Interview: Platial.Com Co-Founder Di-Ann Eisnor

I've been involved with real estate search technology in one way or another for quite a while now. Until recently most search interfaces have been about the same. Pick your city, zip, price range etc. etc. and you get a list of properties. If you're lucky there will be a link to an online map like mapquest. At best you'll be able to see where the gas stations and holiday inn's are near your desired spot. Enter the era of the Mashup. Now search is getting interesting and a heck of a lot more relevant. In an earlier post I talked about a start-up effort by a group of folks in Portland called Platial. I think it's one the most unique combinations of web 2.0 technologies on the web. I had an opportunity to interview one of the co-founders of Platial, Di-Ann Eisnor. Di-Ann is very accessible and has offered to answer more questions, so post your question in a comment and I'll be sure to forward them on to Di-Ann.

Question: Could you explain neogeography in layman's terms?

Answer:I found this definition on the Placekraft site.[Neogeogaphy is] sufficiently abstract to serve as a broad category of un/non-professional geographic practices (walking mapping, tagging, etc.).

For our purposes it has meant a form of democratization and citizen participation. Anyone can create their own map or add their stories, pictures, video to a Place anywhere in the world.

Question: Who founded Platial and Why?

Answer: Jason and I have been creating psychogeography inspired artwork and games about urban exploration for years but it never crossed function with our work as social software consultants until Google released their API. We were living in Amsterdam at the time and had an entire drawer full of maps, we and friends created for our constant stream of visitors to the city. These maps would change and collect new information depending on who was present and became rich and useful documents...alas with no way to preserve or share them other than our kitchen table.

We moved to Portland (Jason's hometown) to focus a bit better and met up with Jason's long time friend, Jake Olsen who had his own small software company - he became our third partner.

Question: What are your thoughts on how the Real Estate industry and their consumers can benefit from Platial?:

Answer: Platial is becoming a great way for homebuyers/renters to get to know a neighborhood; What are the existing and former residents saying?; What supermarkets, restaurants, schools, parks, crime, events are here? We're very focused on trying to paint a picture of a neighborhood/city based on collecting geographic information from people who live there. Two examples are:

Platial.com/Today which will give a near-real time aggregation of what's happening in a given city through photos, videos, places and events.
Platial.com/splash just enter any city and you'll see the Places and maps which are relevant.

One of my favorite real estate maps:
Real Estate bubble (This user has several great maps on the topic)

There are many maps created where brokers house there listings.

But the best really is for consumer research like if you want to see SF for francophiles or Boulder by Mountain Biking Trails or London for the architecture lover or kid-friendly Portland

Question: At some point You'll need to monetize your service. Can you give a brief overview of your business model?:

Answer: We have developed a local business offering that allows any local business to create an interactive business card and post it around Platial based on keyword and location. This will launch within a few weeks and is inspired by the plain old community bulletin board at the supermarket where small business have typically left their cards/flyers. We're also working on a number of partnership deals which have related revenue elements.

Question: What has been your greatest challenge to date?:

Answer: A year ago, mapmaking software was the domain of hardcore GIS. It could cost $50K and require years of training. We have two challenges related to this; the first is to make our site/tools easy and intuitive enough to be used by anyone in the world and second take this concept that is new for a large part of the population and see which parts are most exciting for them.

Question: What do you see as your greatest challenge moving forward?:

Answer: I think it's early days so our challenge continues to be finding the parts of our platform that are the most engaging, exciting to users around the world. One specific part of this includes how best to present and filter the information to make sure people are finding "right" kind of Place anywhere in the world.

The bigger goal of Platial is to show a post geopolitical picture of the world. Where information about Place is free and documented by people so that we can help each other navigate the world.

Question:User generated content is a cornerstone of Web 2.0. Tell us about the content You've seen on Platial so far:

Answer:
Coolest:
Webcam tourism

Weirdest:
San Francisco Treats
A map of San Francisco's flavorful characters compiled by a San Francisco character, Madame Gonzaga, who is a soothsaying Hungarian ghost dog. Definitely high on the weird scale. Video interviews in the place descriptions. Veddy gut, as the Madame would say.

Bizarre places of North America
Cryptozoological and alien stories from around North America. Closed Map.

Car Sex
Only four Places, but funny.

The Portland Horse Project
Map of the locations of little plastic horses planted by an artist all around Portland, OR

Commercial:
Cerebral Itch SOLD HERE
Showing where this small indie crafter sells her wares.

Great lakes Booksellers' Association Maps page
They created a map showing five indie bookstores authors could visit on a tour For each store they put together a map showing where the author might stay and nice places to have dinner. They used these maps to talk to editors in NYC to help get authors to come out to these great community bookstores in the midwest.

Most Unexpected:
Hopeless Romantic (Personal stories)

Good:
Fairtrade
Biodiesel

Update: Check out this post on Real Blogging from Richard Nacht. It's about a new book released from Wired magazine editor Chris Anderson. It's very appropriate to this topic. The Long Tail of Real Estate