February 8th, 2010

What is an API?

By James Wilson, VP of Development

First… it is an acronym

API is an acronym which means Application Programming Interface.

What is it?

It is a contract that allows computers to talk to each other. Another name used widely is a protocol which is a set of rules that must be followed to exchange information. By “talk”, I mean the ability to ask a question and get a valuable answer back.

How does it work?

A really smart computer person (a developer) defines and builds a system that accepts questions (request for information). Next, that same developer writes instructions (the contract or protocol) that must be followed in order to properly accept questions so that the valuable answers can be computed and returned. Another developer, somewhere else in the world, reads the fascinating and tantalizing contract documentation. She then sets out to build a unit within her own system to ask questions at the proper time. Her system then uses the subsequent answers to deliver great value to that system’s end users.

What should be in an API’s contract?

1) Location, Name and Protocol

• Mechanism or protocols to be used to establish a connection. These are typically another lower level type of API or contract.
• The address or location of the system that can answer the questions.
• Name of the service.

Let’s give an example of a typical business to business (B2B) scenario. Just below is a URL or web address used to locate a service which finds nearby pizza delivery services.

http://www.pizza-store-locator.com/service/find-the-closest-pizza-delivery

The protocol used is established with the text: “HTTP”. HTTP is another acronym which stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol. This is another contract which specifically defines how a web browser, like FireFox or IE, can communicate with a web server. Many higher level business services are built on top of this lower level API.

The location of this API is defined as “www.pizza-store-locator.com“. This type of string is typically called a domain in web parlance.  A domain is always associated with an IP address. This is a unique identifier and allows request to be reliably routed to the appropriate web server. An IP address is an acronym meaning “Internet Protocol” address. There is that word, “protocol”, again. The whole WWW, World Wide Web, is just a series of layered protocols that allow everyone to talk to everyone else.

The name of the  service is “service/find-the-closest-pizza-delivery”. This name is mapped to business logic, or a program, on the web server in this case that is responsible for formulating an answer. Just guessing, but this service probably helps find pizza delivery services. It is nice when the name of a service is self describing!! That is the sign of a good API.

2) Input Definition

• What questions can be asked?
  • Is there only one questions or different types of questions?
• What are all the pieces of information that must be included in the question so I can answer it?
  • In the example above, for the pizza delivery service, what information is required to find the closest pizza delivery shop? The contract could specify an address is required like 90 Broad Street, Suite 2002, New York, NY.  But it could also just be a latitude and longitude.
  • Lets keep going… how far away are you interested in searching? 5 Miles, 10 Miles or do you care? No, you don’t because it is not you that must do the driving to the pizza shop so… perhaps you only want a certain number of shop results back like 20 or 5? Perhaps you do need 20 but want to have at least 5 different pizza shop options returned so you can get a good selection.
  • All this stuff needs to be defined by the service creator based upon research by a product manager into how people actually think and what they want.
• How should all of those pieces of information be structured?
  • There are many ways to send information to the service.
    • We can send it as query string parameters.  For example..
      • http://www.pizza-store-locator.com/service/find-the-closest-pizza-delivery?LATITUDE=108&LONGITUDE=-47&number-of-different-types-of-shops=10.
    • We can send it as XML
      • <latitude>108</latitude><longitude>-47</longitude><number-of-different-types-of-shops>10</number-of-different-types-of-shops>

3) Outputs

• A description of the answers that can be returned
• Format of the answers
• Exceptions or errors that can be expected
  • A good API will defined all of the possible bad scenarios that can occur and how it will notify the calling program. This allows the calling program to respond gracefully.
  • Here are some examples to possible bad return results:
    • Not enough information was submitted, and here is specifically what was missing: the latitude.
    • The service is temporarily down.
    • The service is too busy, please try again later.
    • No results were found.
    • Results were found but not as many as you asked for because we only search within a maximum distance of 10 miles
    • This service has moved to a new address…
    • …and so on…
  • Typically each of the possible errant answer is give a unique identifier or code which allow computers to respond easily.

