BloodhoundBlog

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Category: Technology (page 43 of 60)

November 23, 2007

Quarrying metaphors to name the BloodhoundBlog Conference

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

We have a name, and we have the birth of a look:

We went through zillions of ideas — Brian and Cathy and I, our contributors, some commenters here, but mainly marketing guru Richard Riccelli. Richard came up with fantastic names — not just words but their graphic expression — but we went off and did things our own way anyway.

All of us were looking for a defining metaphor, an idea that encapsulates everything we are trying to communicate. Richard, to his credit, was much more benign toward our attendees. My position was that we built this place on attitude, and we need for people to understand that that attitude will be on the program — in essence will be the program.

The graphic look falls out from the metaphor, and, if the idea is the right one, everything falls out from the metaphor. Integrity is the state when every disparate thing is all one thing, when every different way of communicating ideas comes together to communicate the same one idea. I don’t know if we’ve achieved that here, but that’s the goal we’re aiming for.

We have an idea for a conference exploring a radically different kind of real estate marketing. You can learn more about it by clicking here.

We have an interest list that you can join so that we can keep you up to date with our plans by email. Append yourself to that list by clicking here.

We have dates: May 18th and 19th, 2008, with some advance fun on the evening of May 17th.

We have an insatiable lust for the most killingly perfect venue, but we don’t know yet if we can get it.

We are having preliminary conversations with the most killingly perfect keynote speaker, the progenitor of many of the ideas we champion.

And we have a name and a look and a big, bold, bad-ass attitude.

And there is much more to come…

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November 23, 2007

Consumers to Realtors: “Don’t push me, I’ll pull you instead — and if you push too hard, I’ll pull away”

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

This is my column for this week from the Arizona Republic. Not by coincidence, I’m talking about the curriculum of our forthcoming marketing conference.

 
Consumers to Realtors: “Don’t push me, I’ll pull you instead — and if you push too hard, I’ll pull away”

There is a quiet revolution going on in the world of real estate marketing — in the world of marketing in general. We are gradually changing from a push-based kind of selling to something that is much more pull-oriented.

What do I mean? Picture me pushing my business card into your hand. Or pushing a flyer at you. Pushing an ad in front of your eyes in the newspaper — or a commercial on television. Since marketing began, it has always been about pushing things, with the effort being led by the pushy salesperson.

As with everything else, the internet is changing this. Your own pursuit of information — not just marketing information but putatively disinterested facts — is becoming more and more pull-oriented.

Interested in wide-screen TVs? You might visit a store or two tomorrow, but tonight you’re going to research everything you can find on the internet. You might start with a Google search, then go to Wikipedia to learn all the arcane details. You might click on a few manufacturers’ or retailers’ pages, but you’re just as likely to read weblogs or discussion forums to find out what real people just like you love and hate about their new televisions.

By the time you show up at a store — or more likely an on-line store — you will know enough to make the right choice without any help.

And here’s the interesting thing: If some pushy salesperson tries to talk you into making the wrong choice — you’ll understand exactly what is going on.

Buying or selling a home is more complicated than shopping on-line, but more and more consumers are going through the same research process before they contact a Realtor.

What does it mean? In the long-run, push-based marketing is a diminishing return. Consumers are going to shop until they find a Realtor they know they can trust — and Read more

November 20, 2007

Want to stay ahead of the pack in your marketing? Come to Phoenix next May and master The Art of the Bloodhound

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

There are five current and former Bloodhounds — so far — on the faculty of Inman’s imminent Blogger’s Connect. That’s about fifteen Bloodhounds too few, but that’s not the only flaw I can think of. I told Joel Burslem when he was in Phoenix that the keynote address should be mine, but of course it won’t be. That would make entirely too much sense. Beyond that, the critical defect of the event is that the curriculum is established by people who aren’t doing this stuff. That’s why it’s a Blogger’s Connect, because it’s all about last year’s war.

Brian Brady had a better idea, a BloodhoundBlog Conference about truly contemporary guerrilla real estate marketing, the tactics real grunts on the ground are using right now in the jungles we find ourselves in. Two days in Phoenix, for a start, with intensive classes on how to make the stuff that really works really work for you right now.

