- Free stuff for home buyers.
- Free Stuff for home sellers.
- Free stuff for home owners.
- Free stuff for Brokers and Agents.
The NAR? The MLS's? The Realtor.com? The Google? The Donald? No!
The Zillow!
Why are you so good to us?
A belated Happy Birthday to "The Zillow", "The Little RE Search Engine That Could."
I tried to post, comment, email or trackback on the NAR's Website, Blog, Carnival of Real Estate, Wiki, and President's blog; but I couldn't find them. So there are things that are "Conspicuous by their absence."
In recent readings and seminars for my business plan (What? A Real Estate Agent with a Business Plan?); I came upon a book about innovation and business models. Open Innovation, speaks of the critical need for a business model (way to make money), to go with any innovation:
- Google was loosing $50,000/month before it experimented with Overture's keyword-relevant ad sale concept. The rest is history.
- Xerox couldn't sell its copiers to customers or its technology to Kodak, GE or IBM. So it leased its expensive copiers, and did all but print money. And the rest was history.
- Auctions? Auctions on the Internet? Auctions on ebay!
- Book stores? Books for sale on the Internet? Books for sale on Amazon!
When you look at the NAR, the MLS's, and Realtor.com their business model is, "All about the house"; "Location, Location, Location"; and "Build it, hide it , they will have to come".
These theories have worked well in "The Days of the Giants" and the "CONFIDENTIAL" stamped listing books. They haven't even work so badly since 1996, when Netscape filed its IPO, and commercialized and democratized the Internet.
Today, when over 75% of home buyers start their search on the Internet and almost 100% of home buyers use the Internet at sometime in their search, can we agents wait for our slow charging, high charging Brokers, Associations and MLS's to give us Real Estate Search like the Google-Like Search we have come to know, love and expect?
Can you believe the NAR is fighting the FTC and the DOJ to keep and protect last century's business model? Will Google and Zillow play Henry Ford to the protectionist ideas of our Buggy-Whip- Manufacturers NAR?
A friend, the Webmaster for the largest RE Broker in Rochester, NY in 1997, told me their chairman said, "No one will want to search for a home on the Internet". It reminded me of the quote from the Commissioner of the US Patent Office in the 1899, "Everything that can be invented has been invented."
Big Real Estate, the NAR, the MLS's, Move Inc and Realtor.com have a successful business model for the 20th Century. Real Estate 1.0 was very successful for Big Real Estate. But Google, born in the late nineties is the poster child for Web 2.0.
Open information, free content and sell ads are the models for Web 2.0. Will Real Estate 2.0 be any different? Will the same forces that transformed the Web 1.0 to 2.0; not transform Real Estate 1.0?
Why hasn't Google embraced Real Estate like it has embraced keyword-relevant search, Internet maps and even Internet Video? Google is trying to get Local Search right. And what's more local; and potentially more local keyword-relevant ad friendly than Real Estate?
The NAR, MLS's and Realtor.com will never give us the Google-Like Search we need and our customers expect in the 21st Century, Web 2.0 and Real Estate 2.0; until our leaders embrace the business model of the 21st Century.
News Release:
The NAR, the MLS's and Realtor.com open up their data to all Search Engines?
The Rest Is History!
Adapt Or Die! Happy Searching.
WebHomeUSAblog; The Blog of Real Estate Search Marketing
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Why hasn't Google embraced Real Estate like it has embraced keyword-relevant search.
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