The Archipod — a totally slick idea! I want one!
Tagged: design RSS
-
Dustin
-
Dustin
Some choice words for real estate start-ups
This interview by Global Property exchange with Simon Baker, who just so happens to be the CEO of News Corporation-owned REA Group, features a few choice quotes about web2.0 start-ups in the real estate space. Here are the two comments that stuck out for me:
“You don’t have to look sexy to deliver.”
“Sites like Zillow.com get a lot of press and they look great but will they deliver? … I doubt whether they do more than US$3 million a year compared to Realtor.com’s US$300 million”
“Outside of Asia, South America and Eastern Europe, my advice [to would-be real estate portals] would be, keep your money. In fact, if you were given £20 million to start a new real estate portal, the best thing to do would be to [not to start the portal at all and] set up a consultancy to take the money from them.”
-
Dustin
The 1st 4RealzEd event was yesterday and…
I think I’ve recovered enough now to actually post about it! 
Despite our best efforts to be prepared, the day started off a bit rough with a nearby mudslide taking out power in our building in the morning (meaning no hot coffee and no projector) and a 9-car pileup on a nearby freeway slowed me down tremendously. AHHH
So, to say it started rough would be an understatement… But once it started, things seem to get on a roll quickly.
I started with an overview of consumers expectations in a web2.0 world to set expectations for the day… Jim followed up with presentation on optimal features and design for a real estate website. Then it turned back to me for a presentation on social networking… lunch… then another presentation by me on creating value through blogging about communities. And we returned for the day’s finally with Jim giving a engaging presentation on measuring and tracking marketing results to ensure a positive ROI.
All around, it was a wonderful day! And, maybe they were just being nice, but the attendees who talked with me said only good things about the education.
Because I promised attendees I would give them a list of all the sites I mentioned in my presentations (so that they wouldn’t have to ask me to spell out each URL), here is the list for everyone’s benefit.
Consumer Expectations in a Web2.0 World:
- Expedia, Travelocity, Kayak, Trulia, Rain City Guide, RealCentralVA, Amazon, Netflix, del.icio.us, Firefox, Zillow API, MySpace, LinkedIn, Altos Research, Property Shark, Market Snapshot, Homethinking, Redfin, Realtor.com, Zillow, Google PageRank
Engaging in Social Networking to Earn Clients
- MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Inman News Community, Zillow Discussions, Trulia Voices, ActiveRain, Google Reader (feed reader), AnnaLuther.com (RSS feed of listings), Mobile Reader
Using Blogs to Build Communities
- WordPress.com, Top Producer Blogs, Yahoo Mail, moving to seattle post, Real Estate Tomato, RealCentralVA, 4realz.net, Notorious Rob, Grow-a-Brain, Northern Virginia RE Guide, Altos Research blog, NELA Live, REagent in CT, St Paul Minnesota, FOREM, Blog Calabasas
I wasn’t tracking the sites that Jim mentioned, but there were not nearly as many of them in his presentations…
And thanks again to all the bloggers who have helped spread the word about the event, the sponsors who helped us keep the price low and all the attendees who made the day possible!
I received some incredible feedback from all three groups, which is going to lead me to make some changes to the upcoming events (I’ll announce those early next week!). Great stuff all around. Thanks again to everyone!
Dustin
I think Jay may be reading a bit too much into…
…the “walk” in walkable.
The reality is that people who cannot walk often prefer walkable neighborhoods because they are more likely to feature handicap-friendly facilities (such as sidewalks, ramps, and crosswalks) than suburban or rural locations. In other words, just saying that an area is a walkable neighborhood or walkable city doesn’t imply that it is not appropriate for a subset of the population.
-
Kris Berg
Dang! I was in the middle of an epic comment, and my screen went dead. Not to be disuaded -
Dustin, I get your point, but Jay makes a very good point. Most of us consider a “walkable neighborhood” to be a convenient, compact, and even self-contained environment which facilitates auto-less travel between destinations. (Facilitates? Did I really say that? It must be my old government years creeping in.) The reality is that I can not write about my listing having a “trash” compactor on Realtor.com without getting zapped; ‘”trash,” it would seem, is a derogatory word and a potential Fair Housing violation. I can not use the term Realor(R) except under very specific circumstances, forgetting that this term is to “agent” as “Xerox” is to “copy machine.” I am forbidden from saying in my marketing that a home is “walking distance” from anything, because, according to the attorneys, not all people can walk.
Agents walk on egg shells every day, because our society is litigious. To expect our Association to practice the same caution is not unreasonable. It’s a more than a little goofy in many ways, but it is what it is.
-
Dustin
Kris: How could I argue with an ex-transportation engineer?
It’s obviously safest to be super cautious because we do live in a litigious society and yet… -
Jay Thompson
Political correctness and a litigious society force us to do some silly things at times.
Seriously, many brokers won’t allow the term “walk-in closet” to be used in a listing/advertising.
-
Kelley Koehler
ooh! i’m an ex-transportation engineer too! does that give me extra credibility? i can make signals go blinky red on command – behold my power.
It is silly to not use terms like ‘walkable’ – but I can’t say I’ve ever been through a continuing ed class on Fair Housing without having that very example used.
