So the race is on - which will be the first site to implement this feature? Any bets?

Well today, we have a winner. That was fast.

The blue circle has come to your desktop with Google Maps. If you’ve use the Maps app on your iPhone you’ll know what I’m talking about.

When you visit Google Maps with a supported web browser, you’ll see a new My Location button in the top left corner of the map. Simply click the button to center the map to your approximate location. If your location can be determined accurately enough, it’s shown with a blue circle, just like on Google Maps for Mobile. Click the button again to remove the blue circle, or to re-center the map after you’ve moved it away.

Combine this feature with the new embedded real estate searches in Maps (see Google Gets Serious about Real Estate Search) and you’re starting to see the foundation of a really slick application.

Something that might live in the new Google Chrome OS perhaps?

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So while visiting the new site it also gave me a chance to have another look at BHG’s search tool, which I hadn’t played with for a while.

I can definitely say that it has one of the nicest user interfaces of any major real estate brand web site and rivals (even exceeds) many of the third party search sites. I have to agree with Greg at Vendor Alley who writes “[it is] simply gorgeous, and very intuitive.”

It has some really nice subtle touches - like filtering by the age of the home. And I loved how the search results are grouped in to price brackets. Also geeks like me are going to love you can subscribe to an RSS feed of your search results.

It all shows me that they really spent some time thinking through how a real estate consumer will perform a search and how they want to get the data returned.

Problem is, as gorgeous as the site is… it doesn’t seem to work.

Just like Greg - I was surprised how few listings it returned in my neighborhood (zip code 97219). Only 29 listings on BHG versus 460 on Realtor.com and 466 on a local broker’s website.

Weird.

Another beef is that it seems totally borked in Safari 4.0.

I could not get the site to do any kind of search on my Mac. Clicking around on the buttons or drop-downs did absolutely nothing. This forced me to fire up my backup browser Firefox, which also gave me some weird display errors in FF 3.5.

Granted these are both very new versions of each browser, so it’s not surprising to find these kind of hiccups.

I hope these two errors are simply launch day bumps. I know how hard it is to come out of the gates with something that works with every machine, in every instance - it can be a truly Herculean task.

But I hope these kinks get ironed out quickly. It’d be a shame to spoil such a great experience with small little bugs like these.

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It’s been a while since we’ve heard anything coming out of the Googleplex around its moves in the real estate space.

And now, we wait no longer. On the Google LatLong blog today, Google announced that they have rolled out vast improvements in the way that they display real estate searches in their index; they are now included by default in the Maps view.

They have also rolled out brand new real estate specific landing page at maps.google.com/realestate.

We want to keep making it easier for people find the real estate information they’re looking for and have it returned to them in a useful way. So, from today, if you enter a query like san francisco real estate on Google Maps, you’ll see that we make it easy for you to see all your results on a map with a one-box that will take you to real estate listings. Previously, you had to specify “real estate” from the search options menu, but now we’re making it easier to find available listings.

This move should come as no surprise to anyone following this space. Real estate search tools like Zillow and Trulia are seeing significant traffic growth and Google will only stay on the sidelines so long once they see someone else starting to monetize search results.

They also seem to have borrowed some of the features (transit search) that made some of their competitors, like Estately, so compelling.

You’ll notice that we’ve made some other enhancements that will improve your real estate searching experience. We’ve added lots of markers that will show not only the ten most relevant listings with pins on the map, but also show a small circle on every other listing in that area using the search results layer, so you can get a really good idea of the distribution of properties for sale. You can click on each marker and each small circle to get more detailed information about the property.

This feature means you can now conduct a real estate search around a specific neighborhood, or see at a glance all the properties close to a BART stop. You can also pan the map to another area entirely to see listings there if you decide that another part of town is more your speed.

Google has silently been collecting broker feeds for the last couple of years (pulling them in to their Google Base database). And so like many of its counterparts it has a reasonably deep market coverage, but it does depend on what part of the country you’re searching.

As mentioned up front, right now Google is only deploying these searches into its Maps results, so they are relatively confined. But I wonder how long before they display them in their Web results too (much like they do with their Local Business results - at the top of the organic results). If that’s the case, here’s where we may see the Mountain View giant start to siphon off traffic from the real estate specific search sites.

Time will tell, but the game’s about to get interesting.

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We all know the old axiom with property, right? Location, location, location.

Now that can be translated to your desktop, in addition to your phone. The new version of Firefox (3.5) has added location awareness as one of the new features in this release. From their website:

Now Firefox can tell websites where you’re located so you can find info that’s more relevant and more useful (for example, getting directions or finding restaurants near you). It’s all optional - Firefox doesn’t share your location without your permission - and is done with the utmost respect for your privacy.

