WebHomeUSABlog

Pictometry, MSN, Zillow, Realtor.com and Real Estate 2.0

Have you seen Pictometry's aerial photographs of your home on MSN's local.live, their "birds eye" view?  Wouldn't they be great for Real Estate?  The pictures are already available on much of Zillow.com, with schematic maps and the Zillow/schematic integrated.  How neat for your Website.

Just take your Website, add Zillow's Open API and mix.  What's even better is it's FREE.  What's the last thing you got free from the NAR, your local Association or Realtor.com?

MSN has another 2 1/2 years to go with the rights to sell Pictometry's aerial photos for B2B applications.  When Pictometry signed the deal with MSN, Pictometry needed the money and the exposure.  But Pictometry has grown so quickly that they're now hoping MSN will want out of their contract.

In a recent talk, Dick Kaplan, President of Pictometry, said he can hardly wait for the expiration of the MSN contract. He looks forward to the expiration of the contract so Pictometry can shop its pictures and technology without MSN's "help".

When I asked Dick Kaplan, "Why didn't Microsoft buy Pictometry?"  His answered, "They couldn't afford us."

One of the big users of Pictometry's pictures and technology trough MSN is Zillow.com, "The Little Home Search Engine That Could."  Richard Barton, of Zillow, from Microsoft, by way of Expedia, is one of the first and biggest users of Pictometry's photos for Real Estate.

While Homestore and Realtor.com are still trying to hide their pasts; and the NAR and Realtor.com are still trying to hide their data, Zillow teamed up with:

• Google for keyword relevant search ads
• MSN for its birds eye 45% angle pictures from Pictometry
• Yahoo to supply Zillow results for Yahoo's Real Estate Info
• Lending Tree/ IAC/ Barry Diller/ Ask.com for Loan quotes
• How did Zillow leave out AOL, the other one of the top 5 General Search Engines?

You can tell a lot about a man by the company he keeps.  A Real Estate Search Engine, too.

GOT NEXT! 

Happy Searching.

WebHomeUSAblog; The Blog of Real Estate Search Marketing

Agents In Real Estate 2.0. Will We Be Like Travel Agents, Accountants, Used Car Salesmen Or Lawyers?

The Agent's role in Real Estate 2.0 is rapidly evolving.  Real Estate 2.0 is all about the Internet and an Agent's ability to quickly establish and develop a virtual relationship with home buyers and sellers searching the Web.  It's less about the Home, and more about the Home Page.

Over 75% of home buyers start their home search on the Internet.  Over 85% of home buyers use the Internet in their home search.  Over 99% of Agents searching for homes for their buyers use the Internet.  With the Internet; an Agent must: "Be there, or be nowhere".  Where will you be?

Because of the protectionist philosophy and practices of the NAR, the MLSs and Realtor.com ("Hide it. They will have to come.), Real Estate 1.0 resisted most of the Web 2.0 advances made by Google and its stated vision for open information access in the fields of Travel, Accounting, Auto Sales and Law.

When the smoke clears from the explosion of Real Estate 1.0; and the dust settles on the fertile marketing opportunities of Real Estate 2.0; what profession will Realtors look like?

An Agent's greatest fear is becoming a Real Estate 1.0 Dinosaur; like Travel Agents, disintermediated into 1.0-blivion.  Travel Agents were middlemen once, too.  In fact, Richard Barton helped disintermediate those Travel Agents with Expedia; which, along with Priceline and Travelocity, turned many of those Travel Agents into Real Estate Agents.  Will Realtors go the way of the Travel Agent Dinosaurs?

But selling a 1 or 2 week vacation or a short business trip is selling a commodity; like a book, a CD or a DVD.  Selling travel has little in common with selling a house?  Since Big Real Estate, helped our former big government buddies, have made the home buying process so complex, buying a home is much different than making a few clicks on an Internet connection.  Travel Insurance, Anyone?

By making buying a home more complex, Realtors made our services less of a commodity and made ourselves more of a necessity.

Used car sales has had the Kelly Blue Book for years.  The fact that there are now online car price services from Kelly, Edmunds and Consumers Report, hasn't put many used car salesmen out of business.  All this Internet access has opened up used car sales on ebay and other Internet outlets.  You can sell your car yourself.  But do you?

State and Federal tax laws are readily available on the Internet.  There is great software available to keep your records and do your taxes.  But I haven't heard of many accountants going out of business, or becoming Real Estate Agents.  You can do your taxes yourself.  But do you?

Federal and State Criminal and Civil Laws are readily available on the Internet.  There are good books and software to help you write legal documents.  But they still say, "A lawyer who defends himself, has a fool for a client."  And I haven't heard of many lawyers leaving the profession.  You can defend yourself in court.  But do you?