David Gibbons, bless his eager mind, came up with this in a comment last week:

My primary takeaway from NAR was that the social media marketing opportunity in RE is misunderstood and largely ignored. Yet, I’m more convinced than ever that SMM can revolutionize real estate. I actually had a fleeting thought yesterday as I walked the expo floor that it would have been cool to have a booth dedicated to Real Estate Weblogging 101 and that “Bloodhound” might well become a premier REALTOR (or agent?) designation/qualification.

I don’t like it as a designation. Our world moves too fast. To say, “I have arrived,” is to announce that you have volunteered to be left behind. But an annual Bloodhound badge to put on your web site would be a potent testament to your valor as a guerrilla marketer.

We’re thinking Sunday, May 18, and Monday, May 19, 2008. After that, things get nebulous. But: All work and no play makes for a boring Bloodhound, so we’ll do something fun Saturday night, May 17, if you fly in early. Then maybe a networking/cocktail party Sunday night. There will be time for a round of golf on Monday morning. We might Read more

November 19, 2007

ActiveRain.com: Members Own Content But Can’t Profit From It

by

Commercial Real Estate Finance Expert
Structured Debt and Equity
Licensed Real Estate Broker in AL, CA, and FL

Author website

Do members REALLY own the content on Active Rain?

I asked that question some 13-14 months ago, wondering whether the hours I invested would be worthwhile. I was satisfied with the explanation that the content was, indeed, the members’ property.

Move.com attempted to buy Active Rain, it balked, and conversations about a future revenue model led the idea of syndicating the user content to the mainstream media. Again, the question of who owns the content arose- the answer was identical to the 2006 answer; the members own their content.

Justin Smith (aka Damion Foxworthy) wrote a satirical post, which won the People’s Choice Award, in the Odysseus Medal competition, about “selling” his Active Rain profile. Justin, through diligent weblogging and contribution to the community, has amassed some 100,000 points on Active Rain. The entry was cross-posted on Active Rain and generated an overwhelming response from the membership in the comments section. As usual, I “read too much into” this comment from Top Rainmaker, Jon Washburn:

Great post Justin,

I sat reading it thinking, “Great, how should I handle this. I probably have to zero out the points on this profile now. But man, whoever bought Justin’s blog is going to be pissed.”

I think you all are right and we need to think through this issue and put some type of formal policy in place.

Did you catch that? He said that he would “probably have to zero out the profile”. This means that while Justin has ownership of the points, he has no right to transfer them. The points were a by-product of the contributed content. Ergo, the content is not really “owned” by the members, in the purest definition of the word ownership (the content can’t be transferred).

The policy being considered strips the most important right of “ownership” from the members and releases it to the Company. While the Company can lease the content to a third-party news source, for the implied quid pro quo of SEO, the only profiting that will be done will be by the Company.

I’m okay with that, too. I’m Read more

November 16, 2007

The mother of invention: Greg’s IDX

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Our IDX bill came due today. A boatload of money for the next twelve months, even though the system is going to break itself in eight months, when the new sheriff comes to town.

So: I said kill it. The leads we get from it have stunk, and the free ARMLS solution is adequate for now.

I hate every choice that’s available to us. About fifteen months ago, I wrote a spec for a map-based search system that would appeal to me. Since then, the art has improved, with Estately.com being my current favorite.

Here’s the real deal, though: I should build a decent IDX system for Phoenix. Not me personally. I don’t have the database chops. But I should put together a start-up to build an IDX system that really delivers, instead of the stultifyingly crappy options we have now.

In the Web 2.0 world, we are all pioneers, and I am accidentally wired into a community of like minds who can help me get what I want. Plus which, like my own personal Jesus, Steve Jobs, I know what I love, I know what I hate, and I know why I hate things that don’t work.

And, face it, there is money to be made selling tools to Realtors. I am parsimonious enough in my own practice to be a good steward with a customer’s money, but I know I can deliver a better product for the money. I can build something that can go anywhere FlexMLS goes, and probably anywhere RETS goes.

