MRIS Blog

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Did you know that MRIS has a YouTube Channel? You might ask why we have one.

One of the most common requests we hear from our subscribers is for more online help for the products and services that we offer. We do provide a KnowledgeBase on mris.com that has a lot of helpful information, and our products also have User Guides that are available on mris.com. However, not everyone has time to go look for those articles and user guides, or do a lot of reading.

So we thought that offering short online videos would be a good way to provide online help. We have been featuring these videos on Matrix News and on the MRIS Blog. The goal is to keep each video under 6 minutes, so that you can take a few short minutes to watch a video find out how to use a new product or feature.

So far, our videos include:

• setting up Teams functionality in Matrix
• switching between Teams in Matrix
• the Lingo Translation functionality in Matrix
• the new polygon and radius tools for the Matrix Map search

We hope you take a few minutes to visit our YouTube Channel and see what we have to offer.  You can even sign up to get email alerts when we add new videos.Our goal is to provide easier and more convenient ways for you to get information about the products and services offered by MRIS. Let us know what you think!

Based on feedback from many customers who have used the MRIS Commercial Property Type to lease or sell commercial properties, MRIS is taking initial steps to revise many of the fields and pick lists for commercial properties when they are entered in Keystone. These changes will include removing items which are not relevant to commercial properties.

Please take a few moments to answer the 6 questions in our short survey. We appreciate your time to provide us your feedback. Thank you!

We are thrilled to announce that MRIS President and CEO, David Charron, has been named to the Inman News Top 100 Most Influential Leaders in Real Estate: 2008 report. The list reflects the industry’s best and brightest and also includes those individuals from outside of the real estate industry whose actions influence the business of buying and selling real estate. The people on the list embody leadership, innovation, ingenuity, power and persistence. David earned the honor along with some of the most well-known names in the finance and real estate industry such as Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke. The full report can be downloaded by Inman News Subscribers at:

MRIS is conducting research about IDX search solutions for realtors. An IDX search is an MLS search that an agent can add to their existing web site. Many agents like to have custom web sites designed for them, but having a developer create a custom MLS search is quite cost prohibitive. That’s where IDX solutions come in handy.

Do you have an idea of what an ideal agent IDX search solution would be? If you could take 5 minutes and fill out this short survey, it would be very helpful to MRIS, and ultimately to MRIS subscribers.

The story of Mr. Is reaches its dramatic climax in our fourth and final episode, “Restoration.”

When we last saw REALTOR^® Phil Wilson, it became clear that he had been transformed into something extraordinary: A real estate practitioner empowered by a new tool – HomesDatabase.com 2.0 — that freed him from the costs and hassles associated with Web marketing.

Mr. Is was revealed.

As we conclude this story, we want to state that we believe there’s a real estate superhero inside every MRIS subscriber, a person with the power to save the day for homebuyers and sellers.

As Phil Wilson said at the end of our last episode,

“Imagine what could happen if our combined knowledge and strengths as brokers and agents were used for our own benefit and not leveraged by others? Imagine how powerful we would become.”

We have imagined this. With the release of HomesDatabase.com 2.0, it will soon be a reality.

The MRIS Team

MRIS, September 29, 2008-As part of our continued effort to keep MRIS services up to date, we have made slight changes to MRIS.com. Times are changing and we want to help improve the look and feel of our current products while helping you continue to put your best foot forward. The changes of MRIS.com include:

• Cleaner displays;
• More user friendly environment;
• Professional look; and
• An easier way to obtain information.

We hope that you enjoy the new look of MRIS.com. Please stay tuned for further improvements to our services.

To send feedback on this article, e-mail communications@mris.net.

Welcome to The Story of Mr. Is, Episode 3: “The Reveal.” When we last saw REALTOR® Phil Wilson, he had survived the worst electrical storm to hit the Mid-Atlantic in years – and a million-volt shock.

But something was different … really different.

Things started clicking. Years of struggle against the effects of online outsiders on his business ceased. Phil became something extraordinary.

In Episode 3, that something takes shape. Maybe you’ll recognize it, because Phil’s story is your story; his struggles are your struggles; and his triumph … well, we hope that’s yours too.

We hope you enjoy this third installment of “The Story of Mr. Is.”

The MRIS Team

The Neighborhood Information reports on HomesDatabase.com and ActiveAgent sites and the Community Information reports in Matrix have an exciting new map feature – points of interest.
You can now find several points of interest mapped in relation to a property, such as schools, day care, banks, retail stores, grocery stores, transit services, gas stations, hospitals and more.Below is the full list of the types of points of interest that are now included on the map.

On September 2nd, 2008, Google made its new browser, Chrome, available for public beta. There has been a lot of news coverage of Chrome and what people like and don’t like about it. In fact, a survey in a New York Daily News article about Chrome shows that as of noon on September 3rd, 2008, 65% of people who responded to the poll intend to use Chrome as their main web browser.

The majority of news articles about Chrome call it Google’s new web browser, and don’t mention the fact that Chrome is still in beta and is not a completed product (you can easily miss the “BETA” in the Google Chrome logo since it’s in light gray text). The beta testing phase of development allows users to provide feedback so that bugs and problems found by beta testers can be reported and fixed. TechCrunch is already compiling a list of bugs and problems with Chrome.

The official Google Blog states:

“This is just the beginning — Google Chrome is far from done. We’re releasing this beta for Windows to start the broader discussion and hear from you as quickly as possible.”

So far, we have done some basic testing of mris.com, Matrix, Keystone, Homesdatabase.com and ActiveAgent with Chrome:

• Virtual Earth maps in Matrix don’t work.
• Keystone works, but the photo upload function does not - Chrome says javascript is required, but the photo upload still doesn’t work once you install javascript
• Homesdatabase/ActiveAgent - seems to work correctly
• Mris.com - flash plugin required to view some portions of the page such as animated banners and Mr. Is comic.

Beta products can be fun to play with, but frequently undergo changes to fix reported bugs, and what works one day may not work later, so there is no guarantee as to how MRIS products will function with Chrome.

For more information, email communications@mris.net.