Home And Garden Articles
Develop Your Domain Names
Property Website Tells Home Buyers Where to Find Property
Cape Town, South Africa (PRWEB) September 26, 2007 -- Grant Leigh, CEO of Gravity Communications, believes his company has found a unique solution to a problem many large property websites face: "We'd grown to about 100 000 listings spread over more than 3000 suburbs and we wanted to find a faster, more user-friendly way to get our visitors to the properties that would be of interest to them".
The normal Google-based street-level-map search approach adopted in the US and UK is not a viable option in South Africa because agents don't include street addresses in their listings and also because Google Maps isn't as granular in South Africa as it is in those countries. There are also other problems with the map-based approach.
Home buyers are often not interested in a suburb purely because of the area it?s in - they may be looking at suburbs in completely different parts of town or, worse still, they may be looking at different towns across a wide geographic region.
Location or geo-based solutions also don't take into account the type or price bracket of suburbs. For example, in Cape Town, the residential suburb of Milnerton borders on Montague Gardens - a commercial area. A location-based model would present listings in both locations to the user, but Montague Gardens listings are nowhere to be found on a Gravity property search in Milnerton (http://www.g.co.za/Anon/properties.jsp?suburb=9557). In fact, the Gravity model predicts that buyers are more likely to look for houses for sale in Blouberg Rise or even Big Bay over 10 kilometres away!
"The problem just didn't seem solvable, so we elected to start work on a location-based system. Then, one day as I was explaining to a colleague the extent of the mammoth task ahead of her, it struck me. Via the search data they left, our hundreds of thousands of visitors had been telling us exactly where they wanted to live since the day www.g.co.za was launched."
After sifting through the data and coming up with an algorithm that best harnessed all that collective intelligence, the first release was quietly launched several months ago. Visitors could enter a single suburb of interest and the Gravity site would suggest 20 further suburbs they may wish to explore. Encouraged by the results of this release, Gravity have now brought out a more advanced version. On the Gravity homepage, the user is able to enter multiple suburbs (in the "Quick Search" box; comma-separated). The results of this initial search are displayed to the user as well as a list of the most relevant suburbs the Gravity algorithm predicts will be of interest to the user.
Have any other websites come up with this solution as well? "I'm not sure; not as far as I can tell though. The idea may be new, but the concept of User Generated Results is old in the search world. I find it ironic that although this may seem like a fairly technical solution, it?s based almost entirely off human intelligence. I think this is a direction in which internet search as a whole is moving."
About Gravity:
Gravity (www.g.co.za) is a South African Property Search Engine (http://www.g.co.za/) that is free to estate agents and homebuyers alike. It automatically scans estate agent sites, gathering their listings and placing them in a single, central database for users to search.
Contact:
Grant Leigh (CEO)
Gravity Communications
0824021031
grant(at)g.co.za
###
Other Article Sites
findabook.com moneycd.info a-mortgage.info
about-lemon-laws.info aboutstudentloans.info
all-about-publishing.info auctions-articles.info bestcollege-university.com bestispconnection.com
biblefolder.com blogger-website.com books-used.info brokers-guide.info buywindows.info cable-dsl.info
career-miner.com carpel-tunnel.info cashinaflash.info cashloanreviews.info casinobell.com chat-house.info
clearmycredit.info collegeloantips.info crones.info depression-articles.info
dirnic.net dishguides.info
divers-below.com expodog.info
financewizz.com fire-insurance.info getgood.info handleit.net
it-idea.info
health-supplies.info hosting-right.com insidealert.com insurance-facts.info jobs-employment.info
justgood.info lookgold.net
lowcost-travel.info money-source.info myhostzone.info numisblog.com
peoplesearchfinder.info pr-articles.info realeas.com
refinancing-guides.info spyware-remove.info
telelot.info the-law.info
toppaid.info travel-deals.info travelcorrect.com wedding-guide-site.com
your-blog.info your-credit.info
MORE ARTICLES:
5 Most Popular Flowers for Your Garden
When planting a garden there are many questions which you must ask yourself before you begin. Where are you going to plant it, do you have the garden equipment to do so and how big do you want your garden to be? When do flowers bloom and what are their heights? These are all very important questions, however they mean very little if you have not yet decided which types of flowers you want to plant.
Add Rich Color To Your Garden With Blue Perennial Flowers
Blue flowers are some of the most striking plants around and can add a rich splash of color to any garden. Plant them in a cluster of all blue or mix them in with other flowers for a rainbow of color.
Wild Flower Garden - Make Amends...Your Plants Will Love It
A wild flower garden, just like any garden you wish to plant, requires good quality soil that will meet the needs of the plants you put in it. That means that your garden soil may need some amendment.
In Bloom: Manbury Home and Garden Accessories Unearths Garden Delights for Gorgeous Homes
Manbury Home and Garden Accessories now features a variety of attractive, practical garden solutions at www.manbury.nl, where consumers can peruse and purchase a variety of garden tools and accessories.
Enhance Your Flower Garden With Garden Edging
So, you've got your flower garden set up You've planted the flowers, some perennials here, a few annuals there
Fall Garden Chores for Spring Flowering Bulbs
As the school busses begin to rumble down the road again we are reminded that the gardening season is drawing to a close. For the gardener with an eye toward next spring, however, the season still promises plenty to be done in preparation of a showy spring to come.
Wild Flower Garden - Plan to Plant
In the previous article I discussed design for your new wild flower garden. The next stage is planning the planting.
Wild Flower Garden - Yours to Design and Plan
To design a wild flower garden, you do not need to be a specialist or an artist, you just need to be observant and let your creative juices flow. Look around you, what is unique about your surroundings? Do you wish to enhance or compliment these things.
Converting a Weed Garden to a Manageable Flower Garden
Recently I must have had sucker tattooed on my forehead because just when I thought my summer gardening season was winding down into a nice relaxed not hard labor kind of fall a friend baited me into a conversation about their landscaping and the outcome was I ended up helping them redesign a garden
Flowers That Beautify Your Home and Garden
To help gardeners choose flowers, various systems for rating hardiness have been developed. A plant is considered hardy in a region if it can grow and thrive there without requiring special protective measures such as insulating with straw mulch.
Edible Flowers in Your Garden
Flowers can be an integral part of cooking. While most of us are aware that violets can be candied and nasturtiums can be eaten in salads, there's a bounty of flower varieties that are both edible and delicious.
Brighten Up The Garden With PVC Box Deck Flower Railings
Box deck flower railings can really brighten up any garden. The flowers create a homely, warm feel as well as adding a touch of elegance. Many people wonder how to improve the look of their deck and a flower box is by far one of the best ways to do it.
New Ways to Use Flowering Clematis in the Home Garden
As a lifetime horticulture professional, Vicki Smith (www.LGYP.com) has exciting news and guidance for using Clematis in today's low maintenance landscapes.
The Flower Garden in August
Our flower garden in August can be brimming with activities we can do at this time of year, as we can for most of the year. We have some flower gardening tips to give you and some experiments to try.
Town & Country Conservatories Designs Custom English Skylight for Rockefeller Center's Flower & Garden Show
EnglishSkylights.com, a division of Town & Country Conservatories designs and builds a custom conservatory-inspired skylight for Rockefeller Center's annual Flower & Garden Show.
