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Pemco are people like us, Redfinnians.I've always found the Pemco ads about different people types in the Pacific NW to be very entertaining. They hit on great stereotype personas in a really well done campaign. I can't imagine how many hours of brainstorming went into each one of the personas in these ads.
Well, I think they're even more clever now. Checkout this picture here where she's labelled with "Bloodshot eyes from late nights on Redfin" It's a pretty cool shout-out to get; thanks Pemco from the team at Redfin. Redfin heads to ChicagoWe launched Redfin's online real estate brokerage in Chicago today along with Google Street View on many listings and the ability to post listings to your friends on Facebook. Read more or just come check it out at www.redfin.com. Let us know what you think! Redfin named one of Time Magazine's Top 50 Websites of 2007!Wow, this is a pretty incredible honor. Redfin has been ranked in Time Magazine's 50 Best Websites of 2007.
Vote for us at http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1633488_1633458_1633477,00.html!
Thanks to every one of our customers who helped make Redfin a success!
NostalgiaJohn Ludwig wrote: "Remember when CitySearch nee Sidewalk was actually useful for restaurant reviews?"
60 Minutes of Fame: Redfin on CBS News's 60 Minutes!Watch 60 Minutes on May 13, 2007! Redfin's got a piece on it!
 Leslie Stahl has a report about the real estate industry and Redfin is part of the piece. We're so excited. From 60's ste:
You can watch an online teaser spot with Leslie that mentions Redfin already. We loved the sharks quote.
John Cook (Seattle Post-Intelligencer) has a blog post on the piece that talks about the National Association of Realtor's "Operation Tip-Off" document of talking points about the piece. it's a fun read.
Update: Well, i've now got 1.5 seconds of my Warhol'ian 15 minutes of fame. I appeared in two quick group shot for a total of under two seconds.
 New Redfin logo, site and Boston!I've been slacking in my Redfin blogging duties. We recently launched a substantial upgrade to the entire Redfin site. We finally released our new logo and brand after nine months to a year in the works. 
We also launched our first city beyond the West Coast. We've now got a "nationwide" ;-) footprint.
Some recent news postings on it:
• The Boston Globe: http://www.boston.com/business/ticker/2007/04/redfin_launches.html
• New England Cable News: http://www.boston.com/partners/worldnow/necn.html?catID=83464&clipid=1388225&autoStart=true&mute=false&continuous=true • Inman News: http://www.inman.com/hstory.aspx?ID=62986 • The Boston Real Estate blog: http://bostonreb.com/blog/2007/04/25/redfin-hits-boston-real-estate-company-offers-rebates-to-buyers-and-sellers-of-real-estate/ • Seattle Post-Intelligencer: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/313171_redfin26.html • The Real Estate Bloggers: http://www.therealestatebloggers.com/2007/04/26/redfin-enters-the-boston-market-and-gets-a-new-logo/ • Tacoma News Tribune: http://blogs.thenewstribune.com/realestate/?title=trees_in_bloom_at_redfin&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1 • Future of Real Estate Marketing: http://www.futureofrealestatemarketing.com/redfin-gets-a-facelift-and-expands-eastward • Comeover.com: http://blog.comeover.com/articles/2007/04/26/redfin-gets-cool • InstaMLS: http://instamls.com/blog/terrible-new-logo-for-redfin/ • Sellsius: http://blog.sellsiusrealestate.com/redfin/glenn-kelman-hangs-himself-in-boston/2007/04/24/ • Urban Ash: http://www.urbanashley.com/2007/04/26/redfinrevamp/ Redfin Launches Real Estate E-Commerce Service for Southern CaliforniaRedfin launched our biggest market expansion in company history today, lighting up nearly all of Southern California at once.
