We have just published a bunch of updates in our systems to give you more choices and better streamlined features when it comes to giving your listings the best online treatment possible. Please note, that these changes are available only in our Web Private Office; please fire up your Chrome, Safari, or Firefox and check it out if you haven’t yet: http://private-office.myrealpage.com

NEW DEDICATED SUPPORT FOR FLOOR PLANS

We now have a separate tab in the Listing Editor specifically for Floor Plans. Previously, you had to manage your Floor Plans through the Listing Documents which didn’t get proper visibility in the listing details views and one couldn’t look at the floor plans without downloading them. With the new Floor Plans tab, you can easily upload all your Floor Plans in one convenient location; and you can also customize the label for the dedicated tab and even enter an optional introduction text. In addition, if you upload PDF documents of your floor plans, they will be shown inside the page without the visitor needing to download them: less time spent fumbling with the documents and more on your listing page.

New dedicated Floor Plans tab in Listing Details.

New “Floor Plans” support in the Web Private Office: everything you need in one convenient location

BETTER SUPPORT FOR RICH MEDIA (VIDEOS, VIRTUAL TOURS)

We have also streamlined how you add and manage your listings’ videos and virtual tours. Both are now combined into one list; and we have also added the ability for you to change their default tab label, as well as add an optional introduction text. You can also use this facility to change your “Videos | V.Tours” tab into something completely different, like a tab dedicated to the listing’s neighborhood, with its own text, pictures, and videos.

New Rich Media support in the Web Private Office: more flexibility and convenience

FINE-TUNING DIALOG FOR GOOGLE STREET VIEW

It is obvious that you would like your listing to have best possible presentation online. You can now use our integrated, convenient dialog to fine-tune how the Google Street View of your listing looks online. You can simply launch this dialog and use the standard Street View controls to zoom in, pan and rotate the view to get the best possible look of your listing. Our system will remember exactly what you have done and will apply it to the listing.

New integrated Google Street View dialog for fine-tuning

STANDALONE VIRTUAL TOUR (MEDIA) PAGE FOR YOUR LISTING

We have long offered a standalone media presentation for your listing which you can add to your listing’s information in the MLS® system. Many MLS® systems allow you to submit such external links to feature virtual tours, images, etc. We have modified this listing presentation to include Floor Plans support, better image gallery and more.

How to access the Standalone Virtual Tour / Media page in the Web Private Office

New streamlined look for the Virtual Tour / Media page for your listing.

We hope you will enjoy using these new features as much as we enjoyed building them. Let us know what you think: feedback@myrealpage.com

Over the past few months we have been hard at work re-evaluating and re-thinking how you, our clients, use our products. We know that you love the features, the power, the flexibility, the price, the all-inclusiveness. But we also heard you when you told us that you wanted our tools to be simpler and easier to use, you wanted to get off the ground quicker and spend less time finding out how to do things and more time doing them. We decided that we needed a new Private Office, one that would be web-based, and truly deliver on the promise of “making simple things easy and difficult things possible”.

We are very pleased today to launch the first beta version of our new Private Office. The Private Office is now completely web based; it was designed from the ground up to use the exciting new web developments, such as HTML5; and we are looking forward to growing with the web and making new web technologies part of our tools. There are too many improvements, redesigns and features to enumerate in one list: we want you to dive in and re-discover the familiar ones and find the new ones. We will be covering them on our blog over the next while, so stay tuned!

All you have to do to get started is fire up Chrome or Firefox browser and login into your account at:

http://private-office.myrealpage.com

Here is a brief tour in screenshots of the Private Office. Check it out:

Below is the view of the Private Office Dashboard: a starting point that takes you where you want to go.

Here is a new web-based listings module: everything you need to get your listings and IDX looking and behaving their best.

The new Listing Editor is completely re-designed with simplicity in mind. Explore it to find new things too!

Never get lost: powerful and intuitive navigation to let you get to where you need to be faster and easier.

