In a dramatic latest chapter in the portal wars' Rightmove says it is offering the technical specifications for its Real Time Data Feed free of charge to other portals to help agents and the industry.
Rightmove is the only property portal that offers sales and lettings agents Real Time Data Feed, which enables details to be live to home-movers within minutes. The portal claims other data feed uploads can take several hours or overnight before details appear.
On Rightmove the feed works alongside new instant property alerts that home-hunters sign up to so they can find out about new properties first.
Rightmove claims research shows that 63 per cent of sellers would be more likely to choose an agent who could upload their property onto Rightmove immediately after details are prepared, rather than wait several hours or longer.
It took us 6,500 man hours to develop, test and implement RTDF. Other portals will save some of that effort by taking up this offer, but will still have several months to get their own systems ready so it's important they get cracking says James Micklethwait, Rightmove's head of product development.
Micklethwait describes this as a helping hand from Rightmove as it means there is just one spec to deal with for the whole industry.
There are numerous ways of interpreting the move, aside from being an unexpected expression of the apparent altruism of Rightmove.
One is that it may render the expenditure made on rival data feed systems to now be wasted, and another is that this is a bid by Rightmove to increase its apparent dominance as setting an industry standard' - including possibly getting its name associated with challenger portal OnTheMarket.
Rightmove's Miles Shipside says: Research and experience of the thousands of branches who now benefit from real-time Rightmove feeds show that many landlords with a void looming and many sellers want to get full property exposure quickly. RTDF can get their property launched immediately, within minutes.
%20-%20IMAGE%20Client%20Accounting%20%E2%80%93%20what%20are%20your%20options.jpg)
Comments
Very true. The cynic in me says this is just a PR move to make Rightmove look more charitable. Nothing wrong with that, but it'd be nice to hear them just come out with their true intentions rather than cloak it under the disguise of altruism.
Oh how very generous, thanks rightmove. As if you should have been charging us 10 a pop for instant uploads in the first place.