Data standards for real estate listings

Filed under: Business, Internet, Web services, web 2.0

Data standards for real estate listings

by Romeo Wahed Jan 14th 2008

As Facebook and Google join DataPortability.org for streamlining the technologies and standards used with social applications, online real estate listings are quick not to be left behind.

In an open letter to Yahoo, Google, Trulia and Zillow, the RETS community (Real Estate Transaction Standard) encouraged a data standard for real estate listings so that home sellers and others who list real estate online can easily take one listing and make it work for all the participating websites. So instead of having to rewrite the listings for each site's particular style of listings, it only has to be written once. How very, oh, web 2.0.

With the speed that data standards are sprinting along, it's only going to be a matter of time until everything (that is useful anyway) has been reduced to standards that allow for maximum compatibility across services. Data standards for other areas such as classifieds, documents, and online personals may be closer than we think. Or maybe that's just a usability lover's pipe dream.

[via Mashable]

Tags: data, listings, online, realestate, standards

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Todd said 6:15PM on 1-14-2008

"...it's only going to be a matter of time until everything (that is useful anyway) has been reduced to standards that allow for maximum compatibility across services..."

matter of time = end of this year for all ( including real estate )

Todd said 6:15PM on 1-14-2008

Corrine said 8:44AM on 1-15-2008

It's kinda funny that you call it 'web 2.0' - libraries have been doing it for decades :-)

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