WP Realty and EZProRealty

Posted on October 8, 2008
Filed Under General, Real Estate News |

How to really piss people off!

I have this unusual method of operation with my blog in that I use it 95% of the time to announce a product “IN DEVELOPMENT” long before we actually start the project. Many times our plugins and addons are born out of some specific task related to a site development. So I’ll announce an idea as if its being developed for public free release usually to determine if the plugin or addon could be worth the efforts to produce. Granted its a bit unusual and can frustrate the hell out of people when they search for something only to find a site with potential product releases, does in fact have no actual product releases at all. I’ll explain why.

Who can boldly say they have an original thought anyway? Both WP Featured and WP Realty were both born of ideas and products for Joomla that take OpenRealty and bridge and in some ways integrate its features into the CMS for a more complete method of real estate website building. But WordPress had been overlooked for about two years as a viable target for an OpenRealty bridge because very few people know it can be made to operate as a full CMS solution. I work with WordPress, Joomla and OpenRealty easily for no less than 8 out of 14 hours in a given day. Merging, bridging and sometimes integrating them to work together is always on my mind.

Although people get a bit angry with my announcing products long before their actual release, I have to cautiously approach the development of such plugins and addons because I’m the guy flipping the bill. I’m not a programmer, I’m an interface designer and photoshop instructor with a strong background in RETS and IDX databases. So when it comes time to produce a FREE plugin I have to flip the bill to the coders to deliver a plugin that will actually be of some utility value to the end users. If its of no value then why bother producing it? I’m not into plugins for commercial gain and some have beat me up quite extensively by making comments in my blog that essentially accuse me of deliberately trying render their plugins and addons commercial value moot by giving away free alternatives to their efforts. That’s not entirely true for the most part as many times the plugins and addons we have built are for a specific project which is then later developed further to make it something worthy for a broad market. Usually in the absence or knowledge that a commercial alternative exists.

So I stress that although my blog posts about plugin and addon announcements in absence of a few actual plugins does in fact really annoy people; its important to note that I release all of my plugins as free items. I really love the open source market and need to be careful to see if my plans are worth a damn or not so I test the waters. After all I am the guy paying the bill to give away free products and some times I get an angel offering to fund the development to speed up the process which really helps. During this time people are certain to copy the ideas and even take our base code and complete it. I’ve said this in a previous post that such things are almost a guarantee;

Only the arrogant would call this exclusive. Other competing services are likely to copy this plug-in feature for their own solutions I can almost guarantee it.

WP Realty vs WP Featured

After dozens of emails It seems there is a bit of confusion between which plugin is which and what its purpose is. WP Realty is our (”our” meaning mine and the person financing the project) newest plugin for WordPress that goes beyond what WP Featured was to do. WP Realty is essentially a bridging solution that does for WordPress what EZProRealty does for Joomla. For those who don’t know, the EZProRealty component is a fully working bridging solution for Joomla that brings OpenRealty into the CMS. WP Realty does exactly the same thing for WordPress and although it works as it should there is a pending feature its lacking that has kept it in BETA. By Friday it will be published on EZProRealty.com and in part here as this is our chief concern this week. Yes its 100% FREE! Its not like WP Featured;

WP Featured is an entry level plugin that basically takes your OpenRealty listings and puts them into your WordPress blog which you can define by listing ID, zip code, city or any other type of field to better provide relevant content for individual or categorized listings. The existing download is fully RC 1 or more specific RC 1.0.1 and does not have all the features that many of my other posts have illuminated. The next release is simply going to jump in numbers (following the rules of version numbering) to version 2.0 since its a complete overhaul of the existing petty features 1.0.1 has.

Are these just more bullshit announcements for plugins that take forever to surface? Nope and there is financial motive this time around since an angel has offered to flip the bill. Although I’ve managed to talk them out of duplicating some commercial OpenRealty addons for free release, WP Realty and WP Featured are as active in development and release as is the XML export utility and the IDX Import Utility for OpenRealty. The latter two are available elsewhere as commercial products that my new found friend with cash wants to see become FREE and “open source”

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2 Comments so far
  1. George October 13, 2008 8:39 pm

    Cant wait to see the product, Jared! Thanks for all of your hard work!!!

  2. Jared Ritchey October 15, 2008 4:09 pm

    Hey WP Realty is ready, please visit the NEW project site at EZProRealty.com


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