While the NAR was out, The World Changed.
While the NAR was out, fighting the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Google and the other Search Engines to keep our listing data hidden on the Invisible Web; Real Estate, the Internet, Internet Search and everybody who ever searched for a home on the Internet changed.
Are buggy whip design patterns still trade secrets, under patent, or hidden in some vault with the Coke formula? Is NAR providing us with the buggy whip to beat our own dead horse?
Do we fight the FTC, the DOJ, and the Search Engines; and have them drag us, on their terms, screaming and yelling, into the 21st Century, the Information Age, the Internet Age and Real Estate 2.0? Or do we join the 21st Century and the Information Age and use the Internet and the Search Engines to develop the greatest thing in Real Estate since the unsliced 6% commission.
If we stop fighting the DOJ and running (We can run, but we can't hide) from the Search Engines; and start taking pages from the Google Playbook, as Zillow does; we'll be better off in the long and short run, we won't be eating Google's and Zillow's virtual dust, and they won't be eating our not-so-virtual lunch.
Paranoid is as paranoid does. Google-noia is as Google-noia does. Zillonoia is as Zillonoia does. What do we gain by hiding our listing information? Do we drive our potential customers to our Websites (Like the NAR and Realtor.com claim), or do we drive our customers away to a more user-friendly Google-Like Real Estate Search sites?
We Realtors need a vision for our data like Google's stated vision to: "organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful". Instead of NAR's unstated vision: "Let's hide all our data and make all home searchers come to our site to get it."
What does the NAR, the Move Corp and Realtor.com know about driving Internet traffic? Do you trust NAR, Move.com and Realtor.com or Google, Zillow and the other Search Engines to make the right Internet traffic decisions? Zillow and Google drove traffic first; then sold ads. The NAR and Realtor.com sell houses first, ads second, and worry about traffic third.
MLS-Friendly Search puts the searchers' interests third. Zillow and other Google-Like Real Estate Search Engines with their user-friendly search put the home searcher first. Why else do we have to advertise so much and Google and Zillow advertise, not at all? In Real Estate 1.0 you could get away with only "Location, Location, Location"; but Real Estate 2.0 is all about "Traffic, Traffic, Traffic".
How long will Real Estate Search stay very different from every other kind of Search? How long will Real Estate Search be Realtor.com-Like, not Google-Like? How long do you stay with a Search Engine that doesn't give you Google-Like results?
In my Real Estate basic training we were warned not to be "secret agents". We were to let the world (at least our world) know we were in Real Estate. What better way to let all the world know your listing is available than on Google, Zillow and every other Search Engine?
Happy Searching.
WebHomeUSAblog; The Blog of Real Estate Search Marketing
Comments