Notorious R.O.B.

The second post ever on Notorious R.O.B. was entitled, “More Silliness from Real Estate Connect” and contained this passage:

The Real Estate industry has gone tech-crazy.

Here’s a wakeup call: all that technology does is make your existing processes more efficient. If what you do is crap, it makes crap more efficient. If what you do is valuable, then it makes that more efficient. Microsoft Word is an amazing piece of technology, but it can’t write the next Great American Novel for you. You have to actually write the damn thing yourself, and if you suck as a writer, then Word isn’t going to solve that problem for you.

By the way, I would like to note that I have broken through some sort of dork continuum by quoting myself from a year ago.  The only thing I could think of that might be dorkier is singing She Bangs on American Idol.  (Click on that link at your own peril; I will take no responsibility for brain meltdown and queasy feelings.)

A couple of recent experiences reminded me that plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose.

Evidence: Oh, Canada!

First, we get this announcement from Coldwell Banker Canada:

Coldwell Banker Canada Operations ULC today announced the launch of the brand’s customized real estate application developed for Microsoft Surface™.  The dynamic new real estate interface was unveiled during a live interactive demo at the Coldwell Banker® Canadian Broker Meeting and Awards Gala being held today in Toronto. The new Microsoft Surface home search application allows users to interact with thousands of home listings, real estate maps and other www.coldwellbanker.com features in a way that is familiar, by using simple hand gestures. Similar to the intuitive technology featured in the futuristic film, “Minority Report”, this exploration on the use of Microsoft Surface represents yet another way in which Coldwell Banker is working to harness innovative technologies to benefit home buyers and sellers.

Um.  Okay guys.

So the Canadian real estate market was down17.1% i n2008, and the Canadian Real Estate Association is predicting a 16.9% drop in 2009, but one of the largest brokerage companies in Canada is excited about Microsoft Surface?

Is this really the thing that’s going to turn things around for CB Canada?

Maybe.  But I submit that the real estate industry has gone tech-crazy if folks really believe that Surface is where dollars need to be invested.

By the way, compare what CB Canada put together with this from Perceptive Pixel, the company founded by Jeff Han who pioneered multi-touch interfaces:

If you’re going to do multi-touch, then by golly do it right.  Putting a website that we’re all familiar with on Surface and calling that a “dynamic new real estate interface” doesn’t pass the laugh test.

Evidence: Ubiquity of Social Media

I don’t hate social media.  Nor do I think it’s useless.  If anything, I believe the opposite: it’s damn useful, and quite likely groundbreaking in lots of ways.  But I do think the industry is focusing on absolutely the wrong thing as it comes to social media.

People are focusing on the technology of social media, rather than on the meaning of social media.

Past two weeks, I’ve been on the road, first at RE Tech South and then at the Leading Real Estate Companies of the World Conference.  I’ve sat through hours of seminars and panel discussions and lectures on how real estate professionals and companies can survive, thrive and even improve in the current market conditions.  And it seemed that every other word being uttered was “Twitter” or “FaceBook” or “Blog”.

The emphasis on technology leads to realtors using the technology in all sorts of unsuitable ways: spamming their friends, endless twitterstreams of listing after listing, advertising after advertising, and blogs that are nothing more than digitized billboards.

All that technology does is make your existing processes more efficient.

When your existing mode of engagement is “NOW IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY OR SELL!” (And by the way, how does that work, exactly?) then the technology is just going to make you be more efficiently annoying.

To be sure, there are people like Jeff Turner who are trying to preach the meaning of social media, rather than the technology.  We need more of him, and less obsession about how to create a dozen groups on TweetDeck to keep track of all of your social networks.

It Ain’t the Technology

If I believe in nothing else, I believe that marketing post-Cluetrain is authentic, open communication between human beings.  Technology assists in the transformation, makes some of the interaction possible even, but it is not the interaction.

I firmly believe that a realtor who doesn’t know how to use a computer, but send personal, authentic, and no-bullshit handwritten notes will beat the pants off of the realtor who has thousands of Facebook Friends and barrages them with digital versions of “Just Sold” postcards.  I really do.

Because it ain’t the technology; it’s the person behind the technology.