Mike Ferry has even embraced the "Do Not Call List", stopped telling Agents to put their computers in the closet and has embraced the Internet.  Mike now even podcasts over the Internet.  He may even have a script or two for Zillow users, Google Base and drip email.

Zillow wants to have the fastest, cheapest, most convenient home estimates (Zestimates); so it can sell ads, like Google does, all around the free results.  Zillow sells ads.  Zillow wants a piece of your action, but it's your ad budget action, not your whole commission action.  Eventually Real Estate Agents will be the biggest advertisers on Zillow.

But won't anyone be disintermediated by the Internet, "The Great Disintermediator"?

Yes!  As Zillow and other Real Estate 2.0 Websites take more pages from the Google Playbook, "Build neat, free services. They will come." Home buyers and sellers and their Agents will have more easy and convenient Internet search services, and for FREE. 

Zillow et. al. will provide a bigger and better interface, a bigger and better MLS (The MLZ, Multiple Listing Zillow), and bigger and better services than Brokers and Local, State and National Associations.  FOR FREE! 

More and more Realtors will go it alone with their own Websites.  They'll have a new MLS (Like an MLZ, Multiple Listing Zillow) that is more user and Agent friendly.  These new Websites will make even the smallest Broker site look, taste and feel like the expensive spread; and more and more like the best thing since sliced bread and unsliced commissions.

GOT NEXT!  Happy Searching.

WebHomeUSAblog; The Blog of Real Estate Search Marketing

Disintermediation: Travel Agents, Realtors, Realtor.com. Who's Next?

Disintermediation for Real Estate: The process by which Websites like Google and Zillow will provide Real Estate Agents with all the services provided by Brokers, local MLSs, the NAR and Realtor.com; and for FREE.

The Internet is often described as "The Great Disintermediator".  The Internet has the greatest potential to "get rid of the middle man". Or at least digitalize him, put him in your home or office, right there on your computer.  Transaction costs become negligible and profits, on even small repeated transactions, can be huge.

Ebay is a great example of how efficiently the Internet can connect buyers and sellers.  Amazon.com is another example of disruptive technology that almost put the bricks and mooter book stores out of business.  Until those stores developed their own Internet Sales Marketing Plan.  And Google, the most successful of them all, developed a business plan, merging "Intent with Content" by using keyword relevant search and sold ads all around their free results.

What Old "Woolly" Woolworth did with the neighborhood "Five and Ten" store, the Google Guys did with "Pay-Per-Click" ads on the World Wide Web.

The prime business example given of Internet disintermediation is the travel industry; where, seemingly overnight, travel agents were out of jobs (because of the work of Richard Barton and the other guys at Expedia, Priceline, Travelocity, etc.).

Ever since Zillow was hinted at, there have been fears and paranoia (Zillonoia) that Zillow would disintermediate Realtors.  Since Realtors make a lot of money buying and selling houses, everyone must be out to sell houses, right?  Even the media companies: News Print, TV, Google, Zillow, etc.; right?  They wouldn't just settle for advertising income, would they?  Right?

When Google and Web 2.0 didn't take on the Real Estate industry, like Google took on the Search Industry, that left a big opening for Real Estate Search in Real Estate 2.0.  While the NAR, Move Inc (aka HomeStore) and Realtor.com were still fighting the DOJ, the FTC, and various and sundry other Government Agencies, Search Engines and business models; Enter Zillow.

The Microsoft Playbook said: Let the up-start/start-up tech companies cut themselves up on the bleeding edge; then we'll buy them when they make it to the leading edge.  Microsoft regrets waiting too long with Google (which they could have bought).  Will Google regret waiting too long with Zillow?

The NAR and Realtor.com were in negotiations to build "The Mother of All Real Estate Search Engines".  But Google's Stated Vision: to make all the world's data open and useful; conflicted directly with the NAR and Realtor.com's stated vision to make all the world's Real Estate data hidden on Real Estate Websites, concealed on the Invisible Web, preaching the credo: "If we hide it, they will have to come."

The Zillow sponsored Carnival of Real Estate is even disintermediating Zillow posts, with an arbitrary limit of the number of Carnival posts about Zillow.  I wonder if "The Carnival of Search" would ever put arbitrary limits on the posts about Google?  Lets have the 10 best posts, whether they're about Zillow or not.  But maybe the rest of the Real Estate Blogesphere needs Affirmative Action for their posts.

But Realtors have the least to fear, at least if they embrace Real Estate 2.0 and the lessons of the Google Playbook, the Zillow Playbook and all the other Real Estate 2.0 Playbooks.  Zillow will offer many of the same kinds of "can't resist services" that Google offers.  This means Zillow will be the best thing since sliced bread, not only for home buyers and sellers, but for Realtors too.