The is potentially huge for online real estate sites, which in the near future could query their visitors, ask for their location and return the most relevant results quickly and seamlessly to their desktop.

Granted if you are searching from home, you (hopefully) already know where you are. But if you were house hunting in a city in an unfamiliar State or pulling out a 3G-enabled netbook in a coffee shop on a Sunday morning open house tour, this could be a killer feature.

So the race is on - which will be the first site to implement this feature? Any bets?

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They have just launched a new product called Outside.in for Publishers - what they’re calling “an out-of-the-box hyperlocal news section for your website”.

Features include:

• Customized Neighborhood News Pages for every neighborhood in your market.
• Rich, interactive maps, headlines, and excerpts.
• Access to aggregated stories from all local blogs, news sites, and other sources—including Twitter!
• Tools to curate the stories, sources, and tags that will appear on your site.

The product is free but does come embedded ads from Outside.in. There is an ad-free version that can be licensed however.

I think this would be a great product to integrate with any online real estate research tool. A way to quickly mashup listings, neighborhoods with a real-time view of the events happening around you.

Combine this with the ratings from Walkscore, a proximity search filter like Estately’s, market data widgets from Altos Research and, of course, listings drawn hopefully from the MLS and you start to have a very compelling tool for consumers to dive in to.

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Boxee.

Boxee is a revolutionary application that lets you pull together all your media together in a single browser that you can access from the comfort of your couch. I truly believe that Boxee - when combined with a device like my AppleTV - is the future of television. It lets me consume all the media I’ve gathered on my local network as well as hook in to all kinds of web-based streaming content; including breaking news, music and, of course, video.

Recently, the company launched a contest for developers to get companies to write applications (”plugins”) that can be added to a Boxee installation.

The folks at WellcomeMat obliged and built a wicked cool app that let’s you browse and search for local videos on your TV. Check it out.

They’re asking for your help too - vote for them and help them win the developer challenge. Today’s the last chance to cast your ballot.

So why is this all important? As we move into this brave new world of web marketing where everyone becomes a content producer, it’s important to consider where the new distribution channels may lie. Whether it’s new devices like the Kindle (see FOREM now on Kindle) or new platforms like Boxee - figuring out your syndication strategy is going to become as important — if not more so — than creating the words, or video, in the first place.

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(h/t Techcrunch)

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This will be the fifth Connect conference that I’ve been been part of and I’m proud of having been able to contribute to the program over the years.

But more importantly, Connect is something that I personally look forward to attending every summer. It’s a great place to meet up with all my friends in the industry and catch up; but I also get a ton out the conversations that spin out of the conference.

Here are 3 things that I’m personally really stoked about seeing this summer’s Connect:

• The Keynote address by Zappos’ COO Alfred Lin;
• The revival of the ConnectTech Workshop;
• Connect Create - The first-ever online real estate developers challenge. 72 hours to build a killer real estate app.

I’m also speaking this year again on a panel called How the Amazon Kindle Will Change Your Business
on Thursday, August 6 at 2:00 pm. So I hope to see you there!

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The new design is clean, fast and eminently usable. And while not as tricked out as some of its competitors, the site is a very capable competitor. Results are returned in a very easy to understand fashion.

Realestate.com is not a pure search play though. Like its online counterparts Redfin and ZipRealty, it also maintains a number of local offices and a “boots on the ground” (call it a “signs in the yards”) brand in a dozen or so states.

In addition to the redesign of its search tool, Realestate.com has also launched a community section on their site, which they’re calling Town Square.

Town Square will bring the worlds of online and in-person real estate together in an interactive social community. By visiting Town Square, consumers can access valuable insight from agents, share their experiences, learn about emerging real estate trends and search an A-to-Z encyclopedia about all-things-real estate. For real estate professionals, Town Square offers an opportunity to connect with interested homebuyers and sellers, network with other agents, share tips and best practices and blog about the latest real estate news and happenings in their area.

Frankly, they’re probably a little late to the party to get Realtors to engage in yet another platform; ActiveRain, Zillow, Trulia, Homegain and Realtor.com all offer blogging platforms.

That said, many of those platforms are already saturated with participants and so for folks looking for a new place to stake a claim, Town Square might very well be virgin territory. Especially if Realestate.com can drive some real traffic to those conversations.

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‘Nuff said.

For more background on this - read some of these earlier posts:

• House Hunting On The Go
• Mobile Real Estate can Thank the iPhone
• Apple Releases SDK Kit for iPhone
• Mobile Real Estate Search Paradigm Just Shifted

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