An “out of this world” example…

Do you remember “Close Encounters of a Third Kind” when the scientists first started communicating with the huge alien ship that came over the mountain? Sure you do… who can forget this brilliant movie that is now such a fundamental part of the fabric of our existence. Well… in this movie, the scientist use mathematics manifest through sound and lights to try to establish basic communication with the aliens. Once the alien understood, they repeated back the message to say to the scientists, quite loudly, “Yes, we heard you!” An interface was established, an agreement that if you flash your lights and send over sound waves, we will capture that information, process it, and send you back beeps and blips along with flashing light signals too (and the result of this will be that we land our ship and change the very nature of your lives!).

References

I have listed some common websites to give other definitions of an API; however, they commit some of the cardinal sins when defining a entity.

1.     Wikipedia

1. Sin! - They use the object in the definition itself.

2.     How Stuff Works

1. Sin! - They use the noun in the definition itself.
2. And worse still they limit the definition of API’s to web technologies.  It is important to understand that API’s are EVERYWHERE… for example… inside a computer, API’s are established to allow software to run  successfully on a computer’s hardware which has nothing to do with the web.

Tags: API, Application Programming Interface, James John Wilson, James Wilson PMP, Onboard Informatics, What is?.

February 5th, 2010

Weekly Roundup

By Jackie Berg, Marketing Specialist

In case you missed it, here are some great reads from the worlds of technology and real estate:

• You’ve certainly heard a lot about the iPad, but here is the official demo video (via Mashable):

“Even though the Apple iPad won’t be available for another 60 or 90 days (depending on the model), Apple already has its official iPad website up and running. In addition to showing off some of the applications, features and design and technical specifications, the website also features an eight-minute video with Apple’s design and development team discussing the device and showing it off.”

• A collaboration portal for architects that won’t even require you to spare a dime:

“Coming soon in the first of the year Architecture 5¢.com is going to become the hub where Architects and clients can come to talk to one another. A place where architects from all over can talk to each other and collaborate. A place to show your work, talk to home owners, answer questions, and most importantly help you get back to work.”

• Real Estate CEOs are more positive about improving market conditions this year than in 2009 (via REALTOR® Mag):

“The 110 members of the Real Estate Executive Roundtable are more positive about their industry in the first quarter of 2010 than they were in 2009 with the sentiment index at 73, up from 63 in the fourth quarter of 2009. The sentiment index measures confidence in real estate market conditions. However, a common concern of respondents is the employment picture.”

• Foreclosure filings jumped in Las Vegas, which had the largest number of foreclosure filings of any city last year (via CNN/Money):

“In cities such as Las Vegas, Phoenix, Miami and Bakersfield, Calif., soaring home prices of the mid 2000s drove homebuyers to desperate measures, such as taking on hybrid adjustable rate mortgages, also called toxic ARMS. These products only remained affordable as long as home prices grew; once prices stopped rising, borrowers began to default.”

• The buzz about Google mapping just went from Street View to Store View (via Search Engine Land):

“I received a tip from a New York retailer named Oh Nuts, that Google came to their store to take pictures for a new Google Maps product named “Google Store Views.” I was told that they took pictures of the inside of the store, every 6 feet, in all directions. They also took pictures of products. Google Store Views will allow people to essentially walk into the store, off of Google Street Views. ”

Tags: foreclosures, Google, Google Store View, iPad, Las Vegas real estate.

February 3rd, 2010

A Tale of Two Cities

By Joe Rugolo, Director of Data Operations

With Super Bowl XLIV less than a week away, more information is going to surface about the Colts and the Saints than you can shake a stick at. What will Reggie Bush eat for breakfast on the day of the big game? How many times will Peyton Manning be asked questions about his ties to the city of New Orleans? It can be a bit overwhelming, but at the same time I hate missing out on an opportunity to cash in on the hype. So I did a little bit of digging in our own database to see which city deserves to win the Super Bowl more (casting aside actual football playing ability).

Better Fans
I know that I risk a punch in the mouth by even attempting to break this down, but I’m going to do it anyway. I’ve watched a lot of football over the years…a lot. I’ve even been to the Superdome in New Orleans to watch a game and almost went deaf because of the raucous fans. The RCA Dome is no joke either if you’ve ever watched the Colts play on TV.

But what do the numbers say?  According to our NFL Attendance index, Indianapolis has consistently beaten the national average for fans that attend games by about 10 points over the last three years. New Orleans on the other hand has trended upward over the last two years (coincidentally following the same path of the team’s success…hmmmm), but has still been under the national average for the last three years. I’m sure that there might be other factors at play here (such as the wake of Katrina, the poor economy, etc), but I’m trying to keep this lighthearted and fun. So I’m just going to focus on the numbers and declare Indianapolis the winner in this area.

