We’ve just updated FindMyRoof.com with a new release! It has been a while since our last major update so we are quite pleased with this one going out of the door.

Below are some of the highlights:

New ad publisher makes it even easier to create and manage your ads.

The new ad publishing page uses the flexible tab design so different aspects of the ad can be accessed easily. If for some reason a new post was not finished, a draft would be automatically saved and kept for up to 48 hours so you can always come back later and pick up from where you left.

More features added to each ad type

One big strength of FindMyRoof.com is the capability of presenting the customized information based on different ad types. In this release, we’ve enhanced this feature and added more property amenities. “Vacation rental” category sees the most changes in this area with a lot of additional features added, and hopefully this will be a great help for the property managers.

Enhanced interface

We have made some small look and feel tweaks to improve the site’s usability.

Google map street view is in

Google map street view has been covering more and more cities. It is such a nice tool and we don’t want our users to miss out on this one. A “view street map” link will be added to each ad and if the street map is available a cool camera view will be displayed side by side with the regular map to show a “virtual tour” of the street view.

More control over spam

It has become quite an issue now that scammers have been snatching legit ads online and turning them into scam bait. Maintaining the ad quality and controlling the spam have been the most important goals that we are constantly improving on.

There are a lot of other changes in this release and I’m not going to list all of them here. As always, suggestions and comments are welcome!

Cheers!

In the past couple of weeks we have released new community features in FindMyRoof.com. The FindMyRoof community aims to provide more real estate related news and information which ultimately benefit our users. Focal Point is our aggregated news section which provides the latest news and best stories that picked by our users. The forum is where you can share the local city/town information and discussion is encouraged. If you own a real estate related business, you can submit your profile on REACH.

All in all this is just a small step toward our goal to provide our users a better tool and platform to share the knowledge and I hope you enjoy it.

Sometimes we get emails from our user asking whether the number of views on their ad is available. The answer is “yes” and “no”. We do record the view count for a page but the data is very raw. What I mean is that when a page is hit by someone, this “someone” can be a real person, a search engine bot, or even a a bot from scrappers or spammers. So the count is pretty meaningless in terms of revealing how many times an ad has been viewed by a real person. It will be a quite expensive process to filter the hit to make the total count closer to the actual human page views so we decide not to include this feature, at least for now.

FindMyRoof.com has just released some enhancements this past week and here are the highlights:

Save your findings - If you like an ad, you can save it on your browser right away under the “saved” page. This is a cool feature for you to keep track of what you have been finding and are interested in.

Share your ad - We’ve added the capability to easily bookmark your posted ad, save it on Del.icio.us, and to share it on social network site such as Facebook.com. The ultimate goal is to get more people to see your ad; by sharing it on your Facebook profile, it could be a great way to let all your friends, and friends of friends to see it.

The “My Ads” page has been redesigned to help users view their ads in a category-list format. This is especially good for users who post large quantity of ads. And an ad counter has been placed there for ad posters to know exactly how many ad slots that are available to them. You’ll like all these enhancements.

Cheers!

Hello everyone,

Time flies and 2008 is almost here. I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone to support FindMyRoof.com. It has been a great year and we enjoyed the rapid growth and some nice media exposure as well. This is the best gift we received for the holiday season.

Going forward, we will continue provide the service that will truly benefit our users. I wish everyone happy new year!

No fluff, just listings.
FindMyRoof

FindMyRoof blog is listed in Technorati now.

Technorati Profile

FindMyRoof.com released its latest update last night and it is a major release for our team within the past 6 months.

Here are some of the highlights in this release:

1. We have eliminated the category pages and the bread crumb on each page. The newly introduced navigation bar will provide users an easier and quicker way to navigate through the site. Now visitors can go into the property listing with just one click on the main menu, then can further narrow down the selection by choosing the property type, geographic location, and property features on the same page.
2. The newly improved Google map features show visitors all essential information on the spot if one clicks on a specific property.
3. There are some cosmetic changes as well to enhance user experience on our site.

How do you like these new changes? Good? Bad? Ugly? Feel free to drop us a line.

FindMyRoof application is on FaceBook.com now. If you have a FaceBook account, you can go directly to this URL to add the FindMyRoof application to your profile:

FindMyRoof Application on FaceBook

The application is created to give FaceBook users an easy way to access the real estate listings on FindMyRoof.com. Whether you are renting or buying, searching properties on FindMyRoof.com is right at your fingertips.

Great news for FindMyRoof.com users!

Now we have added the FindMyRoof.com forum for our users to ask questions, share experience and help each other. With our growing user base, it becomes more and more important to have a platform for our users to interact and share information with each other. The FindMyRoof.com Community Forum will help us achieve that goal.

Our forum features different categories and boards for users to post questions and seek answers. You can send us suggestions or comments by posting directly on our forum. And you can also post or find useful local information on your home state board.

You, the FindMyRoof.com users, are the ones who make this site better each day. We hope you will enjoy using this site and become a part of this community!

Internet amateur videos have proliferated by popular video sharing web sites, such as YouTube.com and Broadcaster.com.

If you can make a real good presentation of your virtual tour on YouTube.com, Broadcaster.com or other video sharing web sites, FindMyroof.com can incorporate it into your ad by our “Add Virtual Tour” feature.

Attract home buyers to see your ad by including a virtual tour to your ad. Don’t forget about this great feature!

As always, our goal is to maximize your ad presentation and make this free real estate listing site better each day.