- Realtor.com has leveraged the new app ecosystem of Apple's latest operating system.
- The listing portal stitched a search experience into iMessage, Apple's messaging system, so users can discover, view and react to listings.
“Love it!,” “Let’s go see it!,” “What do you think?”
Now you can slap reactions like these onto realtor.com listings in some text-message conversations.
The listing portal has added new integration to its Apple search app that lets users discover, share and comment on realtor.com listings from within iMessage, the inter-iPhone and iPad messaging system.
The idea is to stitch both basic search functionality and novel features into a messaging platform that many consumers frequently use to communicate with each other.
“It’s creating an easier and better way for people to share,” said Gillian Roberts, a spokeswoman for realtor.com operator Move. “This is a way for people to collaborate over listings.”
The integration is only available for devices running on iOS 10, the latest version of Apple’s operating system.
IOS 10 turned iMessage into an app ecosystem, allowing apps to project experiences into the messaging platform — much like Facebook’s Messenger.
If they have realtor.com’s mobile app, users can activate the integration by opening the “app drawer” in iMessage, tapping on the store icon and adding the realtor.com icon to their app drawer.
From then on, users can pull up listings they’ve already viewed or saved on realtor.com’s app inside iMessage, and also discover nearby listings they haven’t already seen on the mobile app.
Each listing is represented inside iMessage by a property photo, which users can tap to enlarge and see other data — such as price, number of bedrooms and bathrooms and square footage.
The integration’s flashiest feature lets users add reactions with images to listings in text exchanges.
It capitalizes on consumers’ growing preference for communicating with visual representations known as emoticons (which primarily represent emotions) or emojis (emotions and concepts).
For now, users can only add six reactions to listings : “Love It!,” “Let’s go see it!,” “What do you think?,” “Love the kitchen!,” “Nice bathroom!,” or “Has a pool!” But realtor.com will gradually roll out others.
How about “Icky!” or “Terrible paint job!”?
Realtor.com “cannot confirm which phrases will appear on future reaction stickers at this time,” Roberts said.
