“The first place to start is with the accounting for consumer spending data. There is no reason whatsoever that America should be hamstrung by the outdated and often incomplete consumer spending data collected by the Census Bureau and released 30 days after the fact—not when we can get more accurate data almost instantly.”

• Developers were pleased to learn Google offered up Javascript tools that will allow app development with Google’s code  (via ReadWriteWeb):

“Why is Google doing this? Because the more powerful web applications become, the more important Google’s search, browser and nascent OS become. More relevant to developers than some grand anti-Microsoft conspiracy, though, is that some serious UI sweetness may be forthcoming.”

• Our client Listingbook introduced their web overhaul (via RISMedia):

“The overhaul affected the public portal pages and there are no changes to the private portal. One of the biggest challenges the company says it faces is also one of their greatest attributes. ‘Our system is so deep and rich, full of valuable tools and powerful data,’ says Michael Ondrejko, the company’s senior vice president of Operations.”

• The Better Homes and Gardens iPhone app made a splash in the RE technology community (via Inman):

“Jeff Turner, president of Zeek Interactive and founder of virtual tour provider RealEstateShows.com, said in a blog post that the app is ’solely focused on consumer benefit’ with no obvious attempts to direct users to a real estate agent or away from the home they are interested in.”

Licensing Deal Helps Real Estate Brand to Better Meet Home Buyers’ Needs

NEW YORK, November 4, 2009 — Onboard Informatics, the premier data services and technology company for top-tier organizations in real estate, media and technology, is the provider of robust community information for a new iPhone application, Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate Home Selection Assistant.   

Onboard’s unique products and services help strengthen broker and consumer relationships, streamline the information gathering process, and better enable real estate buyers and sellers to make informed decisions.  As with many Onboard clients,  Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate is using these highly regarded products to provide home buying consumers and real estate agents with the vital community and school information they desire  all from one source.

This new iPhone application ensures that homebuyers now have on-the-go access to  community populations, average income levels, housing trends, education and school information, crime statistics, localized weather, church locations, recreational amenities, recent home sales, nearby restaurants, and more.  

Now, a buyer can stand on the sidewalk outside of any home and immediately figure out, not only if the schools are within walking distance, but also receive the closest locations of the grocery store, bank and park.    

“Onboard is delighted to bring its services directly to the end consumer through this accessible and useful iPhone application,” said Marc Siden, CEO of Onboard. “Our content has consistently been a natural fit with the Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate brand, which is focused on consumers’ lifestyles.  This new application is just one more step in our continuing effort to partner with clients and respond to specific consumer needs through carefully designed and flexible programs.”

The Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate iPhone app exemplifies the versatility of Onboard’s products and opens up  new areas of potential growth for both companies.      

“We sought to provide homebuyers across the country with an application that could seamlessly fit into their home buying process and provide them with the tools they need to make the research-to-purchase process simpler,” said Sherry Chris, president and CEO of Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate. “We are confident Onboard’s exclusive community information will help us to achieve this strategy.”

The Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate iPhone application, Home Selection Assistant, is available for free on www.bhgrealestate.com/iphone.

Below are a few screenshots of the iphone app

About Onboard Informatics

Since 2001, Onboard Informatics has provided comprehensive local, regional and national real estate data solutions, powerful web tools and web services to some of the most innovative companies in the real estate, media and technology industries.  Onboard combines its expertise in data aggregation, standardization, and integration with expert consulting, transforming the complexity of data into meaningful solutions to support their clients in achieving business objectives.  Privately held since its founding, Onboard is located in the heart of the world’s financial center in the Wall Street area of New York City.  For more information about Onboard Informatics, or to request a demo, visit http://onboardinformatics.com/. 

About Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate

Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate is a residential real estate company with a growing network of local brokerage offices.  Its real estate agents and brokers offer professional, knowledgeable advice and services for home buyers and sellers.  The company’s Web site offers real estate search, including MLS listings for selected locations.  You can also find in-depth articles about buying, selling and owning real estate at http://www.bhgrealestate.com/.  