-
Virginia Hepp
Hi! Have you used http://www.walkscore.com – the actual mileage is off a little, but it tells you a lot.
-
Dustin
Kelley: I didn’t know you were part of the club as well! How cool!
-
Dustin
Virginia: WalkScore is definitely an interesting site…. going way back (to the days when I was a transportation engineer!
) I actually created a tool to measure the walkability for all of the Puget Sound region. It was all done offline and much more elaborate, but I’m not sure the results were much better! (and for the most part, my works seems to have disappeared from the internet.
The only remnant I see is the second to last paper on this page, and that only summarizes how we used the results in a larger project.) -
Jay Thompson
What is with all you transportation engineering types being in real estate now?
It’s kinda creepy.
-
Kris Berg
Jay – Creepy, indeed. Notice the irony that we screwed up the world’s commute times then left the business for a career with a flex schedule? Kind of like “insider trading”
. -
Jonathan Dalton
Walk-in closet’s actually on our ARMLS marketing sheets, though, Jay.
-
Eric Fredericks
Most transportation planners use the assumption that “walkable” or “within walking distance” means that it is accessible under the guidelines of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Meaning that someone could use a wheelchair or a guiding device for visually impaired pedestrians and reach their destination. I’m not sure how some attorneys would interpret it, but I would think that suing over that would be a tough sell in court. Perhaps you can get around it by saying something like “this unit is only 4 blocks from the subway stop.” I don’t think that using specifics could hurt.
It’s a very interesting question to ask and perhaps could have a damaging effect on smart growth marketing by RE agents.
However, I think not being able to call your community walkable is taking it too far. Many of my website visitors have disabilities and are looking for walkable places–even though they are not physically able to walk. They know that in many places the term walkable implies that it’s also accessible for those with disabilities. If we cannot provide that information, the discrimination laws are more detrimental than helpful to the cause.
I think this is a topic I need to look into a bit since it’s something I’m going to be dealing with more in the future.
-
Eric Fredericks
I just quickly looked into this a little more and found some links.
The Dayton, OH region (my old stomping grounds!) put out a fair housing advertising word and phrase list: http://www.mvfairhousing.com/pdfs/ad-word-list.pdf
Note that they say to use caution with the phrase “within walking distance,” but do not prohibit it’s use.
Also, here is an interesting forum discussion on this topic: http://www.city-data.com/forum/real-estate/212505-steering-v-client-request-4.html
Looks like people go both ways on this. I would just recommend, as they do, to be more objective and descriptive, rather than using the subjective phrase “within walking distance.” -
Jim Zibres
“Within walking distance”, or similar phraseology applied to real estate situations, is perfectly acceptable to use and has never been a violation of federal fair housing laws.
PLEASE, PLEASE, PRETTY PLEASE, don’t repeat such nonsense. To do so allows this intellectual garbage to live on ends up taking otherwise bright, capable and pretty well adjusted real estate folks on the path that just continues to perpetrate this dribble and live among the myth-informed.
Way back in the early to mid 1990’s, one such fair housing word list published by the Arizona Association of REALTORS did have that phrase on it as a “Don’t Use”. It was dropped shortly thereafter (as was much else) from the list, but the damage was done.
In January of 1995, the “Achtenberg memo” (named for HUD’s Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing at the time, Roberta Achtenberg), came out as an attempt to basically tell people to quit wasting HUD’s time with such things and instead to wise up, use common sense and stop the insanity that was created among some by these word lists.
Although the original word lists were probably prepared with good intentions, they have instead caused more angry sentiment from those in the business and fodder for feelings of political correctness run amok.
Again, the Achtenberg memo states that common phrases describing real estate or areas, such as “walking distance to”, do not violate the Fair Housing laws. See the memo at:
http://www.fairhousing.com/index.cfm?method=page.display&pagename=hud_resources_hudguid2Otherwise–keep up the OUTSTANDING BLOGGING!
-
Dustin
Jim: Thanks for the excellent background info!
-
Jay Thompson
That’s fabulous info Jim, thanks for providing it.
But, here is part of the problem….
HUD says one thing, different Realtor associations say another thing, and brokers within those associations can have their own rules.
My own (former) broker would not allow the use of descriptive text such as “within walking distance”, “walk-in closet”, or even “family room”.
Those terms may not violate Fair Housing laws, but they did violate my broker’s rules (silly as those rules may be). So while it may be “perfectly acceptable” to HUD to say “within walking distance” agents need to also keep in mind their state, local and brokerage rules and regs as well.
Nice blog by the way! I’ve added you to my ever-growing list of Arizona real estate blogs. Please stop by Phoenix Real Estate Guy if you get a chance!
Dustin
DotHomes Launches US Home Search Tool
I’m somewhat of a night owl, so I thought I’d have no problem waiting out the U.S. launch of the UK site DotHomes. But it is getting pretty late and the U.S. version of the site still hasn’t gone live.
However, TechCrunchUK published their story (with the not so promising comment: “The question, is will the US – packed to the gunnels with property search engines and in a sub-prime slump – actually notice?“), so I thought I’d give my analysis based on what I learned from a good, long conversation with one of their co-founders, their press release and a bit of playing on their UK site.
