We rolled out a new look and highlighted new features today for our commercial real estate listing pages. When we’re considering product updates/redesign we usually do five things:

1- Listen to our users
2- Think about the features we want (since we do eat our own dogfood so to speak)
3- Look at related industries and see who has just nailed it as far as usability
4- Use other websites in our space and see what isn’t working (I’m not naming names)
5- Listen to our users some more

The image shows a couple of changes (click here or on the image to see more details).

Here’s a quick rundown on the changes and why we did it:

1- Feature the map and reviews from Yelp: our old listing pages featured the interior/building photo of the office space. The problem is that a large percentage of listings do not have photos. So we decided to feature something in this space that we can always deliver (a map, a street view of the building, and reviews from Yelp about nearby amenities that are important to a business).

2- Reviews: we had this feature before but it was buried. It’s now more prominently featured because the users who could find it before really liked it. Keep your eye out for another upcoming product announcement related to office space/building reviews – we like this feature a lot and plan to do a lot more with it.

3- Similar listings: we finally rolled out the original Amazon concept of “people who viewed this also liked this”. We’ve been talking about this feature since the beginning. Really glad we finally got to it. We have some more ideas around this including the ability to see the most popular spaces/buildings based on company type.

Stay tuned for some more announcements relating to the product as well as some big partnership announcements. And keep sending us your feedback (positive and negative welcome).

We’ve continue to accumulate a lot of good product feedback/ideas and, today, we’re pleased to introduce our new and improved search page. A lot of the changes are subtle but significant. We had a few goals/requirements with this update:

1) simplify the design: we eliminated some under utilized features
2) better highlight key search filters: these are the most important criteria for a business searching for space
3) improve results: the search is now blazing fast and we show the most recently added/updated content FIRST.

Here’s a screen shot for Phoenix office space for rent that highlights the changes:

The ability to do a radius search from your home address and/or current office space was somewhat of a hidden feature before. We’ve now added it as a key search filter.

We’re adding some great new features in the coming weeks which we’ll be announcing. As always, keep sending us your product feedback and thanks for using Rofo.

Alan

Our mission at Rofo is to simplify the process we all go through to find the right real estate listing and/or connect with the right estate agent or broker to help us out. We do this on Rofo.com with some powerful and unique free tools and have extended that functionality to other platforms and devices like our augmented reality mobile app.

Today I’m excited to announce the launch of our Linkedin app, Real Estate Pro, which blends our real estate search tools and content (the peanut butter) with the Linkedin platform (the chocolate). If you think about it, the process you go through to find real estate, no matter if its residential or commercial space, is social. Beyond your online and offline search, you end up networking with many people (friends, business contacts, and professionals) before eventually connecting with the right agents and the right place. We hear this from our customers and our friends and we’ve experienced it ourselves.

Our solution with Linkedin is simple: give every user of Linkedin a local and social view of their real estate market. Seeing listings is one thing. Seeing who has the listings, how you’re connected to them, and which pro’s are the most active and relevant to your needs is powerful and efficient.

Whether you’re searching for real estate or marketing listings and your expertise, this 2 minute video will give you a quick idea of what you can do with Real Estate Pro:

We hope you enjoy and welcome your feedback.

All of us have that ideal building in mind of where we’d like to locate our business. Could be the location, the character, or the other tenants. Maybe you’ve worked in that building before. Or maybe the office rent is known to be downright cheap. There’s a little known feature on our site called building search that lets you keep tabs on that specific building and check for availability.

Building pages on Rofo help you decide if a space is right for your business. Building pages, such as the Oregon Trail Building below, feature available office spaces for lease within the building, photographs, area maps and a building description.

Start your Building Search today and find the next space for your business.

No matter what city your business is based in we know that choosing the right office location involves surrounding amenities.

When looking at a listing on Rofo.com, such as the San Francisco – Downtown Stevenson Street – Class A Space below, you can select to see nearby amenities on the map. View local amenities and Yelp Reviews of nearby restaurants, coffee shops, banks, parking facilities and post office locations on the map of each listing detail page on Rofo.com.

If you’ve ever searched for office space you know the painful experience of walking/driving around calling on generic ‘for lease’ signs. You end up calling on 20,000 square foot spaces for your 8 person company. You probably also know that not all available spaces even get a sign on a building (certainly not the sublease space or shared spaces). Well, we think we’ve found a solution to your problem.

