Would make sense if they went after child pornography with the same vigor, but instead these a**h**s get twisted and go after harmless video sharing and music downloads, which ultimately harm no-one, except greedy, lazy execs at b**lsh*t record labels.
Oh well, happy (non)independence day everybody - EFF, time to get serious!
They've been working on it for a while, but it seems like the site is now up and running. When I spoke with Ed a few weeks ago to congratulate him on Nestoria's second anniversary, he said they were celebrating by 'working';
but it seems like the hard work is beginning to pay off as is evident from the traffic numbers:
Ed answered a few questions I had on nestoria.it this afternoon ...
1) What has been the greatest challenge so far in launching nestoria.it?
With any new market there's a lot to learn. The geography is a big issue for example, in London people want to live in certain postcodes, a concept that doesn't exist in Italy. Just like in the UK and Spain, we'll learn as we go.
2) Will Nestoria's Italian service differ in any way from your other European domains?
In terms of user functionality there are no differences. We offer the same interface and the same tools like RSS feeds and a Facebook app. Of course we have a lot of learning to do though about the specifics of how Italians want to search for property. We'll be doing a lot of fine tuning in the coming weeks and months.
3) How many listings does your Italian site have at the moment?
We've been very fortunate to partner with most of the biggest players, brands like Casa.it, Repubblica, Immobiliare, Trovocasa, and several others, and of course we hope the list will grow with time. Right now we have over 250,000 live listings. Unfortunately we have
to weed a lot out due to data quality issues. For comparison, when we launched in the UK we had only 40,000 listings.
4) Who do you currently see as competition in Italy?
Have you noticed any significant differences in the way property business is done in Italy versus the UK and Spain?
Italy is more similar to Spain (indeed several of the big players are in both markets) in that the same house is listed with several agents. The quality of the data isn't always great, particularly the geographic information, as agents are scared that another agent will steal the seller.
Regarding the competition, I think the list of names of our partners shows that we are focused on finding ways to work together with others, not searching for competitors. Two of our partners (casa.it and Idealista) are big in our existing markets - casa.it is owned by REA which also owns PropertyFinder in the UK, Idealista is one of the biggest players in Spain - which I think shows that our partners are keen to grow and expand with us.
We're always looking for more partners, anyone who's interested should please get in touch.
5) What next for Nestoria and when can we expect it?
We'll be launching Nestoria Deutschland - http://www.nestoria.de in the coming weeks. After that we need to learn from the users in the new markets (and keep learning in the UK and Spain). In terms of new features the focus remains the same as always - help people find their next home as easily as possible. We welcome all feedback on the newest addition to the Nestoria family. And of course, for the Italian speakers we have a blog - http://www.blog-nestoria.it where we'll be posting regularly with updates.
A few screen shots, but as the site is live, why not check it out ...
According to Crunchboard, Zoopla is looking for:a superstar Data Analyst to enhance that algorithm and improve our metrics and reporting. ... This is a great opportunity to get in early and make a difference at a company which we fully expect to be one of the great UK internet success stories. Zoopla recently won the First Tuesday award for the UK’s most promising internet company, and is backed by some very impressive investors.
Launched earlier this year, Zoopla! is already in the top 20 property websites in the UK according to the release.
Even celebrities and sports stars are feeling the impact of the credit crunch and housing slowdown and there's a long list of celebs currently touring the 'foreclosure circuit';
names such as Ed Machmon, Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson and Evander Hollyfield spring to mind. Madonna, 50 Cent, Wayne Rooney, Russell Simmons, all have houses on the market that have downvalued in the current economy.
However one celebrity - NBA baller - Shaquille O'Neal is doing things a little different by offering to buy mortgages of Orlando borrowers facing foreclosure."I want to come in not to kick them out, but to work with them and save them so they can stay in their homes," O'Neal reportedly told the Orlando Sentinel during an impromptu stop at Orlando City Hall.
Meanwhile, Shaq's lawyer admits he intends to make 'a small profit' from the program by buying foreclosure mortgages at high interest rates and selling them back to troubled homeowners at 'more affordable terms'. In the UK, this is called a sale and rent back scheme, which has come under heavy criticism from some aspects of the government and property commentators.