Who salutes? This wants funding, and that I ain’t got. If you’re interested in putting your money where my mouth is, speak up.

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November 16, 2007

BloodhoundBlog.TV an inch at a time: “To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield”

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

So: I have good news, bad news and worse news.

The good news is, the video linked below, an interview with Jeff Turner of RealEstateShows.com about his experiences at the NAR Convention, is a full representation of the BloodhoundBlog.TV idea as I envision it. Video captured to the size of the image window on an Apple iPhone with a decent level of audio quality.

The bad news is, this is probably as good as things will get for a while. We have something truly cool, and truly novel, but the level of quality we can achieve with existing tools is limited. A year from now we’ll be doing much better. Two years from now the flap-jaws on the Tee Vee News will be pontificating about the dangers of unfettered TV news. In other words, this is the world of desktop publishing or weblogging brought to the world of the multi-camera remote television interview. But: For now, this is as good as it gets.

The worst news is that I hit yet another audio glitch about a third of the way into my conversation with Jeff, with the result that we lost more than we retained. This is truly tragic, because Jeff covered a lot of interesting ground.

But: We’re getting there. Sunday night we’ll do a group interview with NAR Convention survivors, and this will be an even better test of this technology.

In the meantime, we console ourselves with Tennyson:

Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,–
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

BloodhoundBlog.TV is that much closer to being a reality.

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November 16, 2007

Call it by its right name: It’s Friday-afternoon real estate gossip

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Glenn Kelman wonders a little too self-revealing about the hype motivating serial entrepreneurs. Guy Kawasaki jumps to exactly the wrong conclusion, asserting that VC funds are wasted if a start-up’s founders have conquered their acne. And Marlow Harris wonders if the whole thing is simply Kelman campaigning for his next job.

Loren Nason asks an excellent question: Why the hell isn’t Apple pushing product at the NAR Convention? At a minimum, the smart folks from the Apple Store at the Fashion Show Mall could be selling iPhones by the dozens.

The New York Times notes that TV is losing viewership to on-line alternatives. Ya think? Everything that exists exists in finite quantity. The more of my leisure time I spent on the nets, the less I will have to spend on other pursuits. The more my work time and leisure time blend together, the more everything looks like a nail. If you’re not selling nails, precisely what do you think you have to sell me?

Finally, in more jobs news, Vanessa we hardly knew ye. I didn’t think this was big news on the way in, so I’m less that whelmed on the way out. Much more interesting, a little bug in my ear intimates, is this:

But Fox isn’t the only one who has departed the heavily-funded company in recent months. She said there have been a few people who have left to pursue early-stage opportunities, while one Zillow employee recently set sail for Facebook. Still, she said there is by no means a “revolving door” at the company.

However, some former Zillow engineers — Logan Bowers, Sameer Rayachoti and Greg Whelan — left to create a Seattle startup called Fridge Door. I have been tracking the stealthy startup for the past few days, but have yet to uncover a Web site or contact details. (Shoot me an e-mail if you know it or if you work at the company and are reading this.) I am told that others have left, though not sure if the churn rate is unusually high for a company of that size.

I know nothing about the world of start-up companies, Read more

November 15, 2007

Video podcast with Daniel Rothamel from the NAR Convention

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

I am too much chagrined. In building BloodhoundBlog.TV, I know what I want, but I keep running into technical glitches that leave me short of where I want to be. We are that close to getting a launch-quality product, but I’m not there yet.

But: The video linked below is a big step in the right direction. Daniel Rothamel of The Real Estate Zebra joined us to talk about his experiences so far at the NAR Convention, notably Seth Godin’s presentation and yesterday’s news from Zillow.com’s Rich Barton.

Jeff Turner is running a NAR Updates site that gives a peripatetic commentary on events at the show.

We will try to take another stab at BHB.TV content from the Convention before the Conventioneers are ground to a pulp by the irrepressible machine that is Las Vegas.

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November 15, 2007

Not to take anything away from the NAR Convention in Las Vegas, but this seems like the better takeaway . . .