Rofo has partnered with Junaio, a new mobile augmented reality platform. And together we have created the first commercial real estate augmented reality mobile application. The free junaio app is currently available for your iPhone 3GS and will soon be available for Android users.

How does it work and what exactly is Augmented Reality?

Simply put, Augmented Reality brings real world objects to life through your mobile device. 

Once you download the free app, search for Rofo and subscribe to our channel and you’re ready to go. When looking for an office space, retail location or warehouse for rent, point the camera on your mobile phone at an appealing office building or city block. If there are available commercial spaces icons will appear on your screen. With just a tap of the finger you can now explore properties, email listing brokers, see interior photos, find the exact square footage and price and get directions. All from your mobile phone.

This video quickly shows you how it works:

Here’s a quick recap of the Rofo Channel Features:

• Browse nearby spaces within a specified radius
• View listing details including; photos, price and size of the space
• Email the listing broker or landlord
• Get directions to a listing using Google maps

To access the Rofo Channel download the junaio app on your mobile phone. The junaio application is available for free on the iPhone 3GS.

Good luck with your search and please give us your feedback.

I’m sure most people are already using something like Google Reader to track their favorite blog feeds.  If you’re not the I suggest you give it a try, especially if you read a few blogs.  We’re hoping that the Rofo Space Need Feed gives you one more reason to start tracking feeds.

When businesses are searching for commercial space they come to Rofo and post exactly what kind of commercial space they are looking for.  Then landlords and brokers make proposals and the tenant accepts what they like. The Rofo Space Need Feed tracks all these space needs and allows you to subscribe to feeds in different areas.  After subscribing, your reader will show an update every time a new Space Need is posted.

The Space Need Feeds cover the main regions in California where Rofo receives a substantial amount of space needs.  We will be rolling out feeds in new cities when we start to see more getting posted.  Here is a list of the feeds we have rolled out:

San Diego Area Commercial Space Needs

Los Angeles Area Commercial Space Needs

South Bay Commercial Space Needs (San Jose, Santa Clara, Cupertino, Sunnyvale etc.)

Sacramento Area Commercial Space Needs

Peninsula Commercial Space Needs (Palo Alto, San Mateo, Redwood City etc.)

Orange County Commercial Space Needs

North Bay Commercial Space Needs (Santa Rosa, Petaluma, San Rafael etc.)

East Bay Commercial Space Needs (Oakland, Berkeley, Walnut Creek, Fremont etc.)

So subscribe today and easily stay up to date with the market.  We’ll be rolling out new feeds in the future if your area isn’t up there yet.

One feature on the Rofo site that is incredibly useful to both prospective tenants and space providers is the Space Needs section. It allows businesses looking for space to post their exact requirements, i.e. space size, what city, preferred move date, company type and other requirements.

For busy small businesses owners, this allows them to save time by posting their need and then accepting or rejecting the offers they receive. It reduces the time a small business owner has to spend searching for space.

For space providers, the system provides an easy way to connect with potential tenants. The process for proposing a space is quick and painless and you will be notified via email when the tenant accepts or rejects the proposal. When proposing a space it is best to be mindful of the tenants needs and not propose a space in a city miles from where they are looking. Space providers also can sign up for “Space Needs Alerts”, which notify them through email when a Rofo user has posted a space need similar to a vacant space they have listed.

Map view and radius search are two great search features on Rofo. Occasionally, listing view doesn’t provide quite enough information, especially if you are not familiar with a location. This is where the map view search function can help. It allows you to target your search geographically and see a more dynamic representation of office space search results.

If you want a more focused commercial listing search, use the Rofo Radius Search tool. This allows you to display only the listings within a certain distance from an address. Want your office to be near a certain highway, public transportation or other amenity? Then search for an address near it and Rofo Radius Search will display listings within your specified distance.

To use the map view, just click on the “Map View” tab at the top of any search results page. This will take you to a map of that city and the icons represent all the buildings with listings. The Radius Search Tool is located in the left sidebar search tool. Just click on the Radius search tab at the top of the window and type in the address in an area you want to locate your office. Then those commercial spaces will be displayed in the search results for you to review.

We’ll be introducing some great new features and an even simpler design in the coming weeks. The number of entrepreneurs and small businesses using Rofo to search for office space continues to grow. We’re listening to your feedback and incorporating into the site.