Let’s start with the good stuff:
- They have slick crawling technology that does a great job indexing home listings from a variety of listing sites
- They have a well developed one-box search that allows for all kinds of inputs and actually delivers decent results
- They have a healthy sense of flair as demonstrated by their “I’m feeling wealthy” button
Whereas the recently released search site Roost.com appears to be going for the “kayak of real estate”, DotHomes is clearly going after the “google of real estate”. Like Google, they display only the teaser information on listings before sending you back to the original source (the crawled website) for more information. So far, so good!
However, I’m a bit skeptical this site will generate much interest or buzz in the U.S. for a number of reasons (none of which are fatal, but…):
- DotHomes is following less than a week after the release of the Roost.com site, which got some great buzz around the RE.net for having a listings aggregation approach that made sense (i.e. get all the MLS listings!).
- Besides entering a crowded space, DotHomes is also opting for a crawl approach to get listings, which will never compete in either comprehensiveness or timeliness with direct MLS feeds.(although it does allow for more freedom to add other listing types).
- And finally, I didn’t get the impression that the DotHomes team really understood oddities of the existing US real estate market. Some of the background material they presented made me think they hadn’t really done their homework in terms of really understanding the complex dance of agents, brokers, brokerages and MLS organizations that allow listings to get placed on the internet in the first place.
With all that said, I’ve been following the cofounders of this site for quite some time (including back when the site was called Extate.com). Artemi Krymski and Douglas de Jager are extremely smart guys and I’m sure that after they get some U.S. experience with this launch, they’ll regroup, adjust their tactics a bit and continue to produce interesting products that will keep us talking.
Jessie B
Excellent write up about dothomes.com. A possible issue I see is the scrutiny they may receive for scraping the listing information. You may remember when Trulia launched – http://www.raincityguide.com/2005/09/28/trulia-better-real-estate-search/
For the comparison against Roost – all dothomes needs to do to get MLS listings is crawl broker sites with IDX feeds or public access MLS sites. This is a fairly simple process, as we have already indexed most of roost I don’t see it as being too difficult for dothomes to do the same but I do agree it maybe difficult to update based on current format of individual listings.
Dustin, since you get all the info.. do you know how they plan on monetizing the site? Looking at the uk it seems to be simple sponsored advertisting or will they go the trulia / realtor route and offer “featured” advertising?
loren nason
whats the point with DotHomes already entering a crowded marketplace of Home Search Portals.
How will they make money? Yes they can sell ads, but selling ads is pointless if their is no traffic and I don’t see it getting much if any traffic
frankschulteladbeck
Thank you for the information. I think your analysis is spot on.Current sites like Zillow and Trulia are looking into ways to extend their reach, but many real estate professionals do not have much care for them. It will be interesting to see how the lawsuit with Zillow and its estimates will turn out.
Kevin Boer
Why crawl all the IDX sites? They can just tag behind Roost and slurp up all their data…
This should be a wakeup call to the *plug n play onliners. If agents are not creating content their sites will be relegated to what the general population of agents have been for years, a commodity without differentation (in the publics eyes of course).
*plug n play- or “set it and forget it” websites. Put IDX and a couple templated content pages and pray for business.
Dustin
Tim: You’re definitely right that differentiation is key for agents if they want to be effective on the internet!
Dustin
Who gave Roost complete MLS listings?
Roost.com is a real estate start-up that just launched their real estate search site….
I had a chance to meet the Roost.com team at NAR in Vegas and was impressed with them… so I was downright excited when they offered to give me a preview of their site at RE Connect (see comment #1).
During my conversation with Alex Chang (their CEO), he mentioned multiple times the similarities between Roost and Kayak… And I think it is safe to say that they would like to be the Kayak of real estate which would not be so bad considering Kayak’s success (and Eric at TechCrunch notes that Roost even shares a few board members Kayak. I believe they also share major investors…).
Like Kayak, Roost has:
- Clean “web2.0″ interface.
- AJAX “magic” that allows for listings to dynamically change as option boxes and sliders are changed.
- A CPC business model that charges the brokers/airlines for hits that go back to their website.
There’s also some real estate-specific goodies, like the photos that open up “inline” and the ability to highlight only specific listings (to be mapped).
However, the real gold is that by teaming up with brokers to display their IDX feed they are able to display complete MLS listings. (The RE/MAX search site provided by eNeighborhoods does something similar, but without all the bells-and-whistles of Roost)
And while Greg is right to highlight the irony of Brokers paying Roost to send leads back to them, he’s also right to point out that “The IDX systems available at a monthly cost in many markets are so poor that Roost may prove to be a potent weapon in a broker’s arsenal.” My take is that if Roost can deliver consumers, then brokers will be happy to pay on a CPC basis… and the reality is that it only takes one broker to give their IDX to Roost for them to enter a new market, so they should be able to expand pretty quickly.