What realtors need isn’t a newfangled technology to be a thousand times more annoying than they are today, but a transformation into the kind of trusted advisor that so many claim and so few achieve.  Companies need to be investing in technology (and processes!) that help realtors become true experts in their local market, the real estate transaction, the financial elements, and client service, rather than in gadgets that win cool points then fade away.

Show people that you care about them as people; that you will work hard for them; that you are a professional with pride in your training, knowledge, and expertise; that you won’t lie to them or bullshit them; that you will advise them to the best of your abilities for their benefit and not your own; that you are neither a huckster nor a servant; that you too are human… and people won’t care if you message them through Facebook or through smoke signals.

They will trust you.

-rsh

Matt Dollinger, of @Properties in Chicago, raised a very interesting question at the Leading RE conference that just concluded.  He then raised it again over Twitter (Matt is @mattdollinger) and the discussion threatened to overwhelm the 140-char limit.  It’s time for bloggery.

Matt’s question was this (in essence):

In 2015, with companies like Trulia, Zillow, Roost and others really advancing the technology of real estate search, should brokers have their own search site?

Since the panel was titled “Real Estate 3.0″, it naturally lends itself to these kinds of speculative questions.

This is an important question.  Money is not unlimited.  Brokers have to make decisions today to align their strategy going forward.  And as Matt himself pointed out during session, brokerages are not technology companies at heart.

The answer seemed to be from the panelists that brokers have to do both: create a top-notch brokerage website that is optimized for SEO, has great user experience, and captures leads all over the place, but also send listings to all of the aggregators to drive additional leads, because the big guys have national (global) reach and can grab so many more eyeballs than a single brokerage site could.

Trouble is… that just doesn’t jive logically.

Internet is Not Local

Fact is, while a brokerage may be local, and real estate may be local, the Internet is most assuredly not local.  There is no reason why someone searching for “chicago real estate” from New Jersey would not find a local website.

Granted, @Properties apparently needs some SEO consultancy love, seeing as how it doesn’t appear on page one, two, or three, but other local brokerage sites are right there: Baird & Warner, Rubloff, Dreamtown Realty, etc. all show up.

And Trulia also shows up.

As a consumer, if I go into a local brokerage site like Dreamtown’s, then go into Trulia, there is a world of difference there from a user experience standpoint.

The one has all manner of busy advertising, bullshit marketing messages that I would immediately ignore, and so on.  The other has a clean interface, a nice Google map mashup, and easy to use search filters right there on the page.

For Dreamtown to come up to par with Trulia, it would need to spend a pretty serious amount of money and time.  And the Dreamtown website is actually pretty darn good as far as local brokerage sites go.  Having worked on corporate brokerage sites, I think it is no stretch to say that a top-notch custom-coded website with developers, designers, UI design, SEO, and the like can easily top $250K in cost.

That isn’t even taking into consideration what it would cost to develop something actually new and innovative.  A new kind of search, a totally new way to interface with listings data, etc. could mean literally millions of dollars in R&D costs.

In theory, the aggregators and web portals like Trulia are technology companies first and foremost, and have core competencies in design and development.  They should always be ahead of the brokers in terms of technology and user interface.  (And in theory, they should dominate the brokers in SERPS… though often, they do not.)

Branding & CRM

Matt would argue — and correctly — that a brokerage company still needs a website for branding and CRM purposes.

For instance, you have to have a site where your existing seller clients can go, login, view all activity reports on their listings, see where the transaction is, download paperwork, upload paperwork, etc.  (You all do have this, right?)

And it would be difficult to brand your brokerage and your agents as local experts (since real estate is local, even if the Internet is not) without providing some heavy duty in-depth information and data about your local market.

But neither of these things need a SEARCH experience.

In theory, @Properties could have an awesome local website, filled with information about the area, a series of hyperlocal blogs written by their agents, and so on.  But rather than a search experience, just offer a “Search Our Chicago Listings on Trulia” or some such.

Either/Or?

Of course, most folks would assume that like in all debates, the real answer is a “bit of both” rather than an “either/or”.

So a broker would go invest a few thousand bucks to get a templated site from some low-cost website creator, or frame in a search solution from some IDX search provider, and still spend thousands more to feature listings on Realtor, or on Trulia, or pay for leads from some aggregator.

