Recently announcing their launch on Facebook, Frugyl is designed to “crowd source” information and reviews on real estate marketing products. Products and services are evaluated by Realtors® in a group forum and Frugyl then determines the “best” of any category and offers the product at discount prices exclusive to Frugyl Club members.

“Every vendor will say they have the best product and the truth is this just is not the case,” said Chief Frugylist Jimmy Mackin. “What separates Frugyl from other services is we do the leg work. Frugyl works with vendors who are highly rated by customers then works with the vendors to offer deals to Frugyl members with a 100 percent money back guarantee if they are not satisfied with the product.”

Frugyl was born out of the What Should I Spend My Money On group in Facebook which provides a forum for real estate professionals to share their experiences with services they are using to grow their business. Mackin said the group grew to nearly 3,000 participants in one month and members found it difficult to keep up with the conversations happening each week. This inspired him to create Frugyl.

However, access to the content and deals are not free. Frugyl charges $9 a month to subscribe to the service. In return, members receive a weekly digest of the forum conversations, the deal of the week and a breakdown of how it works. Members also have access to a private Facebook group along with web based training sessions on social media marketing and technology.

“The goal of Frugyl is to bring greater transparency regarding the actual return on investment that sadly often times just is not there,” he said. “It’s our mission to help you discover great products that will help you grow your real estate business, without having to spend hours a day on Facebook.”

Consumer interest in tablet computers spiked over the recent holiday season and moms were found to be a core customer in the market. According to a recent survey from Nielson, the adoption of tablets by moms is quickly growing.

Combining tablet shoppers and moms may prove to be a lucrative market in the real estate industry.  Having a realty website optimized for tablet users as well as smart phones is essential. Tablets were initially seen as mobile devices but current studies are showing that most tablet shopping is done at home.

In a 2011 survey, Nielson found that 61 percent of all eReader owners were female, up 46 percent from 2010. Today, nearly half of all tablet owners are women.

While the majority of tablet owners are still mostly men, eReader owners are mostly women but the introduction of products such as the Kindle Fire could change that.  While the focus of the device is reading, it offers enhanced web connectivity features such as video streaming and browsing that puts it in direct competition with the iPad. Kindle Fire is priced relatively lower than the iPad and is heavily marketed towards female users.

While tablet users make up a small percentage of the overall online shopping population, there are many indicators that they’re a profitable market for retailers. A Forrester Research Study reported by the Wall Street Journal found that users who browse websites on tablets are more likely to make purchases than other online shoppers.

This emerging market is projected to keep growing. Gartner Research estimated over 63 million tablets were sold in 2011 with a majority of sales taking place over the holiday season.

DocuSign had previously focused on the e-signature needs of businesses including real estate but now offers a free app for all consumers to virtually sign any kind of emailed document from any device with an internet connection.

“DocuSign Ink helps consumers finish personal business faster by eliminating once and for all the hassles and costs of printing, faxing, scanning and overnighting signed documents,” the company said in an announcement. “Users can sign and return documents from any web browser and any email provider by sending the documents to ink@docusign.com.”

“I use DocuSign and what I like about it is the fact that un-techy clients can use and understand it,” said Realtor® Adrienne Loughery.

The application allows individuals to open any document, sign their name, fill in forms and email it back anywhere in the world. It is free to use with unlimited signing and cloud storage. It works with most document types, including those compatible with Microsoft Office and Adobe PDF.

Users can download a DocuSign Ink plug-in for Microsoft Outlook or a mobile application from the Apple App Store for use on iPads and iPhones. For the app, in addition to signing digital documents, “users can even snap a picture of a document with the device’s camera, DocuSign it and send,” the company said.

DocuSign Ink is a seperate app from DocuSign, which is a NAR Realtor® Member Benefit.  All DocuSign for REALTORS® plans are available to members of NAR. Membership is validated using NRDS ID.

Samsung is expected to debut phones with flexible displays in early 2012 with flexible tablets to follow. The company has made quick efforts in bringing bendable screens to consumers after purchasing Liquavista, a company specializing in flexible electronic displays, last January.

Writing for CNN, Mashable CEO Pete Cashmore says, “I think this technology will lead to the biggest breakthrough in mobile devices since the touch screen,” he writes. “In fact, the next innovation in screen technologies may be an even bigger leap forward than touch displays.”

While many manufacturers have been experimenting with brighter, low-power screens that can also be flexed and twisted, this could be the first mass-market rollout for the new technology.

In October, Nokia debuted a prototype handheld device that lets the user bend and twist the screen to complete actions such as scrolling and zooming.  Nokia announced plans to feature flexible screens on its mobile devices sometime in 2012.

Samsung’s Galaxy Skin concept phone is rumored to allow consumers to use the product as a watch or media stand. “Bendable” cell phones are expected to be far less prone to breaking when subjected to common occurrences such as being dropped or stepped on.  

“The ultimate dream for these flexible displays is that they could roll up,” writes Cashmore. “Imagine a phone-sized device that could unfurl to be the size of a tablet.”