As a side note, I’ve always thought that this approach to getting listings for a real estate tech start-up makes the most sense… and I remember suggesting to Sami that Trulia should take this approach as oppose to going broker-by-broker at our coffee session in Seattle a few years ago. (I don’t care much for the CPC monetization strategy, but in terms of getting listings, it seems like a no-brainer to give a little bit to a local brokers in each market to get their listings.). However, I can’t blame Sami for not wanting to go down this route since the various MLS’ would have put so many restrictions around what Trulia could do that they’d never been able to release some of the things that they’ve done (like mixing MLS listings with foreclosure listings and opening up an API into their listing information).
Overall, I’d say that the Roost team has done a really good job with this first release! It’s a quality product that delivers as promised.
If I have one knock on the site it has nothing to do with the technology and everything to do with marketing. I simply don’t think the site is different enough from existing search sites to warrant continued buzz. I think they’ll get some great initial pick-up (considering it is a slick site with smart founders and investors), but unless they continue to deliver new features/announcements at a breakneck pace, I’m not sure how they keep people outside of the RE.net talking about the site beyond the next week or so.
Michael Price
It’s been a while since I have been involved with the nuances of IDX. Maybe you can help me understand how the rules play out. In the case of Houston, one broker has republished the entire IDX data feed in Roost.Com. All of the leads go back to that broker.
Is the future of listing distribution based on the size and ability of the broker to create these kind of relationships? It was my understanding that a single broker could republish the IDX feeds on their own site only, however, as is the case with Yahoo Real Estate and now Roost.Com that is unclear.
Ed Kohler
That is a nice use of AJAX. It’s fun watching new uses come to the industry almost every day. Some are actually useful.
Incredible Agent
@Michael: The way they are getting around this is by making the page the “Brokerages” page…so in a sense it is the brokers site…not roosts. That’s why you see the brokername.idx.roost.com in the url. Essentially they are an IDX vendor for the brokerages with a front entry way to drive traffic to their IDX search.
@dustin: I agree. The site isn’t different enough to warrant continued buzz for very long. I don’t see it as anything special.
Michael Price
I noticed that as I surfed through the site but did not snap to the significance of it. Thanks for pointing it out Damon.
Have those big feet of yours healed up from the NYC trip?
Dustin
Michael:
Damon has it just right and one of the other things that they do is cookie you when you first arrive at the site so that the experience will continue to be brought to you by one broker. In other words, even if there are 10 brokers signed up to Roost in a market area, you’ll always see the same brokerage branding when you return to the site.
Jessie B
Possible issues.
(A) site structure may make it difficult to get organic results, so your comment about building buzz is 100% correct.
(B) since the model is cpc some brokers will simply do cpc with the SE’s if roost cpc cost is higher.
(C) Possible dissention from agents to broker / MLS for providing access to FSBO on same platform, which may cause brokers / MLS to pull feeds. (my guess this will be pulled off site in less than 3 months)
(D) “even if there are 10 brokers signed up to Roost in a market area, you’ll always see the same brokerage branding when you return to the site.” – this may cause a problem where they cannot deliver enough traffic to multiple brokers signed up in the same areas.
roostblog
Alex from Roost here. Thanks for the great write up Dustin, really enjoyed chatting with you at Inman. Thought I’d clarify a few things for everyone:
- First, our broker partners actually rotate through the search engine by session
- Second, one thing that has kind of gotten lost is that the search engine is really only a part of the equation. Roost is actually a network of IDX compliant broker sites with a search engine sitting on top of them. Brokers receive these sites, and are in complete control. Those sites receive geo-targeted visitors from the Roost search engine depending on the broker’s needs/budget. Each broker site goes through standard IDX approval process with each MLS
- Finally, Roost is a completely open/inclusive platform for any type of broker (large, small, independent, franchise group, corporate, etc)
Brad Nix
As a small broker/owner, I placed a call into Roost two days ago and have yet to hear back from them. We’ll see how “open/inclusive” they are.
Please check my site and get my number to call me at extension 303.
Reno Real Estate
Hi. I am also a small broker who would like to get more information on the pricing model.
When the Roost “ers” get back to this blog, please follow my site link above and tell me about pricing and capability in the Reno Real Estate market.
Thanks. Mitch
Dustin
45 Things I Learned at RE Connect
(some names left anonymous to protect the innocent)
- There’s a hell of a lot of VC money floating around this industry. I was surprised at how many people there were with lots of VC funding. Joel seemed to notice the same thing: “a whole new crop of real estate search sites that are going to be hitting the market”
- Reporter from the REALTOR Magazine was in the audience of our presentation. (thanks to Ines for pointing out the story: NAR is opening their eyes to blogging.)
- Zillow dropped their beta tag.
- Zillow’s big press release (picked up by many others) was a case of “make-news”. I’d be worried for their business if they weren’t making the improvements they announced (adding more listings, improving the quality of Zestimates, dropping beta, etc.). Joel doesn’t write much about of the improvements, while Greg quotes it extensively and seems to gush about their RETS announcement, which even the Zillow team pulls back from in the comments.
- Trulia was profitable for at least one month last year expects to be profitable at some point this year.
- According to comScore, Trulia had more traffic than Zillow in December! (Congrats Mike on the awesome prediction)
- comScrore and Hitwise are measuring traffic on two different internets. (Hitwise shows Trulia with 1.45% of category traffic and Zillow with 2.28%).