• AdMob releases their annual Mobile Metrics Report, profiling mobile use and the shift toward Smartphones:

“Among the devices making the heaviest use of the mobile web are the iPhone and its non-smartphone counterpart, the iPod Touch. The data traffic created by these two handhelds has increased 19 times from September 2008 to this past month and now accounts for 43% of all smartphone requests worldwide.”

• Google shakes the GPS navigation industry overnight (via Gizmodo):

“This is not an attack of Google’s business practices, but an explanation of the sort of destructive innovation that has made them so huge so fast. (It’s also a warning to consider carefully any entities that gets this strong, especially if you plan on going into business with one.) Though predecessors like Microsoft experienced similar explosive growth, and grew a similar sudden global dependence, we’ve never seen the likes of Google. The GPS business isn’t the only one that will be consumed by its mighty maw before it’s had its run.”

• NYTimes’ Living In section explores the Castleton Corners neighborhood of Staten Island, using Onboard data:

“Single-family homes predominate; the vast majority of them are detached and have garages. Colonials outnumber Tudors and ranches, and many have at least some brick on the exterior and date back before World War II. A small number of town houses are scattered through the neighborhood, too.”

• Google Maps enhances its July launch of real estate listings with rental searches, among other tools:

“We’ve made it easier to find real estate listings. Now, you can simple select ‘Real Estate’ from the ‘More’ button on the top firhg tof any Google Map to discover listings. From there, it’s a simple matter to refine your search using the left hand panel - price, bedrooms, bathrooms and so on. Of course, you can still pan the map to search for the perfect neighborhood and it’ll automatically update with more listings.”

• Our own Patrick Healy made it to Roost’s 50 Real Estate People to Follow on Twitter

Listingbook aims to make the home sales process enjoyable.

It’s not often you hear a success story about a company’s dramatic growth during the downturn - and it’s unheard of to witness a company’s expansion by almost 200% in a year.

Our client Listingbook has done just that.

Since last year, the online client-servicing tool provider has grown to over 100,000 registered agents, up 187% from last year. Listingbook’s splash in the real estate industry is accompanied by 241% more consumers logging in from last year to use the customer portal in the process of buying a home.

More than just a property search site, Listingbook empowers agents in today’s “need to know, want-it-now environment” says Michael Ondrejko, Listingbook SVP of Operations.

According to Ondrejko, Listingbook’s rapid growth can be attributed to the company’s ability to supply its users with Onboard Informatics‘ local neighborhood information. Paired with this comprehensive local information, Listingbook’s superior productivity and marketing tools have powered their outstanding market share in the agent community.

Listingbook offers brokers, agents, and consumers local market knowledge through Onboard’s community, school, and amenities data sets. The demographic and neighborhood content accompanies each listing to agents who have upgraded Listingbook accounts and their clients, giving them a full understanding of the communities they are considering.

“Consumers want to make an informed decision about where they will live. It is the agent’s job to give that to them,” Ondrejko said.

In its eight years, Ondrejko says Listingbook has evolved and channeled its many lessons learned into a quickly-growing force in the real estate industry that keeps the agent in the center of the real estate transaction process. With continual advancements in user interface design, relevancy, and scalability, Listingbook is not complacent even with 100,000 agents on its roster - and expects even more future growth.

“‘What makes RELOHomeSearch.com unique is that it serves as a portal to the websites of leading real estate firms around the world,’ notes Eric Bryn, vice president of Strategic Development. ‘This distinction, paired with its robust community content, extensive listings, and cost of living data provided by Onboard Informatics, makes the site an invaluable resource for consumers wishing to identify quality firms while they search for ideal communities and browse for homes.’”

• One couple’s search for a Las Vegas home brought them to a market filled with destroyed foreclosed homes and bank bureaucracy (via CNBC):

“Finally, on day 7 of looking, and after having 7 offers ignored by the banks (who owned all the homes), the Realtor called Katie with ‘a gold mine.’ Yes, an owner-occupied, regular home. A rare non-foreclosure. They went immediately and put in an offer. The owner claims to like them, but she ended up with 10 offers and is still mulling. Ironically, in a market still flooding with new foreclosed properties every day, at the end of their week Katie and her husband met with a local builder.”

