We're Multiplying

Good News,

Our family is rapidly expanding! As of last week, the animals at the Zoo have officially doubled their numbers. Some, including Saul Colt, have noted that birthrates tend to spike nine months following the cold-winter months. Here at Zoocasa, we do things a little differently and much faster. That is, we have increased our numbers while there is still snow on the ground. We have done this the old fashioned way - through the purchase of two exciting home-savvy websites!

With excitement, I announce that HomeRenovationGuide.com and HomeInteriorGuide.com are the newest members of the Zoocasa family. As our new team members are still getting settled into their offices, there has already been a bit of a buzz about their move into the Zoo. As you may know, HRG and HIG are North America's top online resource for anyone seeking to find the right person or product for any home improvement project. HRG and HIG have set themselves apart from anything else on the market with their outstanding commitment to customer service and their engaging content. Up until now, Zoocasa.com was primarily a technology based team. We can already see how these skill from the HRG/HIG team are complementary to our existing focus. As Butch Langlois, General Manager of Zoocasa puts it, "Providing renovation guidance [and content] as part of the overall search process will enable home buyers to make optimum purchasing decisions."

I warmly welcome our nine new team members. I single out Mark Mark Bordo, our first VP of Sales & Business Development and Susan Hu, our new content Editor as people you will be hearing a lot about on the Zoocasa blog. To start, Susan will be Zoocasa's guest blogger this month! I am pleased to welcome her as she will be giving us some insights on how to best stage a home for an open house. Stay tuned for more!

There is really never a dull moment at the Zoo.

Until next week,

Vanessa

Zoocasa is Now 1,000% Faster!

Hello All,

If you've been on Zoocasa.com recently, you already know that we have become 1,000% faster overnight! You can now move from listing-to-listing with lightning speed.

Clustering listings has allowed us to vamp up our speed. You might be asking yourself "What the heck is clustering?" Sitting at my desk today, while snacking on some grapes, I came up with a fruit comparison to explain the changes on our site. I have not seen any other tech blogger use fruit to explain map clustering and knew that the Zoocasa Blog was the place for this first.

Apples, like home listings on the old Zoocasa map, are individual spots. If you are faraway, you see the whole tree and all of the individual apples on it. That is a lot of info. On our old map, we only showed you 25 listings at a time, because showing you all of the individual listing spots would have made the site really slow.

We know that you want more than 25 listings at a time. So we moved to a new system, one more similar to grapevines than to apple trees. With grapes, when you stand back, you see bunches. Only as you look closer do you see each individual grape on a stem. Now, when zoomed out, listings on the new Zoocasa map show up as bunches. This makes the site faster, as we are not trying to pinpoint every individual listing from miles away.

Now we give you big blue dots, that represent a bunch of listings in a general area. The blue dots tell you how many listings are in that area (way more than 25) without having to point out each individual spot. Only as you zoom in, do you see each individual listing on the map.

According to your feedback, you are really liking the new system. If you have not had a chance to try it out, go to Zoocasa.com and plug in your favourite city now. Let us know what you think and the next time you reach for some grapes, be sure to think of Zoocasa's great new design!

Happy house hunting,
Vanessa