Shaq's program has also come under criticism, and although Shaq's colleagues describe him as 'a businessman with a conscience', he is first and foremost a businessman and businesses have to make money in some way in order help people. So, from a business perspective, here's the problem:
Shaq buys the mortgage from the homeowner facing foreclosure. Shaq becomes the bank. Shaq then refinances the mortgage at an affordable rate. ...
Now comes the other whammy. Home values are still down. So if Shaq has a lien on a property for $100,000, it may be worth only $80,000."Where's the security in that?" Hall asked. "Shaq's the one left holding the bag. He's basically taking a $100,000 investment for something that's only worth $80,000 out of the box. I don't know if it's a well-thought-out plan."
Ivalio Jordanov, founder of property search engine Zoomf, has launched a new service called 'Retaggr' and was this month's interviewee on the Nestoria blog.
According to the interview, Retaggr "enables active web users to link all their various online profiles into a single, always-updated, interactive business card that can be attached to virtually any type of content or interaction the user has on the web."
Mashable had some positive things to say about Retaggr a few weeks ago describing it as the "ultimate business card 2.0 for internet users" and the service also made the del.icio.us “what’s hot right now" front page.
Ivalio described the property search space as 'very competitive' and sees the main challenge for search engines as the competition for 'the attention of property hunters with players with significant advertising budgets':
If the state of the property market causes agents to cut their advertising budgets, it could have a negative effect on Nestoria’s revenues.
The freshness and relevancy of the results. Vertical search engines are dependent on the listings they get from other sites and often the quality of property listings is not great.
Carnival Podcast with Drew Meyres
A Carnival - defined as a period of public revelry involving processions, music, and dancing. So far this year, in the real estate world, it seems like most who work in this business have very little to revel about. Notwithstanding however, this past weekend represented the official start of summer, which of course is something to revel about, especially for those of us living in cold climates. So, in keeping with the carnival spirit and in celebration of summer, I'm proud to host CoRE 96, by theming the celebration with some of the most spectacular carnivals across the globe.
Probably the most famous carnival in the world, and although the country has problems, the people of Brazil sure know how to feel good about themselves, let their hair down and party, party party; they never seem to stop and they seem to have this uncanny ability not to let their problems get the best of them.In a perfect world, consumers (of any good or service) would get fantastic service all the time. Sometimes, it’s not until things get tough for the providers that the service gets attention. We’ve been living in a world where agents don’t need to answer that ringing mobile or upload a picture of that apartment, the property market’s been booming with sales practically completing themselves. If there’s ever been a time to start looking at customer service it’s now. With all the anxiety surrounding the market at the moment, people aren’t so quick to sign on the dotted line. Take it as an opportunity to shake up the way you deal with clients, be the estate agent who’s presence is felt on the internet through blog posts and twitter feeds rather than featuring in I hate X Agent forums. According to Plebble.com the organisation with the worst user ratings in this country is not BT, British Gas or the government, it’s an estate agency. Estate agents get a lot of unfair criticism, there are plenty of agents who work very hard to build a positive brand, but there’s also plenty of rotten eggs which taint the industry’s image as a whole. If you’re an offender, do your clients and your business a favour by addressing the issue of customer service, and then let satisfied customers do your advertising for you.
Probably the most mysterious carnival celebration in the world, the Venice carnival is famous for the use of masks and masquerades. So in keeping with the masquerading spirit of the Venetian carnival, I'd like to present the Venetian Masquerading Award to Ray at Money Blue Book. Ray's article outlined his list of the Top 5 Most Overrated Careers and Jobs and most naturally, being a real estate agent came in at position two, right after lawyers who unsurprisingly claimed the number one spot. Ray felt that the ease and simplicity of entering the real estate field is one of the key causes of the real estate profession’s current decline and by extension the housing bubble:Because it’s so easy to become a certified real estate agent, the barriers to entry are very low. As a result, real estate agents are everywhere and there is not enough real estate business to go around. Especially in this real estate downturn, agents are finding themselves faced with dwindling business opportunities and diminishing commission fees. Furthermore, with the growth of online housing listing sites like Zillow and Yahoo Real Estate, and the surging popularity of do it yourself resources, the importance of having a real estate agent will continue to decline and gradually phase out. With the growth of online real estate blogs and finance sites, it’s getting much easier for ordinary people to buy and sell their own house or property without the assistance of a professional real estate agent.