• Kayak publishes a slew of search data, giving travelers a look at the popularity of various destinations (via ReadWriteWeb):

“Best known for aggregating travel deals on roundtrip flights, hotels and rental cars, Kayak is now offering the public a peek under the hood. The company is laying bare its most popular destinations and searches via a new trends page. The site offers users a look at what people are searching for, where they’re searching from and the most searched hotels in the company’s top 50 most popular cities. With the travel industry slowly recovering from what has been a tough two years, this data can go a long way towards reinvigorating businesses.”

• Although they’ve dropped slightly, price reductions in major markets are still ever-present at 44% (via RISMedia):

“While many sellers continue to cut their asking prices, fewer are doing so, according to recent data compiled by ZipRealty, national real estate brokerage, which may lead to an upward trend in home prices. According to MLS data, more than 44% of home listings in 28 major markets tracked by ZipRealty in September 2009 included at least one price reduction, down 2.8% from September 2008.”

• Google insources its map efforts (via ReadWriteWeb):

“After a flurry of activity around Google Maps over the last few weeks, it now looks like Google is also ditching Tele Atlas as its data provider for Google Maps in the US in favor of a do-it-yourself approach. Google had been using data from Tele Atlas’ maps since September 2008 after moving away from Navteq’s data after Navteq was acquired by Nokia. Now, Google will use its own data, which it will supplement with data from government sources and a crowdsourcing approach.”

• And finally, since it’s Friday, here’s a lighthearted College Humor spot poking fun at the Google Maps Street View team

“The agency [...] voted 4 to 0 to update its rules governing endorsements, and the new guidelines require bloggers to clearly disclose any material connection to an advertiser, including payments for an endorsement or free product.”

• Our client Century 21 was honored with an OMMA Online Advertising Creativity Award (via RISMedia):

“The OMMA Award, which reviews submissions across all industries, honored Century 21 Real Estate for its search engine marketing work with MediaCom Search, a division of GroupM Search. Century 21 Real Estate was honored for having the best search marketing for paid search. Century 21 and MediaCom Search also received a Stevie Award this for this same campaign in July.”

• Clean Slate blog digs into the generation gaps between real estate professionals and their business practices:

“As we look toward the future of our industry and the future professionals, we see promising, young and perhaps, virtual agents using the latest and greatest advanced methods of communications for inquiry generation and production (e.g. video, blogs, social networks, etc.). Yet, when we examine our current agent population, we have a majority of veteran professionals with ten or more years of tenure, production, and relationships that were built on handshakes, face to face conversations, and handwritten notes.”

• The Facebook data team analyzes how happy people are based on their status updates:

“Every day, through Facebook status updates, people share how they feel with those who matter most in their lives. These updates are tiny windows into how people are doing. They’re brief, to the point, and descriptive of what’s going on this week, today or right now. Grouped together, these updates are indicative of how we are collectively feeling. At Facebook, we’re always looking for ways to help people better understand the world around them, and we’re interested in how people express their emotions with one other and the world. So earlier this year, data scientists at Facebook started a project to measure the overall mood of people from the United States on Facebook, based on the sentiment expressed in status updates.”

“The Mayor of Newark, NJ, wants to set up a citywide program to improve residents’ health,” Conan joked on the Tonight Show monologue last week. “The health care program would consist of a bus ticket out of Newark.”

Mayor Booker then took it to YouTube to release his anger:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Conan certainly isn’t the first to slam Brick City, and Booker took the typical politician gloves off for an entertaining spot. So who reigns victorious in this viral video war? Our Director of Data Operations, who shall to remain nameless to protect his identity and freedom to visit Newark Airport, dug in to our own community information databases to find out who really won this battle royal. Booker says:

“Conan, you fail to understand our city is one of the fastest growing cities in the Northeast. We  have strong neighborhoods, strong people, record reductions in violent crime. We have a city on the rise.”

