Just as smaller Internet-based MLS information system providers have made headway against legacy MLS system providers, small upstarts are also serving brokers with MLS-related products and services.

The reason? Everyone from the broker to the agent wants to be able to use the data.

One new software development company hopes to change the paradigm of one-size-fits-all real estate tools by providing customized MLS listing data, brokerage, client, and transaction management tools on a client-by-client basis.

The new "Connect" systems by Dwellinks Technologies, Inc., allow the agent to access the MLS through their broker's system, not the association's dial-up. This individual broker-branded parallel system allows agents to use contact management and marketing tools supplied by the broker, which makes costs, training, marketing applications, and transaction management more efficient.

Kaalil Muhammad, a partner in Dwellinks Technologies, Inc., describes the concept. "We don't convince clients to do business the way our applications work," he says, "we let them tell us what they want and how they want it built."

Dwellinks calls itself a development company, not an application service provider. And while other developers are laying staff off and watching their stock options evaporate, Dwellinks says it is in the right place at the right time to serve the real estate vertical.

"Real estate is one of the most technologically underserved industries," explains Muhammad. "Real estate has been slower and more conservative about adapting to new technologies. We are thriving because we found a specific niche and are meeting those needs."

If the short story is that Dwellinks builds Internet-based parallel MLS and business management systems for brokers so their agents can have one easy access to client, MLS and office management data and functions, then the big picture must be that current MLS information management systems have failed to meet brokers' needs.

"We have brokers who are finding that the MLS paradigm in terms of what services are being provided is a one-size-fits-all by virtue of the association model," explains Muhammad, "and what the brokers want is to maximize their use of listing data within their business models. It's hard to serve thousands of individuals and give them each what they want."

As an example, Muhammad points to one broker who had told Dwellinks that he was tired of trying to support so many products for his agents. If he could have a system of his own design complete with agent desktop tools, online forms, and intranet/internet access, then it would be worth it to pull in MLS data.

Dwellinks designed a system for the broker that includes contact management, Property Value Administration (tax records,) calendars, transaction management, and more. "They want to be able to produce their own marketing materials, and it also cuts down on support staff the broker has to hire," says Muhammad. "The agents get broader access and they can use it anywhere; they don't have to be in the office."

Kepple can also move the ordering and execution of company materials such as mailers to the Internet, in effect reconciling offline marketing activities with online efficiencies.

"If you are an agent who likes mass mailings, nobody is going to drive that agent to the Internet," says Muhammad. "But if you want to figure out how to get your mailing targets to the Internet, our new program will put in an address like a Just Listed or Sold, and you tell us you want to mail this mailer to X number of homes in a certain demographic range that you can narrow by income, age, and other ways.The system generates the postcard, supplies the postage and we mail it to the farm area of the agent's choice right from the site."

Excuse me? Did I get that right? Dwellinks has just created a click-click shortcut to the most dreaded task in real estate marketing - getting names and addresses and sending out mailers for farming? How?

"We have strategic partnerships with data companies," answers Muhammad. "Where a lot of the breakdown is that agents spend a lot of time to pay for the data, you are paying X amount for names, but is this data even current? Ours is a one-stop. It's current every time you use it."

Not only is buying names and mailing them in a one-stop click convenient, it's also a serious potential revenue generator for the broker. Imagine being in complete control of farming data and slicing and dicing that data according to how each individual agent wants to market - to seniors, to singles, to Spanish-speaking families, to specific neighborhoods, and more.

So how can Dwellinks get better data than agents can? "We saw where other industries were capturing this data on a more current basis, we went to them and said we think there is a marriage to be made," says Muhammad. "The data still applies, it doesn't matter who wants to know it. We went outside of normal conventions of real estate data to get a stronger sampling model to execute these mailings, and that is just one tool in the tool set."

Muhammad also says that market statistics analysis within your MLS group, listing management, and IDX is taken to a whole other level.

"We've created the ultimate VOW," he continues. "We link brokers' public web presence so that when a lead is generated, it goes straight to the broker for dissemination. A consumer finds a listing, when they click to get more information, it generates a message to that broker, and the broker can see when that person contacted the broker and what information they wanted."

What about contact management for agents? Dwellinks says it puts the most well-liked features of contact management software such as Top Producer and Agent2000 into the brokers' parallel MLS system. What if the agent already owns desktop systems? Will they be obsolete?

"We have condensed the most popular tool sets of stand-alone applications into an MLS system. We eliminate the need for duplication," says Muhammad. "When you have Top Producer, every time your MLS changes vendors, you have to go buy something else. If your MLS had Interealty and goes to Rappatoni, you have to buy the new Top Producer plug-in for Rappatoni. We eliminate that. And you don't have to learn a new system. When your broker installs our Connect system, we do all the back end. We allow the broker to offer a consistent desktop that stays the same, no matter who the MLS vendor is."

Unlike stand-alone software where the agent relies on tutorials and online tech support to use features, Muhammad says that when they install a broker's "Connect" system, they train the agents at the brokerage how to use all the features. The features have been deliberately designed to be user-friendly. "The buttons do what you think they are going to do," says Muhammad. "If you see a picture of a flyer on a button, you can guess that it will print the flyer, and that is exactly what it will do."

"It's like getting a suit tailor-made," says Muhammad. "We do the fittings in person."