We are very excited about the new Private Office release and we are looking forward to learning from your feedback and continuing to build on it. Please help us make it better: let us know what you think by dropping us a line to support@myrealpage.com

We are very pleased to publish a very large update to the myRealPage Listings product. The update covers a pretty wide area and introduces new functionality, boosts existing features, and improves user experience. myRealPage has been long offering a very powerful set of listing tools and features; and today’s updates are designed to let you take advantage of these easier and faster.

When you login into your Private Office, you will notice the new changes in the “Listings” section:

Here is a quick look at these 5 main sections:

Embeddable Listings and IDX wizard:

Embeddable Listings and IDX is an advanced toolkit from myRealPage which allows you to embed a powerful Listing Search engine (IDX) and a fully featured Virtual Office Website (VOW) in a 3rd party website, such as WordPress, Joomla, or even if a website is with another real estate website provider that lacks these features. It has proven to be a flexible option for many who want to take advantage of myRealPage listing functionality but continue running their existing websites.

The new Embeddable Listings wizard is a veritable powerhouse of options now. If before, you had a limited set of embeddable listing scriptlets, now you can configure very exactly what sort of listing content you would like to embed, including:

• Your listings, including custom categories, etc.
• Predefined searches
• Hand-picked listings combined with your listings or searches
• An individual listing
• A search form

You can also fine-tune how your listing content will appear by setting a theme, template, custom width and many other options.

We have also made sure that this wizard allows you to create and edit your Predefined Searches and Search Forms right in place, without needing to go to the Private Office to do so.

In addition, we have “webified”, this wizard so that you don’t need to login into the Private Office to access it. If you prefer to use this wizard outside the Private Office, simply follow this link to login into your wizard in your web browser.

Mobile Links and QR codes:

myRealPage has always taken mobile very seriously and has been offering free mobile listing tools for all its customers, those that do and don’t have myRealPage websites. myRealPage also released powerful, simple to use, fully editable Mobile Websites which can be tightly integrated with your regular website.

We have also created easy tools for our customers to access and use QR codes for listings and contact information. QR codes are a great way to publish mobile friendly content to smartphone users.

We have now combined all the mobile links and QR codes into one coherent interface where you can get mobile links to:

• Your listings
• Office listings
• Mobile listing search
• Individual listings
• and a QR code for your contact information

Predefined Searches:

Predefined Listing Searches have been very popular with myRealPage customers: they allow you to create “canned” search pages with listing results matching a particular set of criteria. You can create searches, like “Luxury Downtown Condos”, or “Core Area Lofts”, etc. The new interface allows you easily browse, create, edit and preview your predefined searches.

Note the new “Preview results” button in the Predefined Search wizard: it should allow you to easily verify that the search is producing desired results.

Search Forms:

Search Forms are a great way to create a specially pre-configured listing search formes for your website that accurately reflect your niche market and audience. For example, if you specialize in a particular neighborhood or types of properties, you can easily configure your search form to have those types of properties and neighborhood areas pre-selected, so your visitors start interacting with your listing searches right away.

The new screens allow you to quickly and easily manage your Search Forms:

Listing Showcases:

Listing Showcases are a great way to publish and advertise various groups of listings or individual listings via a variety of formats, such as:

• Listing slideshow with and without Flash
• Listings on a Google Map
• Listing grids
• Horizontally sliding listing bands
• Simple featured listings

These showcases can be created based on your listings, a predefined search, or a combination of hand-picked listings. They can be embedded in your website or any other website.

The new interface allows you to quickly and easily manage these showcases:

We hope you will find these updates useful and easy to use. We would love to hear your feedback: simply leave a comment here to drop us a line at feedback@myrealpage.com

-- Brought to you by myRealPage.com

A little while ago, we have updated our blogging system to let you blog like a pro; today, we are announcing integration with the DISQUS commenting system. DISQUS created a blog commenting system which includes threaded conversations, user profiles, blog trackback URLs and much more and then turned it into a widget, much like MyRealPage did with its Listings product. MyRealPage blogs have had built-in comments from the start, but if you would like to take it up a notch, you can easily enable DISQUS comments. All it takes is creating a free “COMMENTS”, profile here and enabling the setting in your Blog weblet. You will need to copy-and-paste the widget code into the Blog Weblet settings (don’t forget to publish). The whole procedure should take you 5-10 minutes. After this, MyRealPage will automatically “inject” DISQUS comments instead of the built-in ones. If you had comments submitted via the built-in system, don’t worry, they will still display, even after you switch on the DISQUS system.