- Also interesting from the Hitwise report is that Move.com moved from #2 to #5, while RE/Max moved from #2 to #5. That’s big enough news where I would have expected to see a Press Release. Realtor.com at #1 and Move.com at #2 is huge for Move, Inc., even if it is only for December. (Oddly, I’m getting all the Hitwise numbers for December from an Inman Blog article on my feedreader. The actually article was removed from their site for some reason, so maybe the numbers are butchered!)
- Vast.com acquired Adaptive Real Estate Services (ARES). (That answers one question, although it does not give me any confidence that Vast.com has thought out their listing content acquisition strategy)
- Lots of neighborhood projects coming out. Here’s my (unsolicited) advice to anyone looking to build a successful social network in this space. If you really want consumer adoption, you’ve got to have a clear answer to this question: “What’s the consumer benefit?” So, so, so many of the “social networks” I saw this week were focused around real estate professionals. ActiveRain was an anomaly. Be able to explain your consumer proposition clearly, or don’t expect success.
- With that said, VillageMaker from RealProSystems will likely be a success… in that agents will the product, not in the sense that consumers will use it. This is the ultimate social network with the real estate professional at the center of the transaction in that a real estate agents must invite consumers to this platform. Sounds great, except it won’t work for all but a few agents.
- I am now the owner of “all the marbles”.
- Google staff really don’t like it when you take pictures inside their offices.
(Jay noticed this too!)
- Saul Kline is still the same great guy even after becoming CEO of Point2. (Frances has photos). His stated approach for moving Point2 forward is sound, although I’ll let him explain that approach when he’s ready.
- Lots of start-ups are twisting and turning to think how they an make their products more REALTOR friendly in the hopes of catching some Second Century funding! Mark Lesswing is a popular man at these conferences.
- I was surprised how many tech start ups get funding with only the roughest plans to get listings. Teresa gets that this is a mistake!
- Trulia launched their Publisher Platform. Robbie loves this! I can’t tell what Joel thinks… and Greg pans the service. I don’t follow Greg’s logic that it weakens overall traffic to Trulia… Mainly because nobody in the online real estate space has enough market penetration to think there are a finite number of users for their services. Trulia needs more listings. If this helps convince more brokers that they need to send their feeds to Trulia, then it is a good move. (Joel has an example of what the branded service looks like on FOREM)
- I really liked one startup and can’t wait until they launch in a little bit because I want to see how they market themselves. The product is an (solid) incremental improvement on search, but I don’t think it is enough of an improvement to go viral on its own.
- The beer for bloggers event is a great way to start off a conference. (photos on the Zillowblog and Sellsius).
- Teresa has some great photos from the week, including this action shot of me. Dito for Jeff.
- The WellcomeMat boys are quite the fun crowd. I really want to see them succeed because the technology is top-notch. Next step for them is figuring out a way so that their users don’t have to do their own marketing. If uploaded listing videos were getting hundreds (or even dozens), I think they’d be well on-their-way to being a a must-have product for most agents.
- I’m more bullish after RE Connect on Altos Research.
- Drew found a way to work at RE Connect. I’m not sure how he pulled it off.
- Professor Nouriel Roubini didn’t show up to RE Connect with the idea of making a lot of friends. He was consistently vocal in his belief that the downside to this market is going to be HUGE. He made Noah look like a moderate! (Here’s the video!)
- While I didn’t plan to go to many of the sessions, I surprised myself by going to only one session (see previous comment).
- I LOVE NYC.
- While I enjoy writing the occasional update, I’m simply not a good twitterer. On the other hand, Daniel is the twitter man.
- Apparently, there is a $15B dollar opportunity in the online real estate space since I heard multiple people throw that number around.
- Rumor has it that Cyberhomes is going to spend a LOT of money on advertising this year in order to reach out to consumers. This is a change from my take on their original approach in that they were going to focus on reaching out to agents by offering them a “white-label Zillow”. I like Marty Frame a lot, but I don’t think ads will do the trick. I hope they have one-more thing up their sleeve.
- Kris Berg is always lovely. Offline or online, she is one of my favorite people in the RE.net.
- Jay Thompson is another one that I found to be just as great in person. Networking with people like him is the reason to travel to NYC.
- The business mind of Damen Pace doesn’t stop moving.
- Rudy has some mad video editing skills.
- Daniel is the video man! It’s obvious he loves this stuff.
- As one would expect, Lockhart is quickly growing his team at Curbed and it was a lot of fun to meet them at the NYT party. From what I saw, Lockhart tried to dampen expansion rumors. He would only talk about Chicago at this point.
- BofA bought Countrywide. Lots of commentary on Jillayne’s post on RCG and Brian Brady’s post on Bloodhound.
- Redfin’s PR about returning $10M to consumers didn’t do much for me. I’ll be more interested to find out when they start making business model changes in order to get profitable.
- People have begun calling Rain City Guide “Ardell’s Blog” behind my back! LOL!
- Inman will soon be launching a new website with new features and a new design.
- Up Yours! Video TV war! Intothebox.tv rips on BrokerIPtv.com (around second 40). Not to take sides, but I was interviewed by the BrokeIPtv team at RE connect, and will be interested to see what comes out of that. On the other side, Rachel of Intothebox is oddly interesting… In watching, I just keep waiting for something to fall or break.
