Kindle Fire launches, Zillow responds
In September, we introduced you to the Amazon Kindle, calling it a legitimate iPad competitor that costs only $199 and impressed us wildly with the Amazon Silk browser which simply put is a browser that runs in the cloud and is ridiculously innovative.
In response to what could be an iPad competitor, Zillow has launched a free real estate search app for Kindle Fire which can be downloaded early through Amazon.com. Zillow PR Manager, Cynthia Nowak told AGBeat, “Maps and location are an integral part of real estate and the home shopping experience. We worked closely with Amazon and built a custom-mapping solution uniquely for Kindle Fire, which uses Microsoft Bing maps. One of the benefits of a map-based app is that when home shoppers move the map the home search immediately reloads, instead of having to type in a new location to get an update. In the end, we plugged a hole in Amazon’s offering that no one else has.”
Zillow is one of the first to develop an app specifically for the Kindle Fire and according to Zillow, “home shoppers viewed more than 2.4 million homes every day on Zillow apps, that’s 28 homes every second” across their iPhone, iPad, Android, Windows Phone 7 and Blackberry apps.
Kindle Fire app features
At launch, Kindle Fire Zillow app users will be able to search Zillow’s database of nearly 100 million homes, including rental listings and recently sold homes, see Zestimates, filter by type, size, beds, price, view full screen photos (critical for tablet apps), save favorite homes and searches and share homes through email, Twitter and Facebook.
“We’re excited to offer a Zillow App that is optimized for Kindle Fire with the launch of the device. The Kindle Fire gives home shoppers a new way to access information and we are thrilled to be part of that,” said Spencer Rascoff, Zillow CEO. “Real estate is inherently mobile and this announcement extends our goal of providing people with important real estate information whenever and wherever they need it.”