Google, Zillow and the other Search Engines are media companies that know how to make money by selling Internet ads, not houses.  Newsprint, TV, radio, and other media haven't taken over Real Estate; how will Internet media?

Certainly the new Internet media will empower some homeowners to sell FSBO's, but this will only be a small number.  You can do your taxes yourself.  Do You?  You can defend yourself in court.  Do You?  You can sell your home yourself.  Will You?

But this does not mean Zillow will be the best thing since unsliced commissions for Brokers, Local Realtor Associations, Local MLSs, the NAR and Realtor.com.  Zillow's platform is a single platform. Zillow offers a level playing field for all home sellers, agents or not.

Free is better than cheap.  Even in Real Estate.

• Why will Real Estate Agents join big brokers with big fees and small splits, when they can get the same services for Free?
• Why will Real Estate Agents join local, state and national Realtor Associations when they can get bigger and better services for Free?
• Why will Real Estate Agents join the local and National MLSs, when the can get a bigger and better National MLS, which pushes their data out to all the other Search Engines, for Free?

Why pay the fees and splits to get Brokers and Associations on your team, when you can have Google, Zillow and all the other Search Engines on your own Real Estate Team; for FREE? 

GOT NEXT!

Happy Searching.

WebHomeUSAblog; The Blog of Real Estate Search Marketing

The NAR, Realtor.com And Zillow, Faster And Cheaper Just Got Better

In business they say if you have 2 of the 3 of "Faster, Better, Cheaper" you have a much greater chance of success.  Google has been wildly successful in the General Search Space because it is Faster, Cheaper and Better.

On Thursday, 12/7/06, Zillow sent a shot across the bows of the NAR, Move Inc and Realtor.com.  Zillow entered into the realm of the National MLS, allowing Real Estate Agents and home owners to upload their listing data to Zillow.com and open up their listing data to the www, the World Wide Web.

"Location, Location, Location" just became "Traffic, Traffic, Traffic".  Real Estate 1.0 just took a giant step into Real Estate 2.0.  Internet Real Estate just became the Zillow Infonet.  The Open Internet Genie is out of the NAR bottle. My money is on that Genie never getting corked again. 

It will be interesting how the NAR, Move Inc and Realtor.com plays Zillow's FREE services.  Is there any way NAR can defend its Realtors not using free advertising on one of the top Real Estate Websites in all the known world?  Last month Zillow had 3.2 million home buyer and seller visits.  Just wait until Zillow starts to advertise.

Even if you didn't think the Real Estate World changed in 2/06 with the introduction of Zillow, it would be hard to doubt the change now; with Zillow's new services, user tools and clean and elegant interface.

Zillow was Faster and Cheaper, but suffered from not being Better.  Now Zillow is better.  Zillow will now have 1 platform, the Uni-Platform, where all Real Estate info can be loaded.  Zillow could clean up the data and sell it back to the Move Inc, Realtor.com and the MLSs. 

Zillow will have all the homes for sale, not just listed properties.  Zillow may well become the Walmart of Real Estate as well as the Google of Real Estate.

What are the NAR and Realtor.com to do?  They can continue to hide our listing data on the Invisible Web in Realtor.com.  They can hope Zillow, like Google, will go away.  They can hope the DOJ and the FTC will go after Zillow.  The NAR can give state's evidence against Zillow; and then go into the Witness Protection Program.  Won't our friends in government, who gave us "the statutory non-employee", non commission sharing and mandatory agent service requirements protect our full commissions too? 

The NAR can ask for our prayers.  "Bless me Father for I have sinned".  But the sins in Real Estate 1.0 aren't the same as the sins in Real Estate 2.0; where denial of data to be open is the First Cardinal Sin.  Let's just hope the sins of the NAR, our Real Estate father, are not visited on its Realtor sons.

The NAR, Move Inc and Realtor.com can have Zillow declared a "Weapon of Mass Destruction", send it to Iraq and the INAR, and help the Republicans, now that the 2006 election is over. Who will you vote for in the 2007 election?

I want Google, Zillow and the other Search Engines on my Real Estate Team.  Got Next!

Move over YouTube.

Happy Searching.

WebHomeUSAblog; The Blog of Real Estate Search Marketing

A Realtor-Friendly National MLS. Zillow Just Got Harder To Hate.

Just when I thought it was safe to Zillow hate, Zillow bait, Zillow bash and Zillow trash again; Zillow comes out and gives agents free listings and free advertising.  While NAR, the MLS's, HomeStore and Realtor.com were busy changing names and figuring out how to get more fees and charges out of Realtors, Zillow goes and gives us something for free. 