Newark’s overall violent crime has not decreased as Mayor Booker suggests. Keep in mind the national average of violent crimes per 100,000 people is 195.

While the city has seen drops of crime within certain categories, such as the low murder rate in 2008, overall numbers are climbing. (No word yet for 2009; the most recent FBI data covers through 2008 only.)

As for a city on the rise, we need to know exactly what is rising besides the smoke from Mayor Booker’s ears following the late-night debacle. Between 2007 and last year, the number of households in Newark dropped 3%.

On the bright side, Newark is the home of Rutgers School of Law-Newark, a U.S. News & World Report top tier law school. Newark Downtown’s Prudential Center, built in 2007 on Booker’s watch, hosts the New Jersey Devils and over 200 events per year. Almost 5% of Newark is covered by parks; the two largest being Weequahic Park and Branch Brook Park. It is a good place to start a business, as some parts of its Urban Enterprise Zone enjoy a 3.5% tax rate as opposed to the statewide rate of 7%.

Unfortunately foreclosures in Essex County, in which Newark is by far the largest city, don’t help Mayor Booker’s sentiments. Onboard’s foreclosure index reported above-average foreclosures for Essex compared to both the U.S. and New Jersey averages.

With all of that said, the outcome of round one of this late-night fight? Conan-1, Mayor Booker-0. Rest assured: no bias went into this analysis, as the handling and mishandling of New Jersey is a sensitive subject in our office.

As for the next round of banter between Conan and Mayor Booker, well, we’ll let you judge that one for yourself.

Click here to view the embedded video.

• Layar prepares to release an Augmented Reality iPhone app with multiple location-based data sets (via ReadWriteWeb):

“The current degree of refinement in GPS and map accuracy in the US may need to evolve further before you can reliably stand in front of a place, point an Augmented Reality app at it and get the information that you’re looking for - but big picture, nearby information is available now. The act of looking through your phone, at the world around you, at layers of data on top of physical objects, is something that the human mind and user experience design will need to work on before these apps can turn from “wow” to a tool people use daily.”

• Online ad spending in the UK exceeded television spending for the first time (via IAB):

“According to the bi-annual online advertising expenditure study from the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) - the trade body for digital marketing - in partnership with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and the World Advertising Research Centre (WARC) - the internet has now overtaken TV advertising to become the UK’s single biggest advertising medium.”

• Apple purchases a map company that has nothing to do with Google, causing some drama in the iPhone universe (via Gizmodo):

“So maybe Apple wants these kind of intensive, custom geolocation mapping powers for the iPhone (and other stuff), or maybe Apple just wants to roll its own maps, so it’s not depending on Google for the tiles. Which would actually go along with the same kind of independent streak we’ve seen in other areas from Apple, like designing custom chips for the iPhone (and maybe the Tablet) using its PA Semi acquisition, instead of using the same chips anybody can buy.”

• Young homebuyers give the real estate market a boost as Congress debates the tax credit extension (via RISMedia):

“The incentive is helping to slow the decline in home sales. In August, sales were down 1% over the comparable period last year, the smallest year-over-year decline in any month since late 2007. As Congress considers extending the credit, real-estate agents and home builders worry sales could slump again if it’s allowed to expire.”

With that kind of percentage of people (and climbing) utilizing the web for home search, I’d say it’s pretty important for agents to have access to the most accurate local content and innovative technology possible.

 They need engaging information on their websites and in their reports and presentations that goes beyond bed, bath, and square feet. They need access to tools that give invaluable insight into their local communities with just a few clicks. The flexibility to customize, brand and tailor their websites and sales materials to meet each of their customer/prospect’s needs. The content that increases their search engine placement and costumer engagement. They need to be a local expert, a resource, an authority on  local stats and ‘in the know’ information in order to attract, retain and drive quality lead generation.