More Fun
It used to be that New Year’s Eve and St. Patrick’s Day had the market cornered on alcohol-fueled insanity but that is no longer the case. Super Bowl Sunday has emerged as a dark horse contender to challenge either of those days for the number one spot. So which city would be more fun to hang out at bar and watch the game in? I’m not even sure that I need any data to support this claim. However, in the interest of fairness, I’m going to use some anyway.

If you’re anything like me you like a little breathing room when you watch a game…it makes it easier to scream at the players that way. Some day they might even hear me. When looking at the number of bars per person in these two cities, each eclipses the national average (for cities over 100K people). Not unexpectedly, New Orleans edges out the national average by about 25%, while Indy scrapes by at a little over 3%. Seems like either city has some decent fun potential, but I’m going to give the nod to New Orleans.

Aftermath
So the game is over and a winner has been decided. Where would you feel safer in the event of a team’s victory? You’ve got one city that’s been a perennial sports doormat and another that already claimed a Super Bowl victory a mere 3 years ago. If history has taught me anything, it’s that when cities that aren’t used to winning win, chaos ensues (see Boston Red Sox, 2004). When a city with an “act like you’ve been there before” mentality wins, there’s usually a calm celebration followed by a sense of entitlement (see New York Yankees, 1996, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2009).

Since ultimately it’s up to the police to maintain order in these situations, let’s take a look at which city’s police force is more up to the task. In looking at the most recent FBI crime incidence data and doing a comparison based on the number of incidents per 1000 people, New Orleans actually appears to be your safer bet (72.88 for Indy vs. 63.06 for N.O.). This is somewhat surprising considering the debauchery and madness associated with New Orleans, but the numbers wouldn’t lie. Tiebreaker goes to the Big Easy.

The Winner
So after careful deliberation and painstaking number crunching, it would appear as though New Orleans deserves to emerge as the winner of next Sunday’s big game.  That’s the data guy in me speaking.  The football fan still thinks Indy comes out on top because Peyton Manning is just too damn good. I guess we’ll have to wait and see. In the meantime enjoy every bit of Super Bowl minutia that comes your way in the coming days because somewhere there was someone that went through a lot of trouble to dig up that info and share it with you.

Tags: Colts vs. Saints, Indianapolis, New Orleans, sports rivalries, Super Bowl, Super Bowl predictions, Super Bowl XLIV.

January 29th, 2010

Real Estate Webmasters Introduces REW IDX 3.0

By Jackie Berg, Marketing Specialist

We often get questions from individual agents looking to utilize our products to differentiate their websites in their respective marketplaces. Since our traditional solutions aren’t designed for individual agents, we decided to fill this need by launching our Value Added Reseller program to give agents the benefit of our content in various flavors. We package our neighborhood and home information for web developers who use their design and programming expertise to mold the data into innovative implementations that enhance user experience.

Real Estate Webmasters is a partner that does just that. REW takes our data and adds design, programming, and SEO expertise to deliver customized, cutting edge real estate websites. They allow their agents to sell based on clients’ lifestyle needs as well as extremely high-quality listing content (from both informational and visual standpoints). The neighborhood plugins REW mixes in to their offerings allows agents to display the same leading content used by the nation’s top brokerages.

The latest buzz at REW and in the agent community is about the new REW IDX 3.0 product. (See a live demo here.) This iFrameable IDX solution works with any website. It includes full lead management and IDX builder technology for customization.

REW IDX 3.0 is in beta and there are still a few more days to be a part of the testing group. Anyone (on an REW-approved MLS board) who signs up in January will have access to the product for 3 months. Those who are part of this group will save on a setup fee (normally $499) and will only have to pay for monthly features.

Real Estate Webmasters' new IDX solution allows users to draw their own neighborhood boundaries during home search.

Morgan Carey’s REW blog walks you through features to pay attention to. Here are a couple of the things that make 3.0 unique in this space:

• Polygonal parameter searches: so the user can draw their own ideal neighborhood
• Spherical/dragable radius searches
• Custom IDX search builder
• Schools and amenities overlay
• Streetview
• New map search results pagination

The REW team believes that agents are experts in his or her markets, thus giving them back-end controls to customize their display.