- I could never repeat linkation too many times. I keep repeating myself and people continue to act like it is new information. Please tell me if and when I need to stop with the linkation bit.
- ActiveRain introduced a few new people from their team. Rumor was that they have some funding that they will announce soon.
- Brendan King and other ex-Point2 folks were passing out business cards with the company name VendAsta. My guess is that the name is only temporary.
- Greg Tracy has branched out the BlueRoof brand to start doing consulting and website building for other real estate professionals. He “gets it”, so I can only imagine further success ahead.
- I really do enjoy just about everyone in the RE.net and real estate tech communities. 2008 is going to be fun!
Phew! Now I think I’m caught up so that I can get back to regular updates!
-
Daltonsbriefs
Thanks a ton for the list, a bunch of great links
-
sara b
Wow, someone was really paying attention last week. Great recap, a lot of stuff happened last week! It was great meeting you and getting to know you better at the google party.
-
Andy Kaufman
Thanks for the great recap Dustin!
You #41′d us
-
Dustin
Thanks Steve, Sara and Andy!
Sara: It was definitely a lot of fun meeting you as well! You were a rock-star taking the chance on bringing so many of us to the Googleplex!
-
Drew Meyers
Frankly, I don’t know how I managed to work at RE Connect either — I’m guessing the lack of sleep had something to do with it.
-
kristalk
With a summary like this, who needs to attend! Thanks for taking notes.
-
Paula Henry
Dustin – Thanks for the recap for those of us who could not attend. I am still waiting for Altos Research to head to the Midwest with their data.
-
Jim Duncan
Wow. Fantastic recap.
-
Pete Flint from Trulia.com
GREAT list, was fun catching up in NYC with everyone.
Two points of clarification.
1) Trulia expects to be profitable at some point in 2008, see last few paragraphs here http://www.truliablog.com/?p=2612) comScore measures unique users and Hitwise measures individual visits which are two very different numbers, that’s part of the difference between the numbers.
See you all at Inman this summer.
Pete
-
rudy
hi dustin!
fantastic list. hanging with you is always a good time….4realz!
do you remember if we beat jon and sara at foosball at the google party? i had a little too much “google juice” if you know what i mean
best,
- rudy
p.s. glad you enjoyed the video
-
rerevealed
SWEET- Cliffnotes for Inman
KK’s right… who needs to go? We’ll just send you, a laptop, and a video crew next year and save on airfare and hotels
-
loren nason
#11 – I agree that villagemaker might be a success but only in the fact that they will sell a lot of accounts. But of those that use it the success will be few and far between. See my post about social networks
#40 – when i saw that video i shot soda out my nose from laughing so hard
#42 – Loren is going to SF Connect
-
loren nason
oops
i meant
#46 – Loren is going to SF Connect
-
Dustin
Pete: So sorry for getting the profitability facts wrong. It’s not a good excuse by any means, but I’m going to blame it on the fact that I heard this on a night that started with a lot of free pink drinks thanks to the wellcomemat boys, so I must have been mixing things up.
Lesson learned. -
Brad Nix
Good stuff Dustin, as usual. I wish I had been there myself. You know Christian at WellcomeMat is from my neck of the woods here in Marietta, GA? We partied here over the weekend, just because.
-
Dustin
Interesting Brad… I had more a few drinks with Christian (and others from WellcomeMat) and walked away very impressed with that crew.
-
Jay Thompson
Great summary Dustin. Thanks for the props. Meeting you was one of the highlights of the trip!
Wellcomemat, pink vodka, my head still hurts…
-
Jay Thompson
Oh and as for #41 don’t ever stop. Many still don’t seem to get it. As for #35, I bent Lockhart’s ear about Phoenix. He wouldn’t budge off of Chicago…
-
Brian Brady
My only problem with this list is that #41 should always be #1- don’t ever stop the e-link-alization
-
Jessie B
Great post. Looking forward to seeing what #18 is about.
-
Damon Pace
Dustin. Yes I’m always thinking. I can’t stop myself. Great summary…but something tells me you’re leaving some stuff out.
-
Dustin
LOL! Damon. You think so???
Noah
Thanks for plug Dustin! Sorry I missed you but I was really sick, and ended up in bed the next 2 days. At least I was able to make the panel and meetup with alot of bloggers I havent seen since SF. Hopefully next time we can catch up again!
Ines
I agree with KK – thanks for doing this. Loved Jeff’s and Teresa’s photos, although I don’t recognize 1/2 the people (time to update those profile shots people!)
Michael Price
It was great to be able to hang out Dustin. See you in SF.
MP
Dustin
Noah. You did a great job up on stage. You were on quite the lively and opinionated panel. Great stuff!
Dustin
Ines: Looking back over the photos and video were one of the key ways I wrote this post. Looking over the “evidence” I remembered a ton of interesting conversations!
Dustin
Mike: It was great hanging out with you as well! SF should be a lot of fun and I know of at least one person/team that’s planning to add something special to the mix!
Christian Sterner
This is my favorite quote from your post dude:
“comScrore and Hitwise are measuring traffic on two different internets.”