This is, however, a case of “either/or”. One of the following is true:

1. The money spent on putting in a search into the local broker site is wasted, since consumers would naturally prefer (and only find by year 2015) the tech-sites that emphasize the whole search user experience and functionality, and leads would be sent directly to the broker.  Instead, spend that money on enhancing local info, the brand presence, and the CRM applications.
2. The money spent buying traffic/leads from Third Parties is wasted, since all searches begin with Google anyhow.  The name of the game is to rank higher in Google, and not having search and all those results pages kills you.  Plus, you don’t need super-duper search; you just need good clean intuitive search that connects the consumer to your agent as quickly as possible.

Both cannot be true as a matter of logic.

Traffic vs. Lead

An important distinction here is between ‘traffic’ and ‘leads’.  Louis Cammarosano of HomeGain is fond of pointhing this out.  A broker or agent, in his view, could care less about a site sending him a billion visitors if all of them are bored-ass tirekickers who wouldn’t convert to a customer anyhow.  They would rather that HomeGain (or whoever) send them ten people who are solid ready-to-buy or ready-to-sell consumers.

In theory, the third-party sites can send enormous amounts of traffic to the spiffy brokerage site with a great search experience.  Since these are just random visitors, the brokerage site would need to do a lot more — including offering a search experience — in order to convert them to actual leads.  And it is possible that these sites could send millions of visitors, not one of whom will ever hit “Request More Info” or “Request a Showing” or pick up the phone.

That traffic, however, is sourced more or less from Google, which brings us right back to “SERPS are what matters, not SEARCH”.

Or, the third party sites are sending enormous amount of leads, which are consumers asking to be contacted.  In which case, they’re past the whole “search for a home” deal and into the “I need more information” deal.  And the brokerage’s spiffy new search technology is completely bypassed.

Real Estate in 2015

So let’s fast forward.  2015.  Hard to make assumptions based on technology today, with our rapid speed of change.  But let’s go with it.  Let’s assume that search technology is so advanced by 2015, and computing has totally changed, with multi-touch computing the norm.

What happens to search-based broker/agent website then?  The answer is directly related to what happens to the big aggregators by then.  And where search technology is by then.

As the fast and furious twitterstream on this topic indicates, this is a bigger issue than one might think initially, with implications across the entire spectrum of online real estate.

I’m looking forward to the discussion and exploration.

-rsh

1.  Thou shalt not spam thy friends.

2.  Thou shalt not be LinkedIn with coworkers, for LinkedIn has replaced most job sites for recruiting. Social network with thy coworkers around the large container that dispenseth water.

3.  Thou shalt think twice before being Facebook Friends with coworkers, clients, and prospects. And definitely think thrice before posting photos and videos of thee in that club in Cancun with the beer bong.

4.  Thou shalt not network under a corporate name, for silly rabbit, social networks are for humans!

5.  Thou shalt be thyself as much as possible on social networks, for if thou art false, it shall be evident, and thy friends shall un-friend thee with the quickness.

6.  Thou shalt help thy friends in appropriate networks meet and help each other as much as possible, for that is the whole point of doing social networks at all.

7.  Thou shalt unsubscribe from any social network that thou hast not updated in the past thirty days, for thy time is not unlimited.

8.  Thou shalt refrain from ad hominem attacks in debates that inevitably arise in any social networks worth a damn, unless thou truly means to simply trash and flame another person.

9.  Thou shalt venture outside thy circle from time to time, for a social network that ceases to grow might be one that is headed unto death.

10.  Thou shalt have fun on thy social networks, for all work and no play makes Jack a psychotic murderer who freezes unto death.

-rsh

Just a brief note from the Leading RE Show going on right now in Scottsdale, AZ.

I got to sit in on a great session earlier today with a speaker who I gather was a luxury marketing consultant.  He actually had some great points to make and great things to say.

However, a theme he sounded throughout the session grated with me.  It goes something like this:

Companies should invest heavily in CRM, and segment their clients to identify their “best customers” and then cater to them in order to drive customer satisfaction, which drives referrals, new business, and loyalty.