You can see the full integration of Onboard’s content in the map-based amenities data as well as the “get local” tab for detailed listings.)

For any agents out there who are looking to be a part of this testing group, click here to get in before the month ends.

Tags: agent websites, IDX search, IDX solutions, neighborhood search, Real Estate Webmasters, real estate websites, search polygons.

January 25th, 2010

The Housing Market in 2010

By Jackie Berg, Marketing Specialist

Onboard CIO Peter Goldey speaks on trends that will shape the housing market in 2010:

Tags: 2010 housing trends, inman, Peter Goldey.

January 20th, 2010

Patrick Healy Chats with BHG Real Estate

By Jackie Berg, Marketing Specialist

Patrick Healy has been busy lately. In addition to overseeing Onboard client implementations and helping partners with strategic objectives, he was also an organizer of last week’s RE BarCamp here in New York. Patrick chatted with our friends over at Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate last week as part of a Clean Slate blog interview series with industry leaders during the Inman Connect conference.

Check out what Patrick had to say about his role at Onboard and the new Listings Web Service.

Head over to Clean Slate for more interviews and perspectives on the consumer’s new role in real estate, web analytics for RE professionals, the importance of video and more.

Tags: Better Homes and Gardens, inman, Patrick Healy.

January 19th, 2010

Rethinking the Real Estate Transaction

By Jackie Berg, Marketing Specialist

Our client Countdown to Buy has been in the news quite a bit recently. CTB operates a real estate platform based on accelerating the sales cycle of foreclosed properties. You can read more about their platform here in case you aren’t familiar.

Countdown to Buy has captured the curiosity of both buyers and sellers looking to know more about how this unique platform fits into the marketplace. Why are banks getting involved with Countdown to Buy’s efforts? How do agents fit into this model? Is this just another auction site?

Jim Hodson, Countdown to Buy’s CEO and Founder, took some time recently with National Mortgage Professional magazine to explain answers to these questions and more:

More about Countdown to Buy here:

• CTB Secures $1.1M in Funding (OnBlog)
• Real Estate Platform Promotes Transaction Trust (via Mortgage Servicing News)
• New Spin on Foreclosure Auctions (via Inman News)

Tags: Clients, Countdown to Buy, foreclosure auctions, real estate models.

January 15th, 2010

Help Realogy with Haiti Relief

By Jackie Berg, Marketing Specialist

Realogy announced yesterday that it will use its charitable foundation to help victims of the earthquake in Haiti. The Realogy Charitable Foundation, an arm of Realogy Corp., is working directly with the American Red Cross International Response fund to donate all funds raised by employees, vendors, and the general public.

Onboard has made a corporate donation of $1000 in conjunction with our clients at Realogy. We encourage you to join us in helping victims of this devastating tragedy.

With the many Haiti relief scams spreading on the internet, the FBI has warned against putting your money in the wrong place. With a donation to this fund, you can be sure your dollars will reach those in need.

Click here to read CEO Richard A. Smith’s statement and to donate directly.

Tags: Haiti, Realogy.

January 11th, 2010

Inman Connect NYC is Here!

By Jackie Berg, Marketing Specialist

It’s that time of the year; Inman Connect NYC is upon us once again, paving the way for many great discussions with the brightest minds of the real estate technology space. This time around, our relationship team gets to trade in airline tickets for MetroCards, since Connect is happening in our uptown backyard. The industry is still catching its breath from the “vortex” of 2009 (as Marc Siden calls it), and this year’s program will send developers, brokers and marketers off into the new year with some clarity about how we are all responding to the challenges ahead.

Onboard Informatics is a proud Silver Sponsor of Inman Connect, held this week at the Marriott Marquis Times Square. We have sponsored this event for the last several years with great success in developing new business, collaborating with clients, and being at the forefront of of the real estate conversation.

This year, Onboard CIO & CKO Peter Goldey will be speaking at 11:30am Thursday, Jan. 14 on the Data Smackdown panel. Pete will be debating new analytics and technologies alongside Mark Fleming, Stan Humphries, and Michael Simonsen.

If you are attending, be sure to visit us at Booth #901. You won’t leave dehydrated or with bad breath. (And now that I’ve completely overstated the wow factor of our giveaways, you’ll have to stop by.)

Tags: Data Smackdown panel, events, inman, Inman 2010, Inman Connect NYC, real estate events.