Two different internets? Love that.
I came here looking for your contact info Dustin. After all the BS(ing) we did, we didn’t exchange cards. As for you comments about what WellcomeMat needs to do, you can bet that we are spending every waking hour of every day solving the exact issue that you point out. I got more than $5 placed on team WellcomeMat. We aren’t losing….period.
Christian Sterner
And btw…the issue of people having to market their videos for themselves is less about inefficiencies of WellcomeMat, and more about the fact that real estate search portals are lagging hard on their acceptance of video content. We don’t feel like distributing video content to generalist video portals (like YouTube) is at all worthwhile. Very few, if not zero, people search for real estate within generalist video sites and the SEO advantages are short term (not to mention that posting real estate videos within these sites is against most of their terms of service agreements). So, it’s all about context, and we have been t-ing up real estate portals to accept our content for a long time. We’re making headway.
Brendan King
Thanks for the mention Dustin. You are right on about the name. As you indicated we have indeed started a new company http://www.vendasta.com this is our “consulting company” and we already have quite a bit of business. We are also starting a real estate related venture (we have a new name) that will help real estate professionals utilize all social networks to connect to their social graph and get better insight and peripheral vision into consumer behaviour much earlier in the sales/buying cycle and to track and manage their online reputations.
I will be sure to keep you up to speed on our developments. We are currently raising some initial capital to aggressively pursue this software development. We feel a need for speed to market rather then bootstrapping it ourselves.
Best,
Brendan
Bob Stewart
Dustin,
You get all the rumors don’t you? I’m interested to hear more about #42, haha
Thanks for the recap…..you jarred my memory on a few things that otherwise may have faded into the google party abyss
Dustin
Christian: Who needs business cards?
I just sent you an email!
-Dustin
Chad Huck
Unable to attend in NYC, so thanks for the recap. Makes me wish it was July for the Connect08 in San Fran!
Jeff Brown
Dustin — I have to believe you didn’t miss anything worth passing on. This list is valuable on so many levels — thanks.
The common thread I keep hearing from those for whom I hold much respect, is the networking that went on in NY.
Would it be your contention also, the networking was the most valuable benefit taken away from the ‘Connect’?
Thanks again — the list is awesome.
Dustin
Jeff: I’d have to agree that networking is the reason to go to a RE Connect conference. I’m positive there is LOTS and LOTS of great information being presented all day long, but I’m usually too busy meeting up with people to attend many of them.
Dan Green
#46: The REAL reason Dustin left Seattle.
Good seeing you and getting the chance to catch-up…
John Schroeder
Dustin-
Didn’t get a chance to go…but after reading your post I have just gotten a big rush of adrenaline. Online Real Estate is just beginning…I better get back to work!
ARDELL
I still haven gotten #41, so don’t stop. I still feel dirty when I add tags
Dustin
Totally useless error
“Error Number : 311 Printer is in use or an error has occurred. If an error has occurred, eliminate the cause of the error.”
After getting this dumb error, I did all obvious things, restarted the computer, restarted the printer, upgraded the drives, searched, and found others who’ve gotten the same error, all without success.
Finally, after even more playing around, I think I’ve hit upon the issue that I have a “print head error” that requires repair service. I’ll find out tomorrow when their customer support is open.
Helen, 
PO are discussing. -
PO
Did you solve the printer problem?
I’ve gotten the same problem.
Please email. -
Dustin
Nope.
After a little more playing around, I noticed that the light on the printer was flashing 7 times… According to the folks at Cannon, this meant that my printer head was broken and the solution is to buy a new print head (which can’t be returned), but the tech support guy said there was a good chance this wouldn’t actually help, so I haven’t done anything yet.
-
Helen
Same problem. I just went through troubleshooting with Canon support. I can clean the nozzles and with USB connection but not through BlueTooth. I am running OS 10.5.4 on a MacBook. It worked fine until my hard drive failed and was replaced.
Jay Thompson 3:46 pm on March 7, 2008 Permalink |
Congrats Dustin! Mudslides and pile-ups aside, I’m sure it was well worth it for the attendees. Sounds like a great program.
But next time, you should slip some Phoenix real estate blog in there somewhere…
Dustin 3:56 pm on March 7, 2008 Permalink |
So very true!
At one point I list “reasons blogs work”, and I use different examples from RCG posts… During the presentation I came to the conclusion that I had too many RCG screenshots, so my plan is to redo that section to bring in some other great real estate blogs… and I can only imagine there will be at least one Phoenix blog included!
toddwcarpenter 4:29 pm on March 7, 2008 Permalink |
Congrats Dustin. I saw your twitter yesterday morning and had to laugh. Great that it all came together.
Athol Kay 4:51 pm on March 7, 2008 Permalink |
Wow, that’s some heady list to be included in with. I appreciate it!
Mike Farmer 4:53 pm on March 7, 2008 Permalink |
Congratulations!
TimJ 5:04 pm on March 7, 2008 Permalink |
Congratulations on surviving your first event. You’re off to a great start! (except for the little mudslide and traffic thing).
