Direct Response to Re: [Rets-dev] Google Base Housing vs. RETS

[Ryan C Bonham]

Stuart Schuessler wrote:
>  >> High adoption rate?  How many times does a post come through here 
> and the MLS doesn’t even support it?     >>And I think I am offering 
> ways to make it less complicated.         * Yes, high adoption rate.  
> Every major MLS vendor in the country uses RETS.  I would dare say 
> that over half of the real estate agents in the country use it and 
> don’t even know it.  There is a very large industry structure built 
> around RETS.  If an MLS is not using RETS at this point then they are 
> putting their members at a competitive disadvantage.   *
Why every major MLS may have and use RETS in some fashion, typically 
through the use of there broker/agent application. Many MLS and probably 
the majority of them do not allow brokers/agents to access the IDX type 
data via RETS and developers are stuck with 1300 different FTP solutions 
that they need to support. So adoption rates really depend on what 
aspect of the MLS data you are talking about. Not saying that googlebase 
is a better solution or anything along that lines, I think we just need 
to be realistic about what the MLS are using RETS for and who can really 
access data using RETS.

> *     *
> * Were you realistically expecting everyone to drop the RETS standard 
> and start using GoogleBase? We had it simpler using FTP feeds.       *
Stuart, i am honestly just confused about this statement, especially 
coming from you.. ;) What was simpler with FTP feeds? File Naming 
structures, layout, and security measures vary from MLS to MLS, not to 
mention a lack of any sort of metadata for the FTP pulls from most MLSs. 
At least with RETS there is somewhat of a base foundation to build off. 
You can rely on getting the images/data in one standard method, despite 
some vendor/implementation idiosyncrasies. **