January 7th, 2010

Census MMX: This Time It’s Personal

By Joe Rugolo, Director of Data Operations

The dawn of a new decade is upon us. Wow…seems like just yesterday I was getting ready for the non-event that was Y2K and now 2010 is here. For those of you keeping track at home, this also means that it’s time for good ol’ Uncle Sam to send around those two pound envelopes containing your U.S. Census form. As if being constitutionally obligated to fill out and return this wasn’t incentive enough, the Census Bureau is kicking off its “2010 Portrait of America Road Tour”, a $340 million publicity blitz that they are hoping will increase awareness and calm fears as to what the census population count really means. They are even planning on airing two commercials during the Super Bowl pregame show. My fingers are crossed that these ads have either Peyton Manning or monkeys in them. Everyone knows that either of these are comic gold when it comes to TV advertisements.

The Census Bureau is putting up $340M to show they've come a long way from here.

I, for one, think that this is a great idea (the Road Tour, not my commercial proposal).  Taxpayer money has been tossed around carelessly for years; everything from the recent bank bailout to the continuous funding of space exploration. Yeah, we get it…the sun, the moon, the stars. All very nice. Show me video of a real live Ewok and I’ll be impressed. But I digress. My point is that there are several reasons why this type of initiative could payoff for data geeks like me in addition to resulting in better appropriation of government funds (I’ll be focusing more on the former).

Refresh of Stale Data
Think back to the year 2000 and then think about how much has changed since then. Tiger Woods had a squeaky clean image, an iPod sounded like something an alien would pop out of, and when you thought of the term “hybrid” the image of a centaur or dog-faced boy would pop into your head before that of a car. So how can we rely on data that is 10 years old to provide us with accurate info for making decisions or performing statistical analysis and projections? How many housing developments have you seen spring up in your neighborhood and the surrounding area, especially during the real estate boom? Look back on some of the awful events of the last decade that have pushed people from their homes. All of these events need to be accounted for, and the more precise the reporting, the more useful the data. The fact that the census only happens once a decade makes this even more important. There isn’t a lot of room for error here because there won’t be another opportunity for quite some time (10 years to be exact).

Improved Sample Size
There’s an old adage that says that one out of every 10 people is nuts. So think of nine people that you know and if none of them are crazy then you must be the one. But expand that to think of 11 people and maybe there’s a slight chance that you aren’t the one. Move on to 20 or 30 and all of the sudden you can justify your sanity a little bit easier. The same can be said with increasing the sample size of the census (ok, so my example was a bit of a reach).  In a perfect world, 100% of the country would be represented by census data and we’d have an exact picture of the U.S. population, if only for a moment. That is completely unrealistic. More realistic would be an improvement over the mail return rate of 67% from 2000. As long as any gains shown represent a somewhat even distribution across the country then this would be seen as a positive. The closer this percentage gets to 100, the more confident a user can be in the data that they are consuming. I imagine that one concern would be that any gains in the response rate would come from specific pockets of the country where extra attention was paid, which could skew the overall results.  However there are people way smarter than I am analyzing these types of things, so I don’t think there’s reason to panic.

New Data Available
As an avid “Seinfeld” fan, I’ve seen pretty much every episode about a hundred times. In one episode in particular, George buys a sweater for Elaine that he knows has a spot on it because he can get it at a discount. This becomes a running gag throughout the show and hilarity ensues. If you think of the 2000 census as the sweater, then the 2010 census is taking several measures (or at least there are measures proposed) that would remove this spot. Things like tallying results from married same-sex couples, counting prisoners in their communities as opposed to where they are incarcerated (proposed), or increasing the representation of the Latino community would all go a long way towards painting a better picture of what is going on out there. A change in methodology would make trending a little bit more difficult but it would be laying the foundation for more accurate reporting in future censuses.  Tradition isn’t an excuse for not making change, especially at the expense of accuracy. If the country’s current landscape warrants a change to the data that needs to be captured, then so be it.

I know the census isn’t a perfect system but at least efforts are being taken to bring about some positive changes. You can do your part by fulfilling your civic duty and sending in your forms after you receive them. It’ll be 10 years before you have to do it again and if movies about the future have taught me anything, it is that in 2020 everyone will have robot servants to fill out these forms for them. That and hover-cars.

Tags: 2010 Census, census data, population counts, population data, U.S. Census.