estate

On Zillow's first day of trading on the Nasdaq, its shares more than doubled, soaring to $45 this morning from its initial pricing of $20 a share.

The company sold 3.46 million shares to raise $70 million. It will also complete a private placement, totaling $5 million, and will have the option of selling 500,000 additional shares, depending on demand.

The Seattle-based company, which aggregates real-estate listings and mortgage information, trades under the ticker symbol "Z." (Later in the day, shares had fallen back to just above $38.)

Zillow expects to use the proceeds for … Read more

Zillow today priced its initial public offering at $20 a share, well above the $12 to $14 range in which the online real estate aggregator expected to price earlier this month.

The Seattle-based company said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission today that it plans to sell nearly 3.5 million shares, raising about $69.2 million. The company also plans a private placement of 275,000 shares to certain existing Zillow investors, raising another $5.5 million and giving the company a total IPO of about $74.7 million and a valuation of about $540 million. … Read more

I'm not sure if Loosecubes is a clever commercial real estate play or a dating service for geeks.

In a nutshell, it's Airbnb for office space. If you're traveling and need a professional space to get some work done, you can book a desk from a Loosecubes user (a "host") who has open space. But more than just putting working butts in chairs, Loosecubes founder Campbell McKellar designed the service to put people in offices where they'll feel happy and inspired.

She wants no boring, hushed, corporate rent-a-box offices for Loosecubes. "We focus on inspiring office spaces," McKellar told me. And also on connecting compatible workers. Loosecubes makes use of Facebook to connect people together. Why not LinkedIn, the network for professional relationships? Because, McKellar says, "I'd rather work about people I'm friends with, or friends of friends."

Still, it is an open marketplace, and there are plenty of standard professional suites on the service (with standard day-rate prices to match). There are also some unusual arrangements, like a New York home office space with very low rent--provided you take the owner's dogs for a mid-day walk.

But Loosecubes' premier listings are those put up by the hip owners of cool start-ups. If you're nursing a start-up or creative project, and you can't get work done at the house you've found on Airbnb or CouchSurfing when you're traveling, Loosecubes may have a good place for you to park. McKellar says Loosecubes today has 1,464 spaces available in 323 cities around the world.

Likewise, it looks like a good service for growing companies that haven't yet filled their empty desks with employees. The risk of putting a space on the service seems low: hosts can approve applicants, or not. If you have a few open desks in your liberal think-tank office, you can disapprove the desk request from the advance man for the Bachmann campaign. Instead, you can get a stream of like-minded people coming through your office, providing healthy but manageable injections of alien culture to your usual routine. … Read more

Twitter Chief Financial Officer Ali Rowghani posted a message to his Twitter account on Friday that confirmed the company will be keeping its headquarters in San Francisco, ending much speculation and city politicking. "Happy to say that Twitter is staying in San Francisco," Rowghani's tweet read. "We've signed a lease to move our HQ to the Central Market area."

A post on the Twitter blog announced that the move, to a building called Market Square, will happen in mid-2012.

"We are proud that Twitter will be among the first companies moving into the … Read more

Facebook has sent out an invitation for a Tuesday press conference at an address in Menlo Park, Calif., which houses the city's municipal buildings. The company has confirmed CNET's guess that it would be to formally announce new headquarters within the Silicon Valley city.

"The press event on Tuesday at Menlo Park City Hall is regarding a campus that will fit our long-term business needs," a Facebook representative said via e-mail. "We'll be sharing more information at that time."

Facebook said late last year that it was searching for locations for a long-term … Read more

Google is taking the real-estate listings in Google Maps off the market.

Citing "low usage, the proliferation of excellent property-search tools on real-estate Web sites, and the infrastructure challenge posed by the impending retirement of the Google Base API," Brian McClendon, vice president of Google Earth and Maps, said today that the listings would disappear by February 10. For a few years Google has allowed Google Maps users to search for both rental and for-sale listings in a given area, relying on listings uploaded by real-estate companies.

Search Engine Land notes the comment of a U.K. real-estate … Read more

Since the dawn of System Time, Windows has run a bit behind when it comes to timekeeping. Third-party developers have led the way with improvements like atomic clock updates and world time. While widgets and other improvements have brought Windows up to date, there is still a need for tools like My World Time. It's a handy but unobtrusive multiple time display that can show you at a glance what time it is in several parts of the world. It has some useful extras, too.

My World Time's default display is a narrow bar about 3 inches long … Read more

I'm constantly browsing the new releases, most popular lists, and iPhone/iPad-focused Web sites for hidden gems. The other day, I took a chance on an iPad game that didn't seem like my cup of tea, but the user opinions were through the roof.

Hotel Mogul HD ($6.99, iPhone version here) looked to me like a casual game that would quickly become boring. Even after scrolling through the screenshots and reading the description, I still wasn't sold. The game revolves around a young entrepreneur named Lynette who owns a large and successful real estate company with … Read more

Hate trolling through property listings? You can now whip out your smartphone and use an augmented-reality app to see what's on the market.

Junaio is a free AR app for iPhone 3GS and Android devices that overlays real-estate information on camera views. Users point their phones at a building, street, or neighborhood and relevant data such as monthly rent, photos, and contact details pop up.

Junaio can highlight properties within a radius of several miles. Map views and list views are also available.

Junaio is linked to real-estate search engines HotPads, which lists housing for sale and for rent, … Read more