Zillow must like us more than the NAR does.  Maybe Zillow is going to get our personal Agent and Broker data and try to sell us stuff; just like we do to our clients.  We won't buy, even if it's free; Right?  There's no such thing as a free lunch; and Zillow must want to eat our free lunch; Right?

Protectionism toward listing data, concealing data on the Hidden Web, and the "Hide our data, they will have to come" attitudes of Real Estate 1.0 are dead.  Long live the open data, open relationship and "easy-open" search of Real Estate 2.0.

Google's stated vision to: "organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful", is directly contradictory to Real Estate data protectionism and the Hidden Web.  Zillow's unstated vision may well be to: "organize the world's Real Estate information and make it universally accessible and useful, even for Realtors."

Why would a company give us Realtors something our own organizations don't give us?  I never heard of a favored step-child?  Does this make Zillow the Realtor-Friendly National MLS?  Does this make Zillow the Google of Real Estate?

Even before Zillow launched in 2/06, the technophobic, head-in-the-sand, buggy-whip wielding Realtors were worried they'd be disintermediated, just like travel agents.  What is much clearer now is the ones in Real Estate who will be disintermediated are any Real Estate 1.0: Agent, Broker, Local Association, Local MLS and National MLS not embracing the technology, philosophy, business models and Playbooks of Web 2.0 and Real Estate 2.0.

Realtors can fight Google, the Google Playbook and Web 2.0; and Zillow, the Zillow Playbook and Real Estate 2.0.  But our customers, our clients and soon almost all home buyers and sellers are already there.

Now it's my choice to have Google, Zillow and the other Search Engines on my team.

GOT NEXT!

Happy Searching.

WebHomeUSAblog; The Blog of Real Estate Search Marketing

Web 2.0 = Google Playbook. Will Real Estate 2.0 = The NAR or Zillow Playbook?

Google has set the standard for Web 2.0.  To be competitive on The New Web a Website has to follow the basic rules set down in the Google Playbook.  You need to give searchers:

• More content than they want or could use (Content is King)
• Give it to them Immediately
• Give it to them for Free
• Without giving up your Personal Information
• Google Business Model: Free Content > Drive Traffic > Sell Ads

Are there lessons Real Estate, the NAR and Realtor.com can learn from Web 2.0, Google and The Google Playbook?  Plenty.  If we'll look and listen and try.

Searches on Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL and Ask together don't equal the number of searches on Google.

But Google doesn't do everything well.  When Google missed the boat on Internet Video, they bought YouTube, the acknowledged "Google of Internet Video" for $1.65 billion (albeit in Google Stock). 

In the run up buzz to their YouTube purchase, Google's market capitalization grew by more than $1.65 billion. And when Google announced they surpassed Wall Street sales predictions for the quarter, Google's market value rose by over $5 billion (that's billion with a "G").

Other targets on Google's Radar Screen are:

• Blog Search: Technorati is "The Google of Blog Search"
• Social Networking: MySpace is "The Google of Social Networking"
• Real Estate Search: Zillow is "The Google of Real Estate Search"
• Local Search: There is no "Google of Local Search". Yet.
• If, All Real Estate is Local, Real Estate Search may be Google's key to Local Search too.

Who will be Google's next YouTube?

The Mantra of Realtors 1.0, NAR 1.0 and Real Estate 1.0 is "Location, Location, Location".  The Mantra of Google, Web 2.0, Zillow and Real Estate 2.0 is "Traffic, Traffic, Traffic."

NAR's, Realtor.com's and Real Estate 1.0's vision is "Hide our data. They will come. They'll have to." The vision of Google, Zillow and Real Estate 2.0 is Google's stated vision to: "organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful".  Whose vision are you one with?

The NAR just lost its first skirmish with the DOJ. The judge decided not to throw out the DOJ's case against the NAR keeping our data hidden.  The Michigan MLSs just caved to the FTC suit against the MLS's trying to keep their data hidden.  If we Realtors continue to follow our NAR, our MLSs and our Realtor.com; we won't just be swimming up stream; we'll be swimming up the wrong stream.   

When will we Realtors learn, we can't play "Hide-And-Go-Seek" with our listing data or with home buyers and sellers anymore?  How much of our NAR and MLS dues will go to fighting loosing battles against the DOJ, the FTC, the Discount Brokers, and the Search Engines?  Who wants to fight City Hall and Google?  Who has the money? 

Let's spend our money on developing The Best Open National MLS.  Let's let home buyers search for a home in every way possible, as fast as possible and in the easiest ways possible:

• Just like we search for everything else on Google. 
• Just like we look for all the conveniences of the Modern Home Search. 
• Just like we expect all the features from Google Playbook Search.

Happy Searching.

WebHomeUSAblog; The Blog of Real Estate Search Marketing