The talk of Reston, Virginia...

I'm in Reston, VA (just outside of Washington DC) at the Kelsey Group's Local Media Conference, demoing HomePages to the crowd of ~500 local search and directory business executives.

We were on a panel with other companies that offer some really smart aerial mapping technology - MSN, Yahoo, Google and Mapquest. We've actually licensed the aerial mapping for HomePages from an entirely different company - Air Photo USA - which was able to give us images with 3-8 times the resolution of what was already on the market.

This was particularly important for a real estate site, so consumers can see not just the house itself, but what's around it, how close the neighbors are, etc. It's not just enough to see that the park is three blocks away - it's more important to know that there's playground equipment for the kids to use, a basketball court, a dog park, etc.

HomePages is still less than two months old, but the buzz and excitement is growing. Many people approached us after the presentation to learn more.