MyNewPlace

Today’s post comes from our friend Bill Sitko over at Bsitko ; his content is ripe with great wit and keen insight. Today’s guest post is exactly what we expected and we love it…

First before I even begin I wanted to thank Mike for allowing me to blight his blog with some of my own prose. I hope to do him and his blog justice.

“Every noble acquisition is attended with its risks; he who fears to encounter the one must not expect to obtain the other” ~ Pietro Metastasio

A curious thing happened on the way home from work yesterday. I was parked at a light and as usual decided to glance down at my phone to see what had changed in social media since 5 minutes ago. Luckily I had TweetDeck up, I refreshed it and that cool looking blue background with white text announced that RealPage had acquired MyNewPlace. If you’re hearing this announcement for the first time right now your first reaction is probably WOW. I know mine was. My second reaction was “Are they planning on buying EVERYTHING?” but I digress.

Who are the players here?
MyNewPlace has been a player in the Internet Listing Services market for years. We used them several years ago with little conversion success (and it left us with a pretty drained pocketbook). The majority of us know RealPage and what they offer. MyNewPlace, on the surface, seems to be a perfect match for RealPage. They currently have no paid listing offerings and this acquisition will certainly give them presence there. In addition MyNewPlace has RentEngine which will give RealPage access to social media tools, a Craigslist posting tool, reputation management, pay per click campaigns, some great search engine optimization tools and a partridge in a pear tree. MyNewPlace will also be an integral part of their recently announced LeaseStar Marketplace. One thing that I find interesting about this new product is it will enable customers to talk or chat with a live leasing associate through their LevelOne service, and utilize their already robust leasing side package including 2D and 3D floor plans, some interactive site maps, beautiful pictures and a booking engine that can help check availabilities. MyNewPlace will be the lead generation channel that will power the LeaseStar Marketplace.

Press releases are lame.
The truth is this latest press release and acquisition from RealPage will attract plenty of attention but will it all be positive? Is RealPage becoming a little too big with too many product offerings that have the ability to shut out the competition? As with a lot of RealPage purchases, they will probably leave the MyNewPlace name alone but make the normal branding and integration changes so it plugs into their other offerings. That’s the way they’ve done it for most of their previous acquisitions, namely LevelOne, OpsTechnology and Lead2Lease. Is RealPage willing to change the ILS game? Will they use their power and money muscle to give Property Management companies more flexibility in branding and choice? Will they utilize social media to CHANGE how people find apartments? How successful will their SEO efforts be? Can they jump the organic board and launch MyNewPlace into the top 5 for results in lots of major markets?

What does this all mean?
I wish I had a crystal ball to get these answers, as well as the winning lottery numbers for tomorrow. I’m more interested in hearing what you think about it. Will RealPage change the game or will they just conform to it? Will this just be something else for them to monetize and charge a little extra than everyone else for or will they convert this service into something more powerful and revolutionary? Stay tuned…

Want to read the RealPage/MyNewPlace marriage vows? You can right here.

Happy renting everyone.

I tried this application out this morning and while it is very cool and I applaud MNP for giving it a shot, it needs a little tweaking. That being said, I am no expert when it comes to understanding the nuances of Facebook so forgive me if I mispeak in any way.

What I love about it is that it was a seamless exercise to post a property to Facebook – one click on the “post to Facebook” button and and I was taken to the page below. I assume if I were not logged into Facebook, I would have been taken to a Facebook connect log in page.

Next, a quick click on the publish button sent the post to Facebook. Now here is where it became a little interesting for me. I logged into my FB account and by default to my news feed page. I anticipated seeing the property posting somewhere in the newsfeed but it was not there. I had to click over to my profile page to finally see the posting.

I find that to be a bit cumbersome in the sense that I hardly ever view my own profile page or the profile pages of my friends. In other words to see the properties that my friends were talking about I would have to navigate to each of there individual profile pages. That is very disconnected and not very useful to say the least.

All that being said, I really applaud the effort but would encourage MNP to make a quick adjustment that would allow these postings to move right to the newsfeed on FB – that is if it is possible to do so.

On a side note, MNP has been actively participating in a Twitter conversation this morning about the launch. It’s been fun to watch as it has included everyone from industry consultantss and users to competitors. I really applaud them for being present and open to the feedback. Check it out here: @mynewplace.

MyNewPlace Implements Facebook® Connect: Apartment Search Goes Social

SAN FRANCISCO, CA- February 19, 2009 – MyNewPlace™, the Web’s fastest growing apartment and home rentals site, today announced that it has added Facebook® Connect functionality to its Web site – allowing its users to get feedback on prospective apartments, condos and home rentals by posting property information to their Facebook page. MyNewPlace is the first real estate and apartments Web site to implement Facebook Connect, allowing consumers to tap into their social graphs to make more informed decisions about where to live.

“Most people want the opinion of friends, family and roommates before choosing a new place to live. Facebook’s more than 150 million users can now quickly and easily log into MyNewPlace using their Facebook account, post properties they are interested in to their Facebook page and get feedback and advice from the people that are most important to them,” commented Mark Moran, Vice President of Marketing and Business Development for MyNewPlace. “With Facebook Connect, getting opinions from friends and family is as simple as a click.”

Over 3 million people use MyNewPlace monthly – ranging from recent college grads with several roommates, to families with young children, to corporate relocations. MyNewPlace’s internal research indicates that over one third of its visitors already have a Facebook account, while many others may choose to sign up for a new Facebook account to utilize this functionality.

Facebook users communicate and share information through the social graph, the network of connections and relationships between people. Giving users control over their privacy is paramount on Facebook. With Facebook Connect, users can be assured that the same privacy settings they have set up on Facebook will follow them when they log in to MyNewPlace.com.

About MyNewPlace

MyNewPlace is a nationwide apartment and home rental site where consumers can efficiently search through over six million rentals to find the perfect place to live. The award winning site combines extensive and up-to-date property information, including photos and videos, with advanced mapping and other functionality. The company provides the multifamily marketing professional with the most innovative and cost-effective tools to fill their vacancies. From MyNewPlace.com: the industry’s fastest growing Internet Listing Service for apartment search, to MyNewSite: the industry’s most cost-effective website solution, MyNewPlace puts the best tools in the hands of owners and managers to help market their apartments for rent. Headquartered in San Francisco, CA, MyNewPlace was founded in 2005 by John Helm, the founding CEO of AllApartments/SpringStreet, which became the number one apartment rental and relocation site on the Internet before its sale to Homestore in 1999. For more information, visit http://www.mynewplace.com.

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