In your list blog view, the DISQUS will insert the number of comments into the Comments link.

And in the blog detail view, an entirely different blog comment form and threaded comment view will be presented:

[UPDATE]: QUICK HOW-TO:

You will need to create a “Comments” profile with DISQUS here. When finished you will be taken to the “Install Instructions” screen. Choose “Universal Code” to access your “embed code”:

HINT: if you already have an account with DISQUS, or ever need to find this place again; Click on “Overview” in the top right corner under your profile name. Then, click “DISQUS Comments –> Go to”, then hover over the website dropdown in the top right corner and choose “Install Instructions”.

In the Blog Weblet settings, enable the Comment Options and copy-and-paste the DISQUS “embed code”:

Does anyone use or would like to use JS-KIT Echo? Would you like us to integrate with their commenting system as well?

Have ideas or suggestions? Post your comments here or drop us a line at support-<at>-myrealpage.com.

We hope you will enjoy these new updates.

-- Brought to you by MyRealPage.com

• Automatically locate yourself via GPS and see all available listings for sale in up to 1km radius around you
• Have the application "follow" you by updating your position and nearby listings as you walk or drive
• Drag the map to pan around and see the nearby listings automatically searched for you
• Manually override your current location by entering the address of your choice
• Login into your Virtual Office Website (VOW) account to see and do more
• See full details of each individual listing, including all photos
• Email listings to family and friends
• Inquire about the listing with the agent/team/broker
• "Star" the listing for later review through the Virtual Office Website (VOW) account
• Sign up for a Virtual Office Website (VOW) account
• Make a phone call and/or send a SMS message directly from the contact forms

-- Brought to you by MyRealPage.com

• New crisp and highly versatile way to display listing information in a well-defined grid; such that the listing information looks great regardless of how much listing data is available for display
• Two great templates to choose from: one with smaller photo and more information up top; and another with large photos running in a slideshow to showcase listing images. These templates can be individually selected for "My Listings", "Office Listings" and "Search" pages. This, for example, allows you to choose "Photo centric" template for your own listings if you plan to upload your own high-resolution photos; and leave the regular template for the rest. An optional gallery with Ken Burns effect is also available.
• Animated "Lightbox"  effect for high-resolution photos. Now your visitors can view your photos in their highest resolution to give them the maximum impact. (Click on the photo thumbnails)
•  New printable view which embeds Google Map and larger thumbnails for more functional print-outs.
• Separate full page tabs for Photos, Videos and Virtual Tours, Google Map, Google Earth and WalkScore
• All listing details in public searches will display all available listing field names, and will only hide field values; this is useful in regions where the amount of information permitted to display without visitor login is limited. This way every field value that is hidden provides a "Signup Now" link: another path to lead generation.
• Easy to use imperial and metric selectors which are located now right next to measurement values.

Enhanced support for Teams of Two

 

Better Listing Page Navigation

Default Sort Order improvements

• In-place lightbox effect with animations; their focus makes the signup and login flow very intuitive
• Fully automated password recovery system
• Fully automated signup process with the option to verify account via an email link or in-place
• Tight integration with saving searches while not logged in or signed up
• Tight integration with all "lead-in" links that invite a web visitor to become a member, such as "Add to Favorites"; the web visitor will never need to navigate away from their current page
• Fully automated account expiry extension system
• Intuitively presented options for the user in case of the account being unverified, locked, or expired
• Helpful support of logged in VOW users when they try to use other listing forms, such as "Listing Inquiry" or "Email Listing": they don't need to enter image verification codes and their personal info is pre-filled.