There are already quite a number of web sites online dealing with real estate or architecture. The idea is, to bring certain aspects of these together in ourbania, a real estate community and web 2.0 platform based on user generated content. Our users — we call them citizens — are especially interested in commercial real estate and the so-called built environment, and they're at home on the internet and in the capital cities worldwide. Here they find the ambience which inspires and fascinates them. They place their architectural showpieces in ourbania, upload photos via Flickr and describe the characteristics of these buildings. They also they meet like-minded people, who share their enthusiasm for the built environment — on our platform, or in real life at a meeting point, which they will be able to arrange in one of the next releases of ourbania.com

Founding partners

Eurohypo, the leading specialist for commercial real estate, as founding partner of ourbania stands for high competence as regards content. My own company mediaman specialises in the development of online-platforms and processes. Our aim was to provide an interface which inspires, an online-environment, where our internet users feel comfortable. As for now, neither Eurohypo nor mediaman has commercial interests with ourbania. Of course, we hope to reach also our business partners and prospects with this platform. But at the moment, that's just a side-effect. In the first place, we want to share our enthusiasm for real estate and unique online solutions with others.

Our pipeline

In the near future, we clearly focus on raising the awareness level for ourbania. To my mind, we have a very attractive platform from the get-go, which will inspire many visitors. We're already working on the next release, where citizens will be able to send messages among each other. Furthermore, we're planning to introduce some extensions for our Google Map and the My Profile page, including the "Want to meet?" feature. And we're thinking about arranging geocaching events for our citizens. But I don't want to give everything away. You'll have to logon and keep checking with us!

ourbania 2010

The so-called "Social Web" evolves incredibly fast. Nobody today is able to predict seriously, by which trends the Internet will be defined in 2010. Personally, I believe that it will become more and more important for companies to try different ways in communication as so far. I see ourbania as an experiment, to reach people worldwide, which we won't ever be able to reach by traditional means. If this experiment succeeds, ourbania will be accumulated to a singular online metropolis: with hundreds of thousands of crosslinks between people, buildings and cities. To me as a real estate enthusiast, being able to contribute to this virtual urban space is fascinating and a great motivation.