Now I happen to agree with the general thrust here.  I’ve already written that I think CRM is the killer app for real estate, and that real estate companies need to do a better job with segmentation and targeted marketing.

But applying principles of luxury marketing from the worlds of hospitality and retail and whatever else to real estate doesn’t readily jive with me.  Because of the Seven Year Cycle.

I just think it’s borderline irresponsible for marketers to talk about CRM or whatever without addressing this fundamental fact about real estate: consumers go seven years in between transactions on average.

I don’t know if that frequency changes with luxury buyers — maybe they can and do buy the $20m estate in Beverly Hills, then buy a $10m condo in NYC, and then a $15m villa in Lake Como, Italy.  So it makes sense to treat them as one might treat any luxury buyer of luxury consumer goods.

But if that isn’t the case, and even luxury buyers don’t go dropping $20m plus on a house every other year… then any discussion of CRM has to take this fundamental cycle into account.

That real estate is unique, and the practice of real estate marketing is as a result unique as well, are things I’m learning and relearning every day.  Absolutely non-commoditizable product (real estate) married to hugely commoditized service (brokerage services) with a seven year cycle and independent contractors operating in a significantly regulated industry constitute a truly unique set of factors and challenges for the marketer.

Yes, there are lessons to be learned from other industries.  There are best practices that can and should be adopted.  But adoption requires adaptation to the unique fundamentals of this industry.

Call it a pet peeve, but it sure would be nice if more consultants and speakers and panelists considered not only what is similar between real estate and other industries, but also what is unique and different.

-rsh

At the recent RE Tech South conference, I had the opportunity to meet Eric Stegemann — a self-described 25-year old going on 40 — who is the founder and CEO of a company called Tribus as well as the “Head Honcho” of River City Real Estate, a brokerage in St. Louis.

Eric is really one of the brightest guys in the next generation — the Millenials — with a singleminded focus on real estate, technology, and improving the former with the latter.  That he makes terrible drinks (some sort of Cherry-Nyquil tasting concoction with a bitter aftertaste) really can’t be held against him.  He’s 25-going-on-40; he’ll learn by 30 to savor the mysteries of fine cognac and single malt scotch.

In any event, Eric and I got into conversation and it turned out to be tres interessant.  It appears that Tribus is the “un-Franchise” that aims to eradicate the big real estate brands from the industry.  The idea essentially is to offer brokers and agents everything they need to operate a real estate brokerage, except for the brand itself and any rules associated with the brand.  So, for example, Tribus will give its “affiliates” a CRM system, a listings distribution system, a website, social media tools, accounting package, and so on.  But there won’t be a brand like “Century 21″ or “Keller Williams”, and no brand identity guidelines.  Nor will there be service standards at the Tribus level or any such thing.

Eric believes that the value of these franchises lies in the backend systems and tools, and not in the brand.  In fact, he believes that entrepreneurial broker-owners want the freedom to run their business as they see fit, without the baggage that national brand franchises impose on them.  They, however, want the support of a national entity for technology and backend processing.  So Tribus will provide everything the broker-owners want, and nothing they don’t want, and charge anywhere from 3% – 6% of GCI for those services.

<Geek Detour>

In the World of Darkness fantasy setting, published by White Wolf, an antitribu is a vampire (or Kindred, or Cainite) who has turned against his clan.  Since Eric’s company’s name is Tribus, the notion of Anti-Tribus comes naturally to mind if one wishes to poke holes in the concept.  But then, that leads to the thought that either Tribus will bring about the end of real estate as we know it (Gehenna = end of the world) or that Tribus is just another rebellion against the existing power structures (another Anarch Revolt).

</Geek Detour>

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So I ask an innocent question recently on Twitter: “What’s the difference between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0?”

And I got a number of interesting responses.  So of course I have to blog about it, heh.

Heather Elias (@heatherflynn) wrote: @robhahn interruption marketing versus permission marketing.  Actually, I take that back. More like broadcasting versus engagement.

