Saturday, 23rd of August 2008 at 08:48:59 AMYesterday, I attended the ARMLS sponsored Tech Fair at Westworld in Scottsdale, AZ. An event that I felt was a great idea, let’s get all the ARMLS approved vendors in one room for two days to allow the membership to ask questions, try products and really understand what these vendors offer for services and products. Well, I dragged my wife along (she is such a good sport) because I knew that I was going to be evaluating the services and products on their technology, not on their interface for my friends and clients. She’s also great with numbers and analysis, so that makes it easier for me.
My whole objective was to find an IDX, a company that will allow me to put an interface on my websites that will allow visitors to search the MLS, save those searches and send me a note on one or more properties that they are interested in. That’s the basic goals that I expect from the IDX, different companies put different twists on this offering. Offer options including allowing the visitor to create and save their searches, open a chat session with me and offers additional information on the neighborhoods. All nice stuff, but not as critical as the other points.
Well, we put them through the task, I distinctly remember one vendor, I worked my way through all three sales people as I progressively got more technical in my questions. They did their best to answer and keep up, I did give them credit, but I can tell that I was way above their heads in the details that I wanted to know. The other vendors just glassed over and asked me to email my questions to their support desk.
While I haven’t picked my IDX yet, I did narrow the field down to two vendors with distinctly different price points. Now all that remains is to send some questions to those that are already using them and probably within the next 30 days, you will find the search MLS option on my website.
Back to the Tech Fair, it was great, I’m glad ARMLS did it, I’m glad the vendors showed off their products and services and I’m glad that we went.
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