Some posts from around the web:
Timeline of real estate search on the InternetHotPads.com has just posted their timeline of the transition to Internet search of real estate for consumers. It's pretty interesting. http://hotpads.com/misc/timeline/retechnology.html May 2003 started it all when the National Association of Realtors allowed listings to flow to the Internet. Redfin's map went live the next year in September. It puts it in perspective to think that Zillow didn't actually go live until February 2006. It's amazing what a shift the last year has already brought us. Recruiting at RedfinMatt posted how he came to be at Redfin from his point of view. It's funny to hear the other side of the how everything went. He's got it basically right though except for a couple other notes I'd add: - His answer to my interview question "What was your worst experience shipping a piece of software that you knew at the time shouldn't ship?" was actually a problem that my team at Microsoft was working from the other direction on (we were delivering software for Windows XP Media Center to them.) It made the question all that much easier to drill in on since I knew details on how things went down. :) - He dragged out his start date for a long, long time. It's frustrating knowing you have someone hired, ready to go, but not willing to start for nearly 7 weeks. It's like knowing you're getting the Christmas present you really wanted in October and having to wait to get it. - There was a bit of a surprise in store for him when he started. I took a very last minute vacation about a week after he started and left him running the show. (He did great.) Turns out that same thing happened again at Redfin to another new manager and his new team member (immediate vacation after starting). Talk about being thrown in the water and being told to swim! it's been a crazy new year at Redfin already!Well, the New Year is already well upon us. We've gotten snow, a win in the NFL playoffs, and a Badger's bowl victory. :)
Redfin has been firing on all cylinders. It's been crazy. It's week two of January and we've already done a pretty big release and then probably the second biggest release in the company's three year history.
Our release last week upgraded our listings pretty signicantly: http://blog.redfin.com/blog/redfin/2007/01/redfin_adds_hoa_and_more_info.html
Today we launched our site doubling our geographic coverage in Seattle & the Bay Area and integrating Microsoft Virtual Earth as our future map platform. That was a huge chunk of work migrating from our in house mapping technology that was released back in 2004 to the Microsoft platform. It's an exciting time to be at Redfin; in over a decade (oy!) shipping consumer software, I don't think I've ever seen a team firing on all cylinders like our product engineering organization is right now. It's amazing and fun to be part of.
Of course, this isn't it for January either... we've got one more major release coming! Woo!
Startupallooza!Redfin hosted Startupalooza -- basically a recruiting and networking event for Seattle startups.
One of our product managers, Matt Goyer, has some pics from it on his blog at
Let me know if you're interested in hearing about tech recruiting or networking events like this in the future. Just drop me an email.
Redfin San Francisco is liveToday was the culmination of my first two months work at Redfin - its been pretty amazingly hectic (more stressful than any time in my career other than maybe the launch of Sidewalk.com v2.0).
The new www.redfin.com is live -- the biggest changes are new, powerful map search functionality and the launch of the San Francisco Bay Area. You can read more at http://www.redfin.com/stingray/do/news-sf-expansion.
Oh, and we got some more $$ from VCs. That's a good thing too - http://www.redfin.com/stingray/do/news-funding.
Word choices affect more than I'd like to thinkI know it shouldn't, but it continues to suprise me how simple words and phrasing choices completely can change a perception (positively or negatively). I had a corporate training class once that taught me that and it worked out great when put in practice -- completely changing my work environment for the positive.
Wired ran an article about something similar recently off a study in Stephen Levitt's book, Freakonomics. [note: read that book if you haven't -- it's fun and fascinating]. The article discusses how if you chose the "right words" for the ad selling your house, you can probably affect the final selling price positively (or negatively if you chose the right ones). The fantastic, state-of-the-art article is worth a quick read for anyone who's ever looked at a real estate ad; you'll never look at one the same way again.
I'm in the process of revving my resume for my impending job search and I'm finding the same thing again. It's not something I ever really think about (although I should). A friend [thanks Michael!] sent me a link to this article - 25 Words That Can Hurt Your Résumé. I fortunately hadn't used too many of them, but the first few suggestions on phrasing I really took to heart and can already see the effect on my resume quality.
Of course, the proof is in the results... I'll have to get back to you on how well I did in the resume update at a future date.
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