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New Media News Every Morning

Redfin’s online customer community responsible for 40% revenue growth

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Redfin, the real estate infustry’s first online brokerage for buying and selling homes, revealed that 51% of people who bought a home through Redfin reported that the company’s online community influenced their decision to work with the brokerage. Prior to making a purchase, over 22% of Redfin buyers had posted a question to the community.

Visits to Redfin’s online community have increased 415% year over year. In that time, Redfin’s revenues have increased by more than 40%, while the company has reduced marketing program expenses 82%; Redfin’s Net Promoter Score, a measure of customer satisfaction, has increased by 5%.

Redfin’s community, powered by Lithium, is one of the only forums for real estate consumers to ask one another about pricing trends, neighborhood guidance, and local best practices The community allows customers to comment on individual agents’ service, and to suggest improvements to Redfin’s website. Community postings appear throughout Redfin’s site, with each agent’s contributions appearing on a profile page that also includes the agent’s entire deal history as well as customer reviews and ratings.

Originally posted on May 25, 2009 @ 9:49 pm

Multiply.com relaunches site enhancing user experience

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Multiply, Inc. has redesigned its website to enhance the user experience and make it easier than ever to manage and share media, and communicate with a member’s network of real-life friends and family in a safe, secure setting.

In addition to the site’s newly designed look and feel, Multiply now enables its members to do even more, with new tools and features that make it a complete media management and communications tool in the cloud.

Multiply has also added a number of features that will enhance communications. Status updates will enable users to share their latest activities – in popular microblogging format – with their networks. Members can now suggest connections for their contacts, making “virtual introductions” to their other friends and family on Multiply. Multiply’s redesigned inbox makes it easy for a member to decide how much of their network’s content they wish to view, but also easily filter by content type and offering quick access to top friend and group pages.

Originally posted on May 28, 2009 @ 8:30 am

Footbo integrates Facebook Connect

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Online community for soccer fans Footbo.com has now integrated Facebook Connect. This enables users to share information across the two platforms and log-in with their Facebook profile.

The access to Facebook’s activity stream enables Footbo users to connect their accounts to Facebook and share their football blog posts, discussion topics and comments with their friends on Facebook. New users coming to Footbo will be able to log-in with their Facebook account, without having to fully register on Footbo.

Footbo features include:

  • Interaction with friends and more than 250,000 football fans from around the globe
  • Live scores, fixtures and personalized news
  • Blogs and forums
  • Prediction Games
  • Grading of players’ performances
  • Photo and video sharing
  • Team and player profiles – created by the Footbo community
  • Fan groups of teams and players

Originally posted on May 27, 2009 @ 11:05 am

Microsoft and Netflix enhance movie and TV watching on the PC

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Microsoft Corp. announced that more than 12,000 movies and TV episodes from Netflix Inc. are now available to watch instantly on the PC using Windows Media Center on PCs with Windows Vista Home Premium or Ultimate.

With Windows Media Center, consumers no longer need to jump from website to website to find the TV shows, movies, sports and news they want to watch. Windows Vista customers who are also Netflix members can simply start Windows Media Center on their PC and then select the new Netflix tile under TV+Movies to begin streaming movies and TV episodes instantly. People can also search the entire Netflix library, manage both their instant and DVD Queues, and even filter searches by titles that are available to watch instantly. Windows Media Center takes advantage of the Netflix recommended category lists to make it even easier to quickly find the movies and TV shows that consumers want to watch.

In addition to Windows Media Center users, Xbox 360 system owners already have access to watch movies and TV episodes instantly from Netflix via an Xbox LIVE Gold Membership. The offerings through both platforms allow customers to enjoy more than 12,000 movies and TV episodes.

Originally posted on May 21, 2009 @ 6:46 am

Boomer women count Internet as primary news source

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The fate of the nation’s traditional news sources, specifically newspapers and TV news programs, may lie in the hands, eyes and pocketbooks of America’s well-connected, growing network of women age 50-plus. A recent survey by VibrantNation.com among its more than 20,000 members, shows that while Boomer women are now utilizing the Internet as their core news source they remain heavy consumers of “traditional” media outlets with nearly 70% of respondents citing a combination of newspapers, TV, radio and magazines among their primary sources of news. VibrantNation.com is the first online destination created exclusively for women 50+ and a peer-to-peer information exchange populated by smart and passionate women.

With statistics showing that women 50+ are spending more money compared to any other demographic– and more time online than teenagers– understanding this often overlooked yet powerful, advertiser-friendly block of consumers could be key to the survival of “traditional” media such as newspapers and TV news programs. Among these “Vibrant Women,” as dubbed by VibrantNation.com, the survey findings uncovered that:

• Online News Leads the Way: 28% of women 50+ depend on the Internet as their primary news source. Of those who turn to the Web for news, 29% use their Web service homepage (Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc.), 25% log-on to newspaper websites (NYTimes.com, WSJ.com, local newspaper sites, etc.), 25% read news blogs and specialty online news sources (HuffingtonPost.com, Politico.com, DrudgeReport.com, Weather.com, etc.), and 16% rely on online news sites of broadcast media outlets (CNN.com, ABCNews.com, CBSNews.com, etc.).

• “Traditional” Media Still Plays a Central Role: While garnering smaller percentages than the Web on an individual basis, when combined 70% of respondents cite multiple “traditional” print and broadcast media as their primary news source — TV news programs (23%), newspapers (21%), radio (15%) and magazines (11%).

Originally posted on May 24, 2009 @ 10:11 pm