Bulletins – Hawaii Information Service

Question: When I view a listing on AlohaLiving.com, the Google Map of the property has the map pin in the correct location. But when I do a search for property on Google.com Maps, the pin is in the wrong place. How can I correct the map pin on Google.com’s property search result maps?

Answer: Google geocodes properties using address ranges which leads to inaccurate placement of property pins on maps. Aloha Living uses the Geographic Information System (GIS) embedded in the REsearch MLS technology which is parcel based for almost perfect accuracy. You will not find better placement of property pins than Aloha Living for the state of Hawaii. Do a search on vacant land and you will be amazed! No one else comes even close to our accuracy.

Thanks! Our GIS team will be thrilled that you noticed!

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Did you know that our staff GIS experts have been working with Google to encourage them to adopt the same GIS method of placing property pins on the Google Map servers. Our mapping team and Google’s mapping team are in regular communication over these types of issues, and Hawaii Information Service is playing a role in improving Google’s mapping module for all of Hawaii.

Question: How often is data updated on AlohaLiving.com?

Answer: Listing data is updated every 3 hours on AlohaLiving.com. Agent and Office information, as well as photos are updated twice a week during the Monday and Thursday evening complete database update.

We are working to shorten the update times, and hope to have listing data updating every hour, and a complete database update nightly in the near future.

Please Let Us Know! If you do not see your listing after these update times, please call customer support and give them the MLS number. We want to identify any data update issues before we shorten the update times.

Question: Why are you registering clients on Aloha Living main page? Who sees the list of clients? Does any real estate agent ever see or have access to the registered client list?

Answer: AlohaLiving.com encourages users to register for My Home Toolkit in order to take advantage of many personalized features of the site, such as Saving a Search and the Hotlist feature. We also provide a free basic public record report on each active property to all registered members. In order to recognize a user when they login and to deliver their personalized information, we must require them to register with the site and give us basic information.

At this time, only staff members of AlohaLiving.com have access to the registered users list. We will use the list to communicate with registered users about AlohaLiving.com enhancements, features, and updates.

We are working on a module that will help us to distribute qualified leads to agents and brokers directly though the AlohaLiving.com lead management system, but at this time, that system is not ready to be implemented. When the system is ready, we will provide detailed instructions on how to use the feature, and how it is integrated with REsearch, your MLS system. And don’t worry, we do not have plans to sell leads back to you. Leads will be distributed at no cost to you.
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WYSIWYG- What You See is What You’re (Gonna) Get! All of the development you see going on at www.AlohaLiving.com is work that we are doing to improve our Interactive product line to brokers and agents in Hawaii. All of the features and enhancements that you see on AlohaLiving.com will eventually be available to fuel your personal websites. One of the reasons the Aloha Living iniative was born was to serve as a test environment for the new suite of features and functionality we plan to offer to our members.

So, if you have a website with Hawaii Information Service, and you’ve been waiting for hot new features like Saved Searches, Hotlists, Map Searching, and Lead Management, keep a close eye on what is going on at AlohaLiving.com. Very soon these features will also be available to add on to or replace your current website technology!

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GOT A QUESTION ABOUT ALOHA LIVING?
E-mail ASK@ALOHALIVING.COM TODAY!

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Blog post by Beth Berry
Director of Sales and Marketing
Hawaii Information Service
Aloha Living Network
beth@alohaliving.com

Attention Brokers & Agents-

We launched your new regional real estate portal, AlohaLiving.com, on February 8th, and since then the site has gone through many changes. Improved speed, easier navigation, and more content are just a few of the enhancements that have been made over the past two months. Have you been to AlohaLiving.com lately? If not, you may want to take a new look.

And over the next few weeks, we’d like to hear from you and have a chance to answer your most burning questions about AlohaLiving.com and The Aloha Living Network. We have gotten tons of great feedback about the site, and many of the change you have requested have been made over the past couple of months. Now let’s kick it up a notch. From now until April 15th, I will be blogging answers to your questions about Aloha Living.

Feel free to ask anything you want about AlohaLiving.com, The Aloha Living Network, and The Aloha Living Blog Network. Curious about why your MLS is taking on a regional portal initiative? Want to know how you fit into the AlohaLiving.com picture? Wondering if AlohaLiving.com is competing for your valuable Google AdWords placement? Interested in our Marketing plan? Want to know how many visitors we see every day, and how people are finding your listings on AlohaLiving.com?

We hope to answer these kinds of questions, and more! Each day, I will pick the most commonly asked questions, and answer them on the blog. I’ll aslo send out the blog post via e-mail so you don’t miss answers to your questions. I am not promising to answer all of the questions that get sent in via the blog, but I will post the ones that are asked the most often, and even if your question doesn’t get answered on the blog, I promise I’ll answer your e-mail directly with an answer.

The ONLY RULE: Go to AlohaLiving.com and look around before you ask a question. The feature you’re asking about may have been fixed, enhanced, or added since your last visit to the site.

Send all questions to ask@AlohaLiving.com . Questions will be answered by team members who have been working on the Aloha Living project since the beginning. And if we don’t know that answer to your question, we’ll hunt down somebody who does. Answers are guranteed!

Please, please, please! During the Ask All About Aloha Living promotion, send your questions to ask@AlohaLiving.com. Do not send your questions to Customer Support. Do not send your questions to Accounting. Do not send your questions to the CEO.

SEND YOUR QUESTIONS TO ASK@ALOHALIVING.COM.

APRIL 4-15, 2008: SEND IN YOUR QUESTIONS TODAY! ask@AlohaLiving.com

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Blog post by Beth Berry
Director of Sales and Marketing
Hawaii Information Service
Aloha Living Network
beth@alohaliving.com