We always think it’s worth drawing attention to businesses who are using internet technologies and online platforms in remarkable ways. By checking them out, you can only learn – and perhaps even build on their ideas.
Recently, I visited Your Move website on my iPod: it’s an aggregate site bringing together many estate agents’ data in one place. The site, detecting that I was on a mobile device, asked if I’d like to download the app – for free – and, out of curiosity, I did so.
Now, the building of apps is not going to suit every business, but it is perfect for those, like estate agents, where the user is likely to come back again and again before they complete a task. Your Move’s canny developers have clearly thought through exactly what it is the average housebuyer needs and provided it on a plate.
Enter the postcode of the area you’d like to search in, and filter the results by a number of bedrooms, price, etc, and you are served a list of the latest properties. If you see one you like, you can flick through an image gallery, save it, and even send a request to the estate agents to receive more details. It’s basically all the functionality you get on the main website, but compacted handily to fit onto your pocket device.
The result? Well, I may only be window shopping these days, but when the time comes to start house-hunting in earnest, I’ll turn first to the app that’s already right there on my iPod – and that is the sort of return a business wants from an investment like this.