windows. Further the problem gets worse for their new version of the software. None of the maps are viewable with browsers other IE. That means when a Realtor sends a link to a listing to one if his clients, unless the client is using IE, they will not be able to see its map. I wonder if there are other features that I don't know about, but probably.
Making this work on other browsers, is probably not so difficult, especially, since they went through all of that trouble to redesign the whole thing anyway. It certainly would involve their software developers to ramp up on a new software development package, but come on, this is not that big of a deal.
No doubt the decision was made because they got sold on this microsoft crap and did not even consider the end product or look at alternate solutions.
Their (lame) alternate solution for those who do not use IE is to provide a Citrix Server running their software. This means that everyone who uses a Mac, must log on to Rapattoni's slow servers access MLS there. Thus they must endure other realtors sharing the same compute resource as well as network delays and degraded user interface since high res display would make the network delay untenable. Yuck!
a) Its Slow. you are at the mercy of all the others using the machine and maintenance schedules of their servers
b) you need to do many more clicks just to get the thing up and running, this is critical when you have a client that walks into your office and asks you to see a listing at 123 anderson st.
c) you can't print anything unless you save it to your desktop first. doh.. what a pain.
d) while you can cut and past between other apps, it does not work easily or completely i.e. you couldn't copy a jpeg image or the like.
e) I also suspect the security of such a system since it is always asking you "do you want this other computer to write to your hard drive"
f) I'm sure I could think of a few more if I really wanted to spend the time on this. Lets just say that this is not a real solution to the problem.
2) OK lets get off the IE issue we've beaten it to death. Maps, well Rappittoni's new version does have a mapping feature that allows you to map several properties at once, but come on, hasn't the news gotten out yet that we all like Google's mapping interface a lot better? you can't drag the map around like you can w/ Google Maps. We all stopped using mapquest a couple of years ago.
Further, think of the possibilites, with Google Virtual Earth, (I know microsoft has this too, but google is more open) If Rapattoni used this interface Realtors could load 3d images of the property and provide REAL virtual tours. That's not going to happen anytime soon with rappittoni.
3) The user interface sucks too. Even the new version is crappy. I have this pet peeve about when software companies put a new look on their website or software and don't change any of the fundamental operation of how it works. All of the operations still take too many "clicks" to effect any operations. Going to the contacts and the looking at the automated property searches is a pain. Click the dropdown menu, then go to a page to select which client search you want to review. why can't I just goto a drop down menu of all of my clients? At the very least have a form to search for a client name.
4) Non necessary features, why is there a separate back and forward button, Isn't there one on the browser itself? What's all this stuff about having a task list and date book and contact list. There are great APIs for real PIM software that web applications could hook into, let others do it.. Why did they spend so much effort making their web application something it is not. If they spent half the effort partnering with and researching interfaces with other software, they'd have greatly imporved their results (even better they could have spent that energy on making it work on firefox).
Wouldn't it be cool be able to import from your PIM software clients and then organize them in order of what they are looking for or by likelyhood of them buying etc. Wouldn't it be cool if this web site were able to interface a generic Calander program with your listing escrow so for example it might propmt you for contingency and closing dates and would push them to your calander program.
I must admit there are a few neat features in the rappittoni software, but in all I'd give it low grades because it failed to provide a workable solution for everyone. As the resoruces available to the public become more and more accessable, it is important for Realtors to have the very best in technology in order to maintain our usefullness.
As Realtors, we have only 3 things that allow us to earn our pay:
1) expertese in facilitating deals
2) access to information
3) access to tools
as number 2 and 3 above are eroded away, we have less means to provide our clients the service they expect.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I'm a programmer working on a next generation real estate website system. Two of the associations I work with are switching to Rapattoni. One did late last year and the other is coming up this year.
As far as technology is concerned they are totally incompetent. The data feed they provide regularly is updated late, or fields mysteriously change names or disappear. The last straw was last month they added a property description field. Their data format is standard csv with double-quoted fields. Things worked smoothly up until that point because no field contained a double-quote in the data itself. However with descriptions supplied by realtors this obviously changed.
The standard technical solution for the past 50 years is to escape the character out so that it can be read. In fact that's what Microsoft Excel does and every other program that deals with CSV data.
However when I approached them about solving the problem, their response was to completely change the format to use unquoted fields with vertical bar separators. Which A) costs the association members untold amounts in lost business as all their systems have to be retooled needlessly B) is theoretically more broken even if it sort of covers up the problem for a while and C) leaves the data totally open to corruption. Any realtor can corrupt the data stream and add bogus information, possibly overwriting other realtors data maliciously.
Their response to this is "no one else has complained. call us if there's a problem". I wrote them a long email about demonstrating technical competence, and here we are a month later and no response.
So is it any wonder their interfaces aren't great? They don't care the first thing about inflicting pain and lost opportunity cost by making numbskull changes on a whim that affect hundreds of downstream users. Data integrity means nothing to them. They are fundamentally and totally technically incompetent.
Rapattoni is just waiting for a company to come along and snap up all their customers. Fighting against this kind of willful ignorance when I'm trying to create technical excellence is exhausting. As my company grows I will definitely be reaching out to all realtors and association I come in contact with to seek alternatives. I know the situation isn't much better with other providers, but with the amount of money in real estate, this situation is indeed ridiculous and I don't see how it can last.
Count me in. I am a network and systems manager for a small, family operated brokerage. I convinced them to switch over to linux-based systems shortly before Rappatoni announced this half-baked abortion. At least Internet Explorer isn't quite as large a security risk running under Wine as it is running on Windows.
The real problem is that the NAR is bad for business. Unless you are a member, you are operating at a huge disadvantage. But, because everyone is a member and tied to the same service, no real competition is viable, and companies who serve local boards can deliver these poor excuses for databases and demand a fortune.
If a broker dropped their NAR membership, they could pressure Realtors to fulfill their responsibility to represent the property to all potential buyers. Make it difficult to remain a Realtor, and perhaps some real competition, (and the innovation it spawns) will emerge.
Post a Comment