Technology For Agents

Google Android

Note: Live update currently over at Engadget from this annoucement event. I also just found TMobile’s live stream.

Have you ever heard of android?  No; I’m not talking about Hal from Space Odyssey.  Android is actually a platform for mobile devices (phones).  It’s “what you see” when you turn on your phone; the nuts and bolts (operating system).

Want to hear the best news?  Android is a Google product.  If you’ve been a reader of my blog, you might have picked up that I’m a Google advocate.  I use their GMail, Analytics software, Chrome and even their reader on a daily basis.

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Learn About Animoto

Animoto - a golden nugget for real estate agents.  I’ve been playing with Animoto for a while now, and I’m convinced that this is a great tool for real estate agents.  

Not only can you use it to showcase your homes using snazzy video, but you can also use it to spruce up your home movies too.

Animoto is simple.  The hardest task associated with it is finding the photos you’d like include inside the movie you’re creating.   In short, you’ll upload photos, choose from a selection (rather small but great quality in my opinion) of music to play in the background, and finish your video (and send it off to get rendered).

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Learn About Google Chrome

Update: Download Google Chrome now!  Get the latest release notes here; Chrome is updated automatically when new updates are released.

On Labor Day, Google released some tidbits of information about a browser they had been working on internally.  It’s name is Google Chrome, and it’s built from the geniuses we all have come to love at Google.  It’s release was given out via a comic (not kidding; but take a look!), whose screenshot you see at the left.  Click on the screenshot to look at the comic in it’s entirety.

Google will be offering up a beta of it’s new browser today, and that has yet to be released.  This post will be updated when I get more information.

What does this mean to real estate agents? You may have already experienced this dilemma with having multiple browsers (IE, Firefox, and Safari are probably the most popular).  Many web pages have to be optimized to view well in any particular browser; what looks great in Internet Explorer may not look so great in Firefox and vice versa.

With a new browser in the playing field, we may now be inclined to optimize for yet another browser.  No one has really tested Google Chrome just yet, but I will definitely be testing all my sites in the new browser the moment the beta is released.

Many have concerns with the amount of tracking Google has with their search engine alone, and now they’ll (possibly) be able to track your every move on the internet even when you’re off of Google.com.  It’s the information age, and with this new browser I’m sure Google is poised to get a flood of information regarding your searching habits.

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