Redfin has unveiled a new version of it’s site tonight, that includes a total redesign of the entire site, a new color scheme and a brand new logo.
Aping UK search engine Extate’s recent redesign (see Extate Cranks Up the Heat), among other things it has gotten rid of the property balloons (something Redfin developer Matt Goyer alluded to recently) and sports a much larger map and simpler navigation. In my opinion, they’ve hit a home run in terms of usability with this version.
But while I love the new site, I’m not such a fan of the new logo. The change, according to Redfin, was “to avoid litigation threatened by Move.com, which holds a registered trademark over a symbol that, similar to the original Redfin logo, included a house within a circle.”
(One can’t help but wonder if Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman’s sparring with Alan Dalton at January’s Connect Conference in New York may have indirectly contributed to this action.)
The new logo combines an image of a person, a house and a fruit-tree – which strikes me as kind of weak and a bit incongruous. What picking fruit has to do with a company named after a perch, I’m not sure. But it sounds like they didn’t have much option… and at least they’re carrying on a proud tradition (see Why Do All Real Estate Logos Suck So Bad?).
In conjunction with the new site, the company also announced it has gone live in Boston, its fourth metropolitan market and its first on the East Coast. This solves the mystery of why Kelman was hanging out in Boston with the guys from Condo Blog.
Redfin now covers Essex, Norfolk, Middlesex and Suffolk counties, and include the cities of Cambridge, Concord, Lowell, Newton, Marlborough and Stoughton. The launch adds over 20,000 new listings to its search engine.
Update: Watch Redfin Marketing Director Eric Heller describe some of the changes to the site:
