I was out for my evening constitutional last night, enjoying the sight of “For Sale” signs on homes throughout my neighborhood, when I spied with my little eye something new and novel. I’ve seen URLs on For Sale signs a couple of times, and always thought that that was a fine way to attract eyeballs to your property. Let’s face it: trawling though MLS listings sucks, so going directly to a property’s URL is a time saver! What I saw last night, though, was even better: a URL specifically geared for mobile phones. “Mobile users, go to prtmobile.com/1908“.
I’d've taken a picture, but it was too dark for my iPhone to handle. Nonetheless, here’s a service that’s doing it right: an easy to type (and remember!) URL, so you don’t need to struggle with text entry on your mobile device, and a mobile-optimized display of content without advertising, animations, or overly complex navigation. One photo at a time is displayed, in a reasonable thumbnail size appropriate for a mobile browser. Click the photo to advance to the next one. Simple, functional, and perfectly adequate over a 3G connection while driving through your neighborhood looking for your dream home.
Maybe this is old hat, and I’ve only just now noticed something that the rest of the world has known about for some time. If so, please indulge an old man as he catches up with the cool kids of the day.
Hi Scott,
That’s cool. I think its a smart marketing move on the realtor or the home owner’s part.
Thanks for this interesting post.
Mani Raj
Havoc Marketing
Why not go the extra step and tinyurl it so it’s even easier to remember?
http://tinyurl.com/clintonheights
That’s more to type. prtmobile.com/1234 is much easier to type, and is shorter than the tinyurl you provided. :)
A friend of mine lives a block south from the house you posted – do you live in Clintonville?
Yes. Please don’t stalk me.
Glad to see this is finally happening! For me personally, it’s the same as the fabulous tax credit…too late. We were house hunting this past summer, and I couldn’t figure out why no one had thought of that. Good find — and I don’t think you’re behind on this one!
That is good to see, here in Japan, square barcodes which can be easily read in a normal mobile phone are quite common, it is very usual to scan one in McDonalds and get a burger discount over that.
That is good to see, here in Japan, square bar codes which can be easily read in a normal mobile phone are quite common, it is very usual to scan one in McDonalds and get a burger discount over that.
They should use 2D barcodes, or a Microsoft Tag barcode, where you just use the camera of your phone to read the barcode image, and then it’ll redirect you to a website. Simliarly in Japan, there are barcodes everywhere!