At the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Sony demonstrated a device with flexible display but has yet to announce plans for a mass-market product featuring the screens. There is no word yet if Apple is working on flexible device technologies.

Once you click the link, you’ll have seven days to preview and test your Timeline before it goes live. With Timeline, your profile page will convert from one column to two. The new page will have a line down the middle, with different life events, activities, status updates and pictures branching off to each side. The large space at the top is called a cover photo.

Before, you could take the time to scroll to the beginning of your life on Facebook. With Timeline, you and your friends can click the timeline and view your digital past.

Cover photo

You now have the ability to showcase a large photo at the top of your page. The cover photo can be anything from a picture of your family or pet to a favorite place or television show. You don’t have to post a cover photo but it will be a blank gray screen if you don’t.

To add a cover photo, click the ‘Add a Cover’ button. Facebook gives you two options – choose from a photo you already have on Facebook or upload a new one. Once chosen, you will be able to reposition the photo but not edit it. The size dimensions for this space are 850 pixels wide and 315 pixels tall. A higher resolution photo will work best. You can change your photo at any time by hovering over the Change Cover icon. Your cover photo is public, as is your profile photo.

Life Events

Facebook’s already added in life events you posted to your profile, including your birthday, graduations and jobs. Now it’s up to you to add your life events from before the first day you signed up. Click a year on the timeline bar on the right of your screen. A new bar will appear at the top. You can add life events (birth of a child, marriage, new job), status updates, pictures or location check-ins for that year.

Your Past

If you joined Facebook as a high school or college student, you may have pictures and other status updates on your profile you don’t want others to see. This is where “Hide from Timeline” will be essential for you. Every status update, picture or link you posted has two icons now – a star and a pencil. The star allows you to feature that item which makes it stretch across both columns. (You can always minimize this too.) The pencil lets you hide it from the timeline or edit it. Take the time to go through your past history and decide if it should be included for everyone to see.

Privacy Settings

Remember to look at your privacy settings. If you only want your content to be seen by friends, make sure your settings are correct. If you’re worried about old and embarrassing photos from your past appearing on friends’ timelines, turn on Profile Review. This allows you to approve photos before they appear on your profile for all of your friends to see.

Docket in Your Pocket

Designing a public safety app for real estate is not what app creator and Iowa lawyer Matt Haindfield had in mind. He developed the app for lawyers to find public records in a pinch but when he test-marketed it, he quickly learned it was popular with many consumer groups including landlords and Realtors® who are using the app to make informed decisions about the people they are meeting.

“We have received positive feedback from a lot of consumer groups,” said Haindfield.  “Landlords have indicated it’s a great tool for them to use for whether they consider renting to prospective customers and Realtors® have indicated they have clients who want to take a look at a neighborhood before putting in an offer for a home.”

So why would an Iowa lawyer develop an app for Pennsylvanians?

“We wanted a state with a large percentage of smartphone users and where there was an existing database of criminal records,” he said.  “We started here because the cost is relatively low to acquire the data from the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts relative to the number of smartphone users in the state.”

He says the data is readily available on the AOPC’s unified judicial system web portal but can be difficult and time consuming to find. Docket in Your Pocket data has available information dating back to 2000. The only information required for the app is the person’s name.

“Our data gets updated twice a week from the APOC and includes expunged records and changes to pending cases,” he said. “We have been contacted by a few people who have indicated that they have had records expunged and we remove the information as soon as we get data from the courts.”

Haindfield says the app should not be used as a substitute for a criminal history background check which can be obtained by the Pennsylvania State Police. Information cannot be used to determine a consumer’s eligibility for credit, insurance, employment or any other purpose specified in section 604 of the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act or any other similar statute.

“It seems to make sense that we ought to shine the light on these records and make them available,” he said. “They are the people’s records. If we have to balance interests with the public’s right to know versus objections of a few lawbreakers, we are supportive of public safety first.”

The Pennsylvania version of the app was officially launched in October 2011. Plans are underway to expand to all 50 states in the months ahead.

“This app empowers people to make smarter decisions about the people they encounter in their daily lives,” he said. “Knowledge is power and more information means smarter choices.”

PAR members are encouraged to login when first accessing the site. The user ID is the member’s NRDS ID number and the password is the password used on the old website.

Once logged in, PAR members can customize their own Realtor® page with links to their personal blog, social media sites, biography and a photo. Consumers can access the Realtor®’s page from the “Find a Realtor®” search button located throughout the site.

“Since more and more consumers are starting their search for a Realtor® online, the enhanced Realtor® search is a critical element of our new website,” said PAR Chief Executive Officer Dave Phillips.

The Realtors® Political Action Committee (RPAC) website also received a makeover with this update including new ways to invest, more videos and innovative marketing materials.

