Washingtonpost.com Users Can Search Apartments By Subway Proximity

By Erika Schnitzer, Associate EditorWashington, D.C.–Washingtonpost.com has launched a free interactive widget that allows users to search for apartments based on their proximity to Washington, D.C. subway stations. “The metro is the main mode of public transportation in the Washington, D.C. area, and based on our research and from talking to our residents, we know that the metro is a big part of their decision-making when looking for apartments,” says Israel Carunungan, director of property marketing for The Bozzuto Group, a Greenbelt, Md.-based residential real estate company. “A lot of people search apartments based on the proximity to metro stations so they don’t have to drive to work.”Exclusively sponsored by The Bozzuto Group, the widget combines the apartment locator, powered through apartments.com, on the Washingtonpost.com site with the city’s Metrorail map. The listing results are populated on a mash-up of Google Maps and WMATA’s (Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority) Metrorail map and distributed on the Google content network.”This widget not only reaches users who come to our site but is being distributed outside the Washingtonpost.com site,” says Derek Boggs, director of online classified operations at Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive. “It’s the first widget that we have that will be distributed through other sites.”The application searches apartments in Washington, D.C., northern Virginia and Montgomery and Prince George counties in Maryland. In addition to washingtonpost.com, the widget is available through the iGoogle widget directory. The widget, a standard Google widget ad unit, can be targeted to other sites around the Internet.”In an environment where gas is above $4 a gallon, it enables users to think more about where they live and how they commute to work or school,” says Boggs. “This turns the paradigm around, allowing users to look for apartments within close proximity to a certain Metro stop.”