Trulia showing how Google Maps is a big part of their success!

The tool allowing homeowners to display pins on the map next to the homes for sale, in order to “sell their neighborhood” is a freakin’ success! More than 1500 pins were added on the map in various areas of Canada!

This success however created a problem in some areas where it was too popular. That’s why we’ve implemented a new fonction in the map search. A on/off “NEIGHBORHOOD” button is now available on top of the map, allowing the visitors to hide or show the neighborhood pins.

Here’s an example :

When you’re looking for a new home, you are searching for a house. But you’re also searching for a place where you’ll feel great and which will correspond to your lifestyle. So we’ve decided to develop a new tool that will allow our customers to “sell their neighborhood” to potential buyers!

In their online account, our clients have access to a new web page where they’ll be able to describe places of interest around their home. Schools, restaurants, parks, hospitals… It can be anything, as long as you feel like it is part of the reason why you love your area. You can see below for instructions on how to use this new tool.

The items saved by the private home sellers will be displayed to the website’s visitors in the map search interface. Arrow markers will show up next to the other markers. Clicking on those markers will open an info window with all the information entered by the home owner.

How to add my places of interest on the map ?

Here’s a little tutorial guiding you through the basic steps of adding neighborhood markers on the map :

1. Take a walk down the street and take some pictures of the cool places around; (640×480 would be perfect);
2. In your ByTheOwner account, click on the Your Neighborhood button;
3. Optional : Fill in the address fields, the map will then position a marker automatically;
4. Click on the map to make sure the marker is on the right spot;
5. Type in a brief description that will communicate your passion for your neighborhood to potential buyers;
6. Click the “Add” button. Voilà!

Note that you’ll be able to complete and modify the description later. Now, let’s see how to add your pictures :

1. Click on the “Browse” button;
2. Go get the picture on your computer and click “Open”;
3. Press the “Go” button;
4. You can select your pictures order by dragging them (if you have more than one, eh!);

So… where is Canada’s coolest city?

Google added recently the GMarkerManager class to the Google Maps API. This class is used to manage visibility of hundreds of markers on a map, based on the map’s current viewport and zoom level.

(more…)

Clients asked me lately why some streets weren’t showing on the maps we use for ByTheOwner when they do show on the maps.google.com website. Unfortunately, this ain’t due to a version bug, we can’t fix it. Here’s why.

The maps Google uses on his website are provided by Navteq. The maps we are allowed to use through the google maps api are provided by TeleAtlas. This is why the maps aren’t exactly the same everywhere. Navteq didn’t gave google the permission to share their maps through google’s api.

If you’d like to read more on the subject :
http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2005/10/google_maps_and_their_data_pro_1.html

Frédérick Dubois, ByTheOwner.com
Web development and programming