Technology-driven tools for agents and the need for outsourced data and content used to be something that only the most tech savvy and prosperous companies were involved in. Now, especially with the economic state, it’s a ‘must have’ ‘gotta do’ business move not only to get onboard but to find the highest quality, most efficient, and most cost effective solutions possible.

We started meeting this demand roughly a decade ago when it all started, fine tuning and perfecting the art of data aggregation. Over the years we’ve made it our goal to produce the most accurate and trusted localized content to some of the most established information resources in the country; Coldwell Banker Real Estate Corporation, Century 21, NRT, Realtor.com, Long & Foster, The New York Times, WashingtonPost.com, CNN Money Magazine, and many more.

MLSs and REALTORS®  also have a major responsibility to provide their agents with easy to use tools and accurate local information and have shown an increased interest, over the the past year or so, in the solutions and services we can provide.

We decided to answer the call with our new solution, MLS OneSource.

“Creating the MLS OneSource platform was a natural progression for us. “With an influx of calls and interest stemming from the increase in pressure on agents to enhance their value proposition to consumers, it just made sense for us to formalize a platform. MLS OneSource is specifically designed to help MLSs and REALTORS® engage their consumers by providing relevant and insightful local content and easily integrated solutions that fit their individual business models.” - Marc Siden, CEO, Onboard Informatic

We are excited to launch and introduce MLS OneSource at the CMLS 2009 event this week in Lake Tahoe, California. The platform contains a suite of cutting edge products and services giving full access to our localized content for both agent portals as well as consumer-facing websites. Content categories include detailed information such as home sales, trends, school profiles with GreatSchools.net ratings, demographics, local amenities, and neighborhood boundaries.

The suite of products and solutions offered in the platform range from customizable reports and presentations, easily integrated plug and play neighborhood search tools, standardized web services, to fully tailored delivery of all Onboard’s data, providing complete control over design, development and integration. These tools play a major role in adding value to real estate websites through increasing search engine placement and customer engagement all while building credibility and quality lead generation.

Now is the time for not only real estate but all industries to realize the importance and value in innovative  web and technology solutions. The number of buyers using the internet to do their own research is only growing by the day.

Online shopping trends are showing a consistent rise due to the great response from people. In the coming years, the numbers suggesting the development of the online shopping trends are expected to rise alarmingly.

Kim Cipriano Prior, Onboard’s National Sales Director, is solely devoted to understanding and addressing the MLS sector’s unique set of needs. Kim has over 15 years in strategic business development and sales and marketing experience with 10 years specifically dedicated to the real estate industry and working with MLSs.

If you are interested in learning more about Onboard’s MLS OneSource platform, please email Kim Cipriano Prior at kprior@onboardinformatics or call 646-747-4396.

The 2009 Best Affordable Places to Retire, powered by Onboard Informatics demographic and economic indicators, reflects the shifting expectations of retirees. Rather than focusing on popular (and pricey) retirement hubs, U.S. News selected affordable high-value spots with great amenities. In order to make the cut, cities needed high-quality healthcare and elder-care facilities and outstanding cultural and learning programs.

The analysis didn’t stop there. The U.S. News editorial team conducted interviews with residents in the top towns to get a true picture of each city.

Tucson offers great outdoor activities and affordable housing for retiring seniors.

Realizing that retirement goals are extremely personal, the new U.S. News package also includes an interactive search tool for retirees to find towns that conform to their lifestyle needs and preferences.

The Best Places to Retire search application weighs a user’s criteria against a database of 2,000 places with populations of at least 10,000 and crime equal to or below the national average. Complete methodology is found here.

Listed alphabetically, here are the top 10 places to retire:

• Ann Arbor, Michigan
• Asheville, North Carolina
• Aurora, Colorado
• Columbia, South Carolina
• Columbus, Ohio
• Eugene, Oregon
• Fort Worth, Texas
• Jacksonville, Florida
• Kansas City, Missouri
• Tucson, Arizona

The Best Affordable Places, featured in October’s U.S. News & World Report magazine, hit newsstands today.