Mike Bradley:  Hi! This is Mike Bradley, Chairman of the Metro Brokers Technology Committee.  I am here today with Annie Thatcher from Terabitz.  Annie, good to have you here.

Annie Thatcher:  Thank you.  I am happy to be here.

Mike Bradley:  Annie flew in from California for this annual meeting to help us educate some of our members on the new website www.metrobrokersonline.com and the new website was just launched on Monday.  Now what were some of the enhancements that you see within the website?

Annie Thatcher:  Well, right now instead of returning a map search when somebody types in a city name, you are going to come with a list search.  If they want to see the property's map, they can go to the top of the screen, and click view 20 properties on map, and another enhancement to that is they are actually able to go and draw an area out and, so if they see 20 homes and they just want to isolate an area, they can draw a little shape around those and just get that area on the map.

Mike Bradley:  Great and I understand that is a polygon.  So, multiple points, not just a square.

Annie Thatcher:  Yes.  Multiple points, they can draw up to five shapes, so if they are just interested in two streets here, two streets there, whatever they can do that.

Mike Bradley:  That is great and the performance - has that improved as well?

Annie Thatcher:  Yes, that was the reason for the changeover, returning the list search, that returns the result more quickly, because now we don't have to map the property and then return the results and also you will notice that the bits bar is gone up at the top of the map.  We now have a link called schools, cafés, and more and that is how they are going to click on that to get any of the local bits they want to see on the map.

Mike Bradley:  Excellent, very exciting stuff.  I am very impressed with the site.  Thank you Annie for coming now here and helping our agents.  Again, that is metrobrokersonline.com.  Thank you.

Posted in Annual Meeting, Technology And You, MBI News

This Metro Brokers produced Video is about how to add custom outbound links to your Metrobrokersonline Agent Website. The page offers an unlimited amount of links and is great for keeping everything in a centralized area.  <watch video>

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Posted in Education And Training, Technology And You, Online Education

This Metro Brokers produced video will show you how to set your Metrobrokersonline.com Agent Website to auto-load your listings to the Metro Brokers IDX site and map.  You can then customize your listings.  To do this, you will need to know how to add your MLS ID or LAG ID to your in the back end of the Metro Brokers agent website.

Posted in Education And Training, Technology And You, Online Education

This Metro Brokers produced video will cover how to add online tools to your metrobrokersonline.com agent site.  These tools are the mortgage calculator,buyer tips,seller tips and the home evaluation tool.  These have to be added to appear on the Metro Brokers agent website.

Posted in Education And Training, Technology And You, Online Education

MetroBrokersTV: I am MetroBrokersTV. Welcome back to Metro Brokers TV. I am here today with Troy Wilcox, Metro Brokers' new technology specialist. Welcome Troy.

Troy Wilcox: Thank you.

MetroBrokersTV: So, tell me a little bit as a new technology specialist, what are some of your priorities for Metro Brokers in the technology realm. What's on the plate?

Troy Wilcox: Well, we are starting off with getting our online store up and running, which is basically where you can buy Metro Brokers apparel, briefcases, folders, things like that. We currently have a store set up in our office, but there are a lot of agents that are not close to us and we want to be able to serve them as well as you know today's gas prices make it a little easier on somebody who can just buy it online and you can ship it to them and the things are not that big. So, it is minimal shipping cost.

MetroBrokersTV: Great. Well, that's real convenient.

Troy Wilcox: I think it will be. I think we'll enjoy that.

MetroBrokersTV: [Voice Cross Over] sure.

Troy Wilcox: Exactly.

MetroBrokersTV: So, new on the horizon also is the fact that we are getting ready to open our or have access to our new eighth IDX MLS system.

Troy Wilcox: Yeah.

MetroBrokersTV: And tell me a little bit about that. Where are we going next?

Troy Wilcox: That's the Aspen, Glenwood Springs MLS IDX system and feed and we basically have gotten all the paperwork done on that and it is in the developer's hands at this point in time; should be, I am hoping within a week or two...

MetroBrokersTV: Great.

Troy Wilcox: We will have that up, which will make the Metro Brokers out in Rifle, Colorado in that area very happy.

MetroBrokersTV: Well, tell us a little bit about our technical support, your help-desk

Troy Wilcox: Yes.

MetroBrokersTV: Our agents calling in, do they know that you are here yet. Are they taking advantage of the services that you and Kimberly Carroll can provide?

Troy Wilcox: Yeah, they sure are. They can email us or they can call us. Kimberly Carroll is working the help-desk and she is fantastic. She is very prompt and very concise and helps everybody through. I have been talking on the phone quite a bit with a lot of people, answered some questions about the functionality of the website, what they can and can't do, problems logging on, things like that because it is still relatively new and not everyone is used to it at this point in time. I really enjoy talking to people and I don't mind at all. So, they can call me at any time.

MetroBrokersTV: Absolutely. I will take you up on that.

Troy Wilcox: All right.

MetroBrokersTV: Good. Well, can you speak to some of the issues that agents are struggling with right now? Are you finding any common denominators? Is there an area that you are focusing more or less on?

Troy Wilcox: I would say that there is an area that is more or less... you know, there is... not everybody is computer savvy I guess is the best way to put it and so, you know, you've got to walk some people through some things, which is fine and just kind of steer them in the right direction and it is just like anything else. Little bit of repetition, you do it once or twice and it works out really well.

MetroBrokersTV: So, you are here for all of us, no matter what our skill level is online.

Troy Wilcox: No matter what. No matter what.

MetroBrokersTV: Great. Well, Troy thanks so much for coming today and I know I will be talking to you soon.

Troy Wilcox: All right. Well, thank you for having me.

MetroBrokersTV: You bet.

Posted in Advantages, Technology And You, Press Room, MBI News