Michael Wurzer Yesterday, in writing about Google’s recent OpenSocial announcement, Brian Boero of a 1000 Watt Blog gave a hat tip to the FBS Blog for previously writing about the possibilities for the MLS in this web world. Jessica Swesey from Inman Blog then highlighted the key quote from Brian’s post:
But what if NAR ceased conjuring a fantastical “gateway†that will take years to build and created a series of APIs — children of RETS, if you will – that enabled vendors and MLS organizations themselves to inject simple applications into Web-based MLS systems?
Rather than drawing yet another circle around the outside of the listings world, why not create new pathways into it and let a thousand flowers bloom, as they say?
All I can say is, “Amen, brother!” This is the idea I was writing about in Allowing The Outside Web To Come In and Is Facebook Today’s MLS Book or Are MLSs Tomorrow’s Facebook?. It’s very exciting to see someone else riff on the same idea, so thanks to Brian and Jessica for writing about this.
I’ve got a lot more to say about OpenSocial and how it might benefit MLSs, but, at the moment, I’m bogged down in preparing for the NAR convention in Las Vegas next week and in calming many of our clients following our release last Thursday. On that last point, though I know it won’t make learning the new interface any easier, this post can serve as a beacon or search light for those wondering why we changed what many thought was a perfectly good system. The reason is here, in these ideas the web is bringing us all. There are new horizons erupting everywhere and we at FBS are doing our best to help our clients find their horizon. There’s clearly pain in this change process and we’ve already learned ways in which we can do better and we’re acting on them, but it’s worth pausing to note that there are reasons for change and that the future remains bright if we embrace the possibilities.