Doug Willis 6:28 pm on March 7, 2008 Permalink |
I was one of the attendees yesterday. Jim and Dustin provided a wonderful presentation and experience. If you are thinking of blogging, you must go. Seeing Dustin is like, well, “having Moses personally escort you on the arc”.
Dustin 8:26 pm on March 7, 2008 Permalink |
Thanks to everyone!
And a special thanks to Doug! I’m planning to send all the attendees an email with a link to this post, but I hadn’t made it that far yet, so it is awesome that you followed up already! I just played on your site a bit and noticed that your site looks pretty darn good and includes a great cast of contributors. You’re already ahead of the game!
Richard Dale-Mesaros 8:28 pm on March 7, 2008 Permalink |
Hi Dustin,
Glad to see you’re getting out there and enlightening the world about the new social networking. Things are moving at such a fast pace in this arena and we appreciate folks like you who are keeping us in the loop. 2008 is certainly going to be the year of the niche social network, as we’ve already been seeing with our own site for real estate investors.
Keep up the good work!
Richard
Chief Deal Weaver
http://www.BlackWidowNetwork.com
Dustin 8:29 pm on March 7, 2008 Permalink |
Athol,
I used one of your Bad MLS photos posts to talk about the benefits of using humor… and the slide alone was effective. Everyone had a good chuckle! So credit goes to you for creating a fun resource for us all!
pasadenaviews 7:50 am on March 8, 2008 Permalink |
Dustin, this class was everything I hoped for and more. As always, you did a tremendous job making sense of Web2.0. Jim’s presentation on what a website should have and the ROI gave me a lot to think of. I have a slew of next steps to incorporate. Keep up the great work and I look forward to more classes. THANKS to you both!
Jim Marks 9:00 am on March 8, 2008 Permalink |
Dustin,
You are superman… Good job getting this post and all the links up… It is Saturday morning and I am just getting my feet back under me… with a weekend in Vail… I thought I would check your blog to get the news!
I gotta admit that the Mudslide was the first time I have ever seen you sweat! but we worked it out!
monikamcgillicuddy 9:09 am on March 8, 2008 Permalink |
Sounds like it all worked out in the end. I wish I could have been there to see you guys in action.
Marlene Bridges 10:07 am on March 8, 2008 Permalink |
Dustin – What an awesome day of mind expansion. You and Jim were fully prepared. You gave us so much information in the morning that I was on the edge of my seat taking notes as quickly as I could. When it was time to break for lunch I was shocked that so much time had passed. Then after lunch you guys packed in even more.
Dustin, you demystified, clarified, and confirmed things I knew, things I thought I knew, and things I’d wondered about. In today’s market, we simply don’t have money to burn. I absolutely thought my money for the day was well-spent. You valued our time and there was no “dead air”. You and Jim did such an incredible job. BTW – I drove three hours to get to there (enjoyed the scenery on the 405 and saw things I usually sail by-the mudslide affected the freeway, too) and I’d do it again in a heartbeat to hear what you have to say.
Thanks also to the great sponsors. Events like this one simply can’t happen without sponsors. Thank you for carefully choosing relevent sponsors for this event. I can’t wait to get my Altos Research up and running on all my websites!
Looking forward to the next 90 days of learning and to future events like this one to build up my Web 2.0 muscles.
Dustin 11:52 am on March 8, 2008 Permalink |
Irina, Monika and Marlene: Thank you so much for the kind words about the presentation! Everyone at the event was wonderful, inquisitive, attentive and understanding. A perfect audience!
Naia 12:02 pm on March 8, 2008 Permalink |
Dustin and Jim: As an attendee who showed up a few minutes late (15-30?), I can tell you that by the time I showed up, you were handling it all well, and I had no sense of crisis.
To all future attendees: The workshop was well worth it! Balanced and useful across a variety of speakers: Dustin, Jim, and the 5 minute presentations by the three sponsors.
Dustin and Jim, I was thinking that you were served well by your experience at tracking communication across communities. I think it made your planning for this event strong because the parts of the live event LINKED together well—even while each participant was able to keep their identity and provide their own expertise. That’s a hard thing to do well in live events, and you succeeded.
Naia
Naia 12:03 pm on March 8, 2008 Permalink |
Oh, yes. …btw, count me in for the 90day expansion of your training.
Dustin 12:33 pm on March 8, 2008 Permalink |
You’re on Naia! And thanks so much.
Missy Caulk 7:40 pm on March 8, 2008 Permalink |
Sounds like fun, mudslides, car pile ups and all, but no coffee, I draw the line there.
Ubertor 4:56 pm on March 9, 2008 Permalink |
Congrats Dustin. Sounds like a great event.
Laura-LosAngelesRealEstateTalk.com 11:47 am on March 10, 2008 Permalink |
Wow! It seems like the event was a huge success. What is the 90-day expansion training? Is it only available to people who attended this first event?
Cheers to new adventures!
Dustin 12:26 pm on March 10, 2008 Permalink |
Laura,
The event was definitely a lot of fun.
In terms of the 90-day course, it is an idea that I shared with the first attendees and it involves me walking them through social networking and blogging over a 90-day time period. And, yes, I did offer it free to all attendees…
Once I get the system down, the plan is to open the course up to anyone who is interested (most probably for a fee).