TechBytes: A CarFax for Houses, Touch Clients in New Ways, and Smart Email
November 11, 2015TechBytes are meant to be small bytes of easily digestible technology news as it relates (mostly) to the real estate industry. Curated by Jeff Bernheisel – WFG’s National Director of Technology Marketing.. We hope you enjoy!
Product to watch: Revaluate.
With Revaluate, which is basically like a CarFax for houses… prospective homeowners enter an address and find out how the property fares on measures such as safety, the environment, expenses and quality of life. Revaluate calculates an overall “Livability Score” for the address and shows the data in a matter never seen before.
I got to preview Revaluate in NYC last January and was impressed by the amount (and type) of data presented, but also by HOW it was presented in not only the user interface… but also the cheeky manner as seen in the image to the right where it’s recommended to pack an arsenal and “invest in a German Shepard”.
So, the big news this week is that Revaluate has actively started expansion plans across the country. I chatted with the platform’s Founder Chris Drayer, and was told the expansion plan is 18 major markets in the next 18 months. Which markets those will be is anyone’s guess right now, but San Francisco was first on the list and activated yesterday.
Speaking of products, a couple more were added to our ever growing database of tools for the Modern Day Agent. HomeZada and PlanwiseConnect. Click through, check out the rest of the site and leave some product reviews while you’re there. 🙂
In semi related news… otherwise known as the stuff I REALLY geek out over, a team at MIT has developed a shapeshifting display that allows you to literally reach through and touch objects on the other end of the display. This type of future interaction through devices might just give a whole new meaning to some of your “33 touch” drip campaigns. Sorry, bad joke!
Finally, we know that replying to emails on a mobile device can be a challenge, even for short replies. What if there were a system that could automatically determine if an email was answerable with a short reply, and compose a few suitable responses that you could edit or send with just a tap? Or even just respond for you when appropriate? How about handle the tedious task of scheduling showings or setting appointments?
Well, all of that is possible.
Google’s Smart Reply, which will be launching later this week, is built on a pair of recurrent neural networks, one used to encode the incoming email and capture the gist of what is being said and the other to predict and compose grammatically correct possible responses that you can edit or send as is.
Conversica is a full artificial intelligence email response platform that specializes in lead conversion, and X.AI is a virtual personal assistant, named Amy Ingram, that schedules your meetings for you effortlessly. “She” is also surprisingly good at tricking people into thinking she’s real. I’m still shaking my fist at the computer over that one.
Till next time…
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