I love that FBS is building this base for others to work from. We’ve been hearing about standardization for years, but it hasn’t really come to fruition. This isn’t about a national MLS, but national MLS standards. Developers who can create a boilerplate app and deliver it rebranded quickly for any market in the country will benefit greatly from the work FBS is doing.

That being said, there’s still a big job ahead. 120 MLS agreements is huge, but there are 800+ nationwide. Hopefully they’ve garnered the largest ones already.

This seems like a great idea. A few thoughts:

* Has anyone been able to find a list of the MLSes supported? I found this list of charter members: http://sparkplatform.com/docs/charter_members/mls but haven’t found anything more concrete.

* Is the real estate community large enough to support an appstore that, I imagine, will follow the race to free apps that has happened in the apple app store?

* Will the data be standardized enough (beyond field names, to field *values*) for apps to avoid the rigamarole that happens now when using multiple MLS data sources?

* Who will be the primary consumer of apps in this app store? It seems to be real estate professionals, but will the average consumer be interested in yet another app store?

* Have these folks talked to Apple or Google about integration between app stores? What devices will these apps target, or are they aimed at desktop computers.

All in all a fascinating gambit by these folks; will be interesting to see how it turns out.