Redfin and Inman Co-Found Web Developer Conference for Real Estate Industry

WebKnowHow
Friday, June 9, 2006; 02:56 AM

Online real estate broker Redfin Corporation announced its founding participation in Inman ConnectTech, the Web developer conference scheduled for July 26 in San Francisco. A one-day counterpart to Inman Connect, the conference for real estate agents, Inman ConnectTech is the first national real estate event to focus on developers creating the next generation of real estate technologies.

In addition to Redfin, Google, Microsoft, MapQuest and the Center for Realtor Technology are supporting the event; Slashdot founder Rob Malda is scheduled to keynote. Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman will be participating in a panel of industry leaders on the future of real estate technology. Inman ConnectTech precedes the San Francisco Inman Connect conference by one day.

"Redfin first proposed Inman ConnectTech in January, and we immediately recognized the need for such a forum," said Inman CEO Mike Edelhardt. "Web developers in every corner of the world are combining map, search and social networking technologies to build a powerful new class of real estate applications. Our goal is to create an event of, by and for real estate technologists that can be a crucial industry forum for advancing the state of the art."

"Inman ConnectTech is a key platform for propagating our vision of Real Estate 2.0," said Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman. "In this vision, technology gives consumers direct access to more information than ever before, and the ability to share questions, comments, ratings, photos and videos with one another. Because real estate information resides in so many different systems, it's important for developers of all stripes to come together to understand how a wide range of technologies can work together to create a rich context for any property."

Inman has worked with Redfin, Google, Microsoft and other leading vendors to build a conference program that addresses the latest industry technologies:

   --  AJAX, Flash and other rich-client Web technologies to give real
       estate consumers an interactive, browser-based experience;
   --  Online maps and global positioning systems to let people easily
       orient themselves online and in their cars as they look for
       properties;
   --  Mashups, programming interfaces and XML standards, for combining data
       industry, government and other sources;
   --  Geo-coding, RSS feeds and other viral technologies for sharing
       information between real estate sites and other Internet resources;
   --  Analytics for mining real estate data and identifying price
       inflections in properties and neighborhoods;
   --  Social networking technologies for creating online real estate
       communities and collaborative forums in which consumers can work with
       spouses, agents and lenders.

To register for the conference, visit http://www.inman.com/connectsf/DevDay.aspx.