Mardi Gras (or "Fat Tuesday") carnivals take place all over the world, but none more famous than the Mardi Gras celebration in the city of New Orleans. Especially since Hurricane Katrina, when the city was practically destroyed, New Orleanians got together in 2006 to prove to the world that the city was still alive and kicking. It's with that spirit in mind that we would like to present the New Orleans Mardi Gras Resilience Award to Everything Finance, who submitted sound advice in their Foreclosure Solutions post, highlighting two simple things you can do to stop the proceedings and save your home from foreclosure.
Congratulations to Gary Stewart, outspoken CEO of Migoa, the company behind Nuroa.com who crawl the web for Spanish and German property.
Migoa announced this afternoon that they have raised in excess €1,000,000 in VC funding from Higrowth Partners. Prior to this current round, Migoa had already raised over €1 million from "various business angels and government sources" including Dennis Bemmann, founder and CTO of StudiVZ, a German social network that currently has over 6 millions users and Spanish entrepreneur, Albert Armengol, founder of business social networking site, eConozco.
Migoa has also received non-recourse funding support from Spanish and Catalan agencies that support innovative start-ups.:
"migoa is without a doubt one of Spain's most promising start-ups with an exciting technology and an impressive team. That's why we have chosen it as our first investment in 2008." according to Ferran Lemus, managing director of Highgrowth Partners.Launched in October 2007, Nuroa currently aggregates property ads in Spain and Germany and at present claims very near 1,800,000 listings. Like most vertical aggregates nuroa does not charge agents to list, and offers users the option to see all available property ads on one site. Migoa has been consistently regarded as one of Europe's most innovative companies in conferences such as Innovate Europe, Red Herring and Essential Web. The team's 18 employees hail from 11 different countries and currently work out of sunny Barcelona.
Don't know if it's true, maybe the guy had a meltdown or something ... 
The original comment is missing, but R&M has the screenshot
Why is it that all these property search engines gotta have such weird ass names, nestoria, trulia, zoomf, zillow, globrix, the list goes on and on; and now we can add a new name to the list ... Hacienda.
Well at least the word hacienda means something, unlike most or all the others. The Oxford dictionary defines 'hacienda' as a "large estate with a house", originating from the Latin word 'facienda' which supposedly means ‘things to be done’. I guess if you have a large estate with a house a lot of things need to be done - hence the connection.
Anyway Hacienda apparently solicit listings direct from agents by traveling 'extensively' around the UK meeting agents, "listening and learning from them"; how sweet, but lets hope they don't run into this guy; seems like the credit crunch is taking a serious bite out of some people.
Unfortunately however Hacienda doesn't seem to offer anything that makes it stand out from the crowd and they're getting into the market at a really bad time. And unless somebody's got a proven track record, or seriously deep pockets, it's doubtful they're going to make it through this downturn, since the consensus now seems to be that we got at least another 18 months to go before anything changes, for the better or the worse, we still don't know.
The luxury, business class airline has ceased trading effective this morning. Industry analysts cite high oil prices as one reason they went bust. More worrying however is that they were supposed have raised funding from Viceroy a mysterious Dubai based VC, who were unable to deliver a $5 million loan promised to the airline earlier this year. A $5 million loan? Unable to deliver? A Dubai company? Very Very worrying.
At least that seems to be the case for Redfin the online agent from Seattle.
The National Association of Realtors (NAR) announced yesterday a settlement in the antitrust case with the Department of Justice, giving online agents access to the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) database of property listings. In the US and Canada, MLS listings are the most comprehensive listings of homes are available for sale and until today the NAR was restricting information available to online brokers and agents.
Inman predicts the long awaited "floodgates to industry innovation" are about to open up with this announcement.
Popular overseas blog Nubricks.com recently announced a new advertising platform dubbed "Launch Newswire" which includes an "unlimited usage" package costing £500/year. Nubricks claims to have over 60,000 unique visitors per month and 12,000 subscribers to its email blast newsletters. They've also recently launched "Property Ladder", a free weekend service where users can showcase overseas property for free, subject to editorial discretion.
