Flikr, Skittles, Oodle and other cool developments

Photo sharing site Flikr now allows free users to upload video. As I noted in my “Seeing online real estate” post a couple weeks ago, Flikr is one of many services that will drive a much more visual online real estate experience in the near future. Brokers and online real estate sites of all kinds can easily display location-related images and video via the Flikr API.

Skittles – those chewy little candies – are now being marketed online in manner that is ultra-aggressive in its

approach to social media. In fact the boundary between the brand and the “conversation” has been obliterated. Take a look and think about how this sort of thing might be applied to real estate marketing. Risky but not without rewards if executed properly, in my opinion. [via searchblog].

Walkscore, the site that measures the “walkability” of places, including homes, has cut two significant deals in the past couple weeks. Both Zillow and Estately have integrated the Walkscore API. Users on these sites can now view the proximity of listings to various amenities. Walkscore is a non-profit and there’s a strong normative dimension to the service (We should use cars less) but it’s a compelling (and free) addition to most real estate sites.

Oodle, the classifieds site, is quietly kicking ass (Yes, I think you can kick ass quietly). They went live

today as the classifieds engine on facebook. This follows upon a deal announced last week with AOL and a partnership with Wal-Mart.com inked last year. Their traffic is skyrocketing. And they have a strong real estate category. As the real estate listings aggregators approach parity in terms of volume, I wonder if they will find themselves challenged by a player like Oodle, which can develop content and traffic mass of an entirely different order.

Brokers: Jump on the neighborhood conversation now or surrender it to a media company. That’s the message to be taken from the New York Times‘ announcement that it is entering into the neighborhood blog arena.

— Brian Boero