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

This requires reasoning by analogy, never a welcome exercise. Even so, there’s a clue here if anyone cares to catch it:

“We used to fool ourselves. We used to think our content was perfect just exactly as it was. We expected our business would remain blissfully unaffected even as the world of interactivity, constant connection and file sharing was exploding. And of course we were wrong. How were we wrong? By standing still or moving at a glacial pace, we inadvertently went to war with consumers by denying them what they wanted and could otherwise find and as a result of course, consumers won.” — Edgar Bronfman, Warner Music

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November 14, 2007

Cribfinder and Facebook: Showcasing Listings

by

Commercial Real Estate Finance Expert
Structured Debt and Equity
Licensed Real Estate Broker in AL, CA, and FL

Author website

I’m a newbie to the world of Facebook but an old salt at social networking sites. I’ve been on LinkedIn since 2004, MySpace since 2005, and Active Rain since 2006. Facebook is my network du l’an for 2007.

It all started with my need to meet people in the San Diego area. I moved here as a mortgage sales executive in 2003 to be RIF’d after a merger in early 2005. Faced with the prospect of earning a living for my family, I turned to my first love; originating loans. In many respects, I’m only a third year originator.

My goal: to build a phat Rolodex, and fast.

I turned to the budding social networks to meet REALTORs and key referring influencers. I think Jeff Corbett got me on Facebook. I see a few of you there now. Facebook is a unique social utility because it lets independent software developers offer applications. One of those applications is a listing bot called Cribfinders. From the Cribfinders home page on Facebook:

Did you know?
* Your properties appear on your profile after adding them to CribFinder
* Updates appear on your newsfeed when you add or comment on photos (even your own!)
* You can track how many times your properties are viewed
* You can add your profile to our (searchable) realtor database
* You can add as many properties as you want
* You can get links to your “Cribs” and display them OFF of facebook

I added that application on my Facebook page and started searching around, I came upon this listing and clicked through to the REALTOR. He and I led parallel lives (both lived in Phoenix and moved to San Diego). I called him and spoke to him for 10-15 minutes and we have a connection. I have always maintained that the loan originator with the most friends wins the game so I like to make friends.
I noticed one hound using that application and wondered if others will. Comments about Cribfinders?

November 14, 2007

Zillow.com enables listing agents to pee on the tree perpetually

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

There has been a ton of Zillow.com “news” lately, but mainly I’ve been ignoring it. News is news when it is something other than PR — free advertising for the company pushing the press release. In other words, what’s-in-it-for-me? — or for you or for anyone other than the owners of the company.

So:

  • Zillow announces new listings from Big Bob’s Bait and Realty
  • Zillow discovers newspapers don’t know what was planned for Hansel and Gretel
  • After months of announcements, Zillow finally takes listings feeds
  • Zillow announces even more new listings from multiple miscellaneous sources
  • Zillow rapidly approaches a one-percent listings penetration; if you’re looking for a home, almost one out of hundred are now on-line!

Okayfine. I don’t care. The feed is a happening thing, but I said a long time ago they would have to have one, at which time they demurred. If they celebrate with a cupcake for each new brokerage they sign up, they may someday have to go to Costco once a week to buy more cupcakes. Good news for them. Not very interesting otherwise.

But then there’s this:

In addition, today Zillow is announcing its revolutionary Zillow Virtual Sold Sign program (VSS), to be added to Zillow Listings Feeds in the coming months. The VSS program allows a broker’s branding and contact information to permanently become part of a sold home’s Web page on Zillow, where four million people visit every month, 70 percent of whom are buying or selling in the next two years. The VSS functionality is free to all brokerages and Web vendors with Zillow Listings Feeds.

“Imagine having a permanent ‘sold by’ sign in front of every home a brokerage has ever sold — giving buyers and sellers a critical piece of information on who is selling homes in a neighborhood — today and over time,” said Rich Barton, Zillow co-founder and CEO. “Given Zillow’s focus on all homes — more than 70 million of them — and not just those on the market today, we are in a unique position to provide this historical sales information to buyers, sellers and homeowners.”

