The Re/Max MainStreet extranet, one of the most advanced in the real-estate industry, offers its agents instant-messaging forums, chat rooms, a library and online registration for the company's annual conventions. The site soon will include an e-marketplace for agents to purchase business cards, signs and letterhead directly from Re/Max suppliers and an online print service from Eletter.com, which will let agents select Re/Max templates and flyers to be printed and mailed. "This is our portal where agents can get information they need and stay on top of the technology," says Kristi Graning, vice president of Web services and IT marketing for Re/Max. More than 12,500 of the company's 58,000 agents have joined MainStreet thus far.
The real-estate company now is converting the MainStreet software from a proprietary platform to one based on XML, which will let Re/Max gather data from discussions posted on the site, for instance. XML also will make it easier to interact with Re/Max's business partners, such as Eletter.com.
"The new architecture will create a large message store so you can mine the data and gather more information," such as referrals, says Chris Fanjoy, CTO for Webb Interactive Services, the Denver-based ASP that is heading up the XML project. "XML gives them the power to get to the data after an online conversation."
Re/Max also is adopting Jabber, an XML-based instant-messaging platform developed by Webb, so Re/Max and its agents can share information via the site with its business partners and suppliers. Jabber will let a Re/Max agent instant-message with a client on America Online, for instance, whereas the company's existing instant-messaging platform works only among MainStreet members.
The catch with XML is that most browsers don't yet support it, but Re/Max circumvents that by converting from XML to HTML. "We are taking data out of the database with our XML query language," which then reformats it to HTML, says Webb's Fanjoy.
XML also has a reputation for being too slow for high-volume transactions, but apparently that hasn't been an issue for the Re/Max site. "We have yet to experience this behavior with the Re/Max application," Fanjoy says. One of the biggest challenges, he notes, is keeping the site's graphics manageable for the mostly dial-up users of the site. "We try to reduce the amount of traffic to the browser," he says.
Meanwhile, Re/Max also plans to augment MainStreet with online training and streaming video, and online transactions in which an agent and seller can track the home-buying process--from scheduling an open house and home inspection to closing. Re/Max eventually will communicate completely online via MainStreet, Graning says. First, "we would need 100 percent usage of our site by our agents," she says.
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