The new PAR website features include:

• Prominent advertising space on the homepage for association events like business meetings

• Individual pages for local associations, officers and district vice presidents

• Staff directory includes links to social media profiles

• Up-to-date legislative priorities

• One calendar, easy to sort by category

• Updated Legal Resource Library

• Standard forms are easier to find and learn about for use in transactions

• Mobile version (coming soon)

• Dropdown navigation

• Better results from search

• One-click to share a page (except members-only pages) to social networks or with email.

PAR members who are unable to log in are asked to contact the Solutions Center at 800-555-3390.

Listing syndication is the distribution of listing data to many different websites. This is generally done by giving your data to a syndicating service like ListHub or Point2 and allowing them to distribute it to multiple sites. As a starter, let’s review the history of real estate listing data on the Internet:

• 1995: Realtors® start putting their listings on the web
• 1996: Aggregation of listing data on the web (Realtor.com and other public sites)
• 2001: IDX adopted by the National Association of Realtors®
• 2005: Real estate blogs and YouTube
• 2005: Listing Syndication becomes popular (ListHub and Point2)
• 2006: New Listing Websites (Zillow, Trulia, and MANY others)

Today, listing syndication is widespread and so are the questions and concerns. Humans have become more creative about using the Internet to display and leverage real estate data and the rules. Questions and concerns are constantly trying to catch up with current practices.

Here are four questions Realtors® should ask when considering syndication of their listing data:

1. What rights am I giving up?

If you send your listings to multiple sites, you need to know the rules for each site (or decide to close your eyes and not care what they do with your data). Suggested reading: Listing Syndication – Be sure to read the fine print

2. Do I care if my listings are used to sell leads?

There are two schools of thought with listing syndication. 1) Put the listings anywhere and everywhere and give them the widest possible exposure. 2) Keep some control over which sites your listings appear on and pay to upgrade your exposure on those sites. If you adopt the first school of thought, you need to accept that leads generated by your data are being sold to you or others. In the second school of thought, you pay upgrade fees to make sure those leads are coming to you. Suggested reading: Listing Syndication leads going to other agents

3. Do I care if my listings are out of date on some websites?

Every listing display site has its own rules about how data is obtained and updated. Frankly, only Realtor.com and the sites that use Realtor.com to manage their data are reasonably up-to-date. Realtor.com gets its data directly from MLS’s and updates it every 15 minutes. Every other site gets data from multiple sources and this creates an impossible situation for keeping listings up-to-date. Suggested reading: Attention Brokers: Regain Control of Your Listing Data

4. Does it make sense for me to enhance my listings?

Many of the sites that are fed listings through syndication offer brokers or agents a chance to enhance their presence on listings (for a fee). In many cases this prevents others from getting leads generated from your listings. Some find the enhancement fee to be a valuable business tool and others think it is an outrage to have to pay a fee to enhance their own data. Either way, the decision is yours. Suggested reading: Syndication to Real Estate Portals: Problems and Solutions (see page 3).

There are many “right” answers when it comes to listing syndication. Unfortunately it is a complicated topic. If Realtors® ask themselves these four questions, they will be on their way to making an informed decision.

Note: the two best sources of unbiased information on this topic are produced by The Wav Group and Clareity Consulting.

Walk Score, a website that assigns “walkability” scores to certain areas, measures the number of typical consumer services available within walking distance of a household then awards a rating ranging from 0-100 with 100 being the most walkable.

“People are looking for alternatives to long commutes,” said Josh Herst, CEO of Walk Score. “Families living in a house that is accessible only by car spend on average 25 percent of their income on cars while those that live in walkable communities can spend less than half that amount,” he said. “Boomers and millennials are indicating a high demand for walkability and are willing to pay more for it.”

According to Herst, walkability and shorter commutes are associated with higher home values. In an independent study measuring the connection between home values and walkability, CEO’s for Cities noted that in a typical market, a one point increase in Walk Score could be worth up to a $3,000 increase in a home’s value. 

Walk Score uses a variety of data sources including Google Maps to commute the distance between home addresses and nearby consumer services. Points are awarded for each destination that is between one-quarter mile and one mile of the subject’s property. No points are awarded if the destinations are more than one mile away. The most common destinations Walk Score rates include grocery stores, schools, fitness centers, restaurants, parks, hardware stores, drug stores and movie theatres.

Among the products Walk Score offers to real estate professionals include a neighborhood flyer application which allows Realtors® to create and customize flyers for their listings. The site offers an interactive map that Realtors® can add to their website which shows all of the nearby services in relation to their listed home. Lastly, Walk Score offers an HTML badge that can be pasted into a blog or website such as Craigslist.

“Walk Score is about what’s beyond the four walls of the home,” said Herst. “It’s great for the wallet, health and quality of life. Walk Score helps real estate professionals communicate the value of walkability to clients.”

The website offers a free iPhone mobile app available for download. For users without an iPhone, opening walkscore.com on your phone’s browser is another mobile option.

Launched in 2007, Walk Score declares itself the only international measure of walkability and leading provider of neighborhood maps to the real estate industry. Currently, more than 10,000 websites use the Walk Score neighborhood map application.