Now that’s interesting. If you list well in Read more

November 12, 2007

Stifle those yawns: CyberHomes is coming out of beta

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Q: Is there room in the Realty.bot business for a third major player?

A: What business?

Joel Burslem came to Phoenix last week, and I had a chance to spend a few hours with him before he flew back to Portland. Because I live and breathe real estate and because I’m casually cruel in a thoughtless kind of way, I punished him with real estate tour — major commercial developments with side trips into residential neighborhoods. Joel’s observation: “There sure are a lot of ranch houses.”

It’s one of my life’s goals to be a kinder, more thoughtful person, but dramatic differences may require a reincarnation or two. Even so, I didn’t just make Joel look at houses. We had plenty of opportunities to talk as we meandered. One of the topics I wanted to discuss was the profit potential for Realty.bots like Zillow.com and Trulia.com. Zillow has firmly embraced the Google.com business model of delivering advertising based on targeted search. Trulia had just moved to a business model pioneered by Realtor.com — milk the listers.

My question is this: Taking account that I myself am impervious to advertising, how is any of this going to play out in the long run? People will pay for clicks for a while, but sooner or later they’re going to try to account for those clicks in converted sales. If the impact of advertising is not demonstrably cost-efficient, then why do it? I’m not saying this will happen, but as media consumers become more and more like me, it seems to me to be more and more likely.

Into that steaming cow-pie steps CyberHomes, about to emerge from a year-long beta period:

That’s not auspicious, but who know what tomorrow will bring.

But, more importantly: Who cares?

For now, CyberHomes is Yet Another Map-Based Automated Valuation Model. Punch in your address and you get a wild-eyed pricing guess based on tax records and statistics and having no material connection to the actual house, which, as I have demonstrated in the past, may not actually even be there. So far: Big yawn.

CyberHomes hopes to dominate the hugely unprofitable free-AVM market by having access Read more

November 9, 2007

Birthing BloodhoundBlog.TV in time for the NAR Convention

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

We’re going to do the first run of a BloodhoundBlog.TV taping this Sunday night. My own life is a blur, but events are ganging up on me. I expect to have video posted by Monday early morning, before I take off for Las Vegas.

Cathy won’t be with me, alas. Her pneumonia might or might not be better, but the doctor is forbidding her to fly in any case.

I can’t speak for the others here, but I’m stocking up on MREs and pea-shooters for the NAR Convention next week. If you’re going, take your webcam and let me know you have it with you. We’ll do some interviews once you drag your tired carcass back to your suite.

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November 8, 2007

Web 2.0 is dead, Web 3.0 is on its deathbed…

by

Real Estate Rainmaker

Author website

R.I.P. WEB 2.0- WE BARELY KNEW YOU

If you haven’t been following the rhetoric on tech sites such as Mashable, you should get started.  Many people are just grasping the concept of Web 2.0 but did you know it’s already dead?  So, we move on from shiny badges and transparent speech and move to Web 3.0 with network integration.  That’s the ticket (to steal a line from Jeff)!

But wait, that ship is already leaving the dock!  Just as you grasp Web 2.0, Web FOUR POINT OH is born!!!  Get ready tech nerds and noobs alike- the competition is cut throat to find the perfect mathematical equation to apply all of this new data. 

Who do you suspect is at the starting line while most people didn’t know a race was even on?  Let us know in the comments!

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Inventing Real Estate 2.0

Welcome to BloodhoundBlog, the national real estate industry marketing and technology weblog written by, for and about real estate professionals. Better yet, welcome to the wired world of real estate. We are busily inventing Real Estate 2.0 – technology, marketing, service and salesmanship. Like all Bloodhounds, we are smart, frisky and fiercely independent. We've built a spot on the earth – beloved over all – where each one of us can be who we are, no matter who that might be. We are committed to an idea of excellence that will flush the bums, the con-men and the crybabies out of the real estate industry. If you yearn to have your failures excused, your moral lapses absolved or your boo-boos kissed, seek elsewhere. But if you are sick to death of mediocrity – welcome home. Read all about us, subscribe to our feed and steel yourself for the hunt. We work hard, we play hard, we learn everything we can – and we bow to no one.

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