{"id":1736,"date":"2008-05-21T15:24:00","date_gmt":"2008-05-21T22:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/?p=1736"},"modified":"2008-05-21T15:32:05","modified_gmt":"2008-05-21T22:32:05","slug":"controlling-your-own-destiny-in-your-hi-tech-real-estate-practice-three-simple-rules-for-dealing-with-technology-vendors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1736\/controlling-your-own-destiny-in-your-hi-tech-real-estate-practice-three-simple-rules-for-dealing-with-technology-vendors\/","title":{"rendered":"Black Pearls: Controlling your own destiny in your hi-tech real estate practice: Three simple rules for dealing with technology vendors"},"content":{"rendered":"

[This post came up yesterday in a discussion at Unchained, and I’m kicking it back to the top of the blog because the issue of data portability is so important for people who might be coming anew into the world of Web 2.0\/Social Media Marketing. –GSS]<\/em><\/p>\n

 
Would it surprise you to learn that host, hostage and hostility are cognate terms? They come to us by way of French and German, but that hos<\/i> idea in Latin trips lightly from guest to stranger to foreigner to enemy.<\/p>\n

I happen to be thinking of these English words — host, hostage and hostility — because I wanted to come up with a very simple rule for dealing with technology vendors. Alas, I think the best I can do is three simple rules:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Avoid hosted software systems\n<\/li>\n
  2. Avoid proprietary technology\n<\/li>\n
  3. Pursue commodity solutions — and prices<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    I bought and populated two new domains tonight. We buy all our domains from Godaddy.com<\/a> — a commodity vendor — to simplify management and renewals. I control all of our hosting through a semi-<\/s>dedicated server at HostGator.com<\/a>, which means that I pay nothing extra to propagate a new domain. I have to pay for the domain registration, but I pay no additional charges beyond our regular flat monthly fee for hosting as many domains as I want.<\/p>\n

    I’m at the far right edge of the Realtor geek curve — as of tonight, we control 79 domains — but, with one exception, we control all<\/i> of our data, with no need to fear the vicissitudes of vendors. (What’s the exception? Our virtual tours are hosted through VisualTour<\/s> Obeo.com, which seems to us to be less odious than the other odious virtual tour vendors.)<\/p>\n

    Why does this matter? If you don’t control your own data, you don’t control your business. You are at the mercy of the vendors who do<\/i> control your data. If you lose faith in them — or if they look like they might fail the test of the marketplace — you may find out much too late that applying my three rules would have made good sense.<\/p>\n

    So: Let’s go through them again in detail:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Avoid hosted Read more<\/a><\/b><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      [This post came up yesterday in a discussion at Unchained, and I’m kicking it back to the top of the blog because the issue of data portability is so important for people who might be coming anew into the world of Web 2.0\/Social Media Marketing. –GSS]  Would it surprise you to learn that host, hostage […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,5,19],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1736","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-disintermediation","7":"category-marketing","8":"category-real-estate","9":"category-technology","11":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3403,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/3403\/project-bloodhound-marketing-into-open-hostility-blank-indifference-or-firmly-entrenched-error-how-do-you-get-people-who-already-dont-intend-to-listen-to-you-to-listen-anyway\/","url_meta":{"origin":1736,"position":0},"title":"Project Bloodhound: Marketing into open hostility, blank indifference or firmly-entrenched error: How do you get people who already don’t intend to listen to you to listen anyway?","author":"Greg Swann","date":"July 20, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I mentioned the Saturday Afternoon Marketing Circle yesterday. Richard Riccelli, Jeff Brown, Teri Lussier and I have been talking about an ugly marketing problem and how to get around it. I left off last night with this:You can't market into indifference or into firmly-established error. You can only persuade people\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Marketing"","block_context":{"text":"Marketing","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/marketing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3329,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/3329\/attention-realtor-association-wannabe-geeks-all-monopolies-suck-by-definition-so-you-must-open-up-our-forms-to-multiple-vendors\/","url_meta":{"origin":1736,"position":1},"title":"Attention Realtor association wannabe geeks: All monopolies suck by definition, so you must open up our forms to multiple vendors","author":"Greg Swann","date":"July 7, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I wrote a couple of times yesterday about using the iPhone as the laptop killer for real estate transactions. If my guesses about cloud computing play out, the iPhone and subsequent hand-held computers have the potential to replace our desktop machines as well -- or at least give us every\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2025,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/2025\/third-party-vendors-pick-up-where-the-nar-leaves-off-milking-the-realtors-dry\/","url_meta":{"origin":1736,"position":2},"title":"Third-party vendors pick up where the NAR leaves off: Milking the Realtors dry","author":"Greg Swann","date":"October 11, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"It's Milk the Realtors week on the RE.net -- with the shilling appeals for useless new \"solutions\" getting pretty close to actual sleaze -- so I wanted to revisit a couple of themes we've hit before. Inherent in the Web 2.0 idea is a de-verticalization of real estate marketing. Big-budget\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3285,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/3285\/the-just-exactly-how-dumb-are-you-realtor-spam-of-the-day-inmans-non-ad-ad-might-be-extortion-but-at-least-youre-invited-to-help-them-betray-their-own-advertisers-for-a-fee-of-course\/","url_meta":{"origin":1736,"position":3},"title":"The just-exactly-how-dumb-are-you Realtor-spam of the day: Inman’s non-ad ad might be extortion, but at least you’re invited to help them betray their own advertisers — for a fee, of course","author":"Greg Swann","date":"June 27, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"This is what you will see if you click on a link to an Inman News article: First: What ad? There isn't any ad there, just a ransom note. Who's the hostage? That would be you. Inman is deliberately interposing itself between you and what you want, demanding payment to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Inmanically Incorrect"","block_context":{"text":"Inmanically Incorrect","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/inmanically-incorrect\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2837,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/2837\/did-you-miss-out-on-the-super-low-guerrilla-only-price-for-bloodhoundblog-unchained-the-price-is-still-low-but-you-need-to-act-fast-brian-brady-wants-to-raise-it-again-soon\/","url_meta":{"origin":1736,"position":4},"title":"Did you miss out on the super-low Guerrilla-only price for BloodhoundBlog Unchained? The price is still low, but you need to act fast — Brian Brady wants to raise it again soon","author":"Greg Swann","date":"March 26, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Here's a valuable question for the Web 2.0 world: Can people really appreciate a bargain? Everybody loves \"free\" -- but do they love it at full value? My thinking is that LinkedIn would be a much more valuable place to network if it charged members $350 a year, but would\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":147,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/147\/truzillow-and-the-dis-form-ation-of-real-estate-web-sites\/","url_meta":{"origin":1736,"position":5},"title":"TruZillow and the dis-form-ation of real estate web sites . . .","author":"Greg Swann","date":"July 28, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Color me grateful, but one benefit of the Trulia\/Zillow free APIs for Realtor web sites is that we should see the end of the sleazy practice of making dewy-eyed anonymous-by-preference Google-borne immigrants fill out a form to search the MLS listings. This crap is straight out of Dan Gooder, but,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1736\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}