Stacey Harmon (@staceyharmon): @robhahn I think Realtors should have 1.0 websites, but participate in web 2.0 communities. I don’t advise agents to create web 2.0 site …although there is an element of “dynamicism” that Realtors should use on their 1.0 websites which make them more 2.0 like…

Derek Massey (@derekmassey): @robhahn 1.0 is push, 2.0 is push and pull. 1.0 is presentation, 2.0 is discussion. 1.0 is looking big, 2.0 is acting small

And of course, @matman had the best observation: If my math serves me correctly, Web 2.0 is Web 1.0 x 2!

The profound simplicity of Matman’s formulation aside, all of these quotes suggest something without going so far as defining anything.  What is an observer — and more importantly, a practitioner — to do?

[Now, to be fair, let's be clear that the above people were responding via Twitter with its 140-character limits.  So by necessity they had to be general; therefore, none of what is below should be seen as criticism.  In fact, I rather hope they'd come and participate and expand on these thoughts.]

Imprecision Indecision

Let’s put ourselves in the shoes of the typical real estate agent who is discovering the wild and woolly world of online real estate.  She goes to a conference, like RE Tech South or Inman Connect or perhaps a RE Barcamp.  She hears everyone talking about Web 2.0, about social media, about leveraging the most powerful form of marketing ever invented.

She’s got herself a website from one o’ dem website vendor fellas, and she figures she needs to get with the program.  She desperately desires to join the Web 2.0 world and the rest of it.

What is she to do?

Her current site is ‘broadcast’ whereas she wants to go to ‘engagement’.  Rather than presenting stuff, she wants to discuss them.

In practical terms, what does this mean for our newbie realestista?

The picture gets cloudier still when she realizes that the sites usually brought up as exemplars of the Web 2.0 movement are sites like Flickr, YouTube, and Wikipedia.  YouTube is literally broadcast for our newbie — she goes there to watch videos.  Flickr isn’t much different — she goes there to check out photos from other people.

Blogs are said to be the quintessence of “Web 2.0″, but she visits most blogs to read stuff other people have written.  Sure she can see that some folks comment and such, but hasn’t ever done it herself.  How is this different from people coming to her site to read her market reports page?

Her site allows users to search for listings, then returns results to them.  It’s all rather one-to-one in her view.  So what’s so Web 1.0 about her basic search site, and what would she have to change to make it a Web 2.0 site?  Just add a blog, or let users comment on the listing?

What does “dynamicism” mean anyhow for her?

The Disservice of Vagueness

Every time I go to a real estate conference where newcomers are introduced to the heady concepts and la revolucion sweeping their industry, I come away thinking that they all have the somewhat happy-but-dazed look of people who sat under a waterfall for a few hours.

They all go away feeling that they have to do something, and that they have heard the key to future success, but with precious few concrete action items.

The problem, I think, is the very imprecision of the terminology we throw around.  The vagueness performs a disservice to newbies.  Unfortunately, the imprecision and vagueness is built-in to the whole “Web 2.0″ meme/movement.

This seems a good place for a digression of sorts: What is Web 2.0?

In our initial brainstorming, we formulated our sense of Web 2.0 by example:

Web 1.0		Web 2.0
DoubleClick	–>	Google AdSense
Ofoto	–>	Flickr
Akamai	–>	BitTorrent
mp3.com	–>	Napster
Britannica Online	–>	Wikipedia
personal websites	–>	blogging
evite	–>	upcoming.org and EVDB
domain name speculation	–>	search engine optimization
page views	–>	cost per click
screen scraping	–>	web services
publishing	–>	participation
content management systems	–>	wikis
directories (taxonomy)	–>	tagging (“folksonomy”)
stickiness	–>	syndication

The list went on and on. But what was it that made us identify one application or approach as “Web 1.0″ and another as “Web 2.0″? (The question is particularly urgent because the Web 2.0 meme has become so widespread that companies are now pasting it on as a marketing buzzword, with no real understanding of just what it means. The question is particularly difficult because many of those buzzword-addicted startups are definitely not Web 2.0, while some of the applications we identified as Web 2.0, like Napster and BitTorrent, are not even properly web applications!)

The post by Tim O’Reilly — I suppose the father of the term “Web 2.0″ — goes on to make claims like “Web 2.0 doesn’t have a hard boundary, but rather, a gravitational core.”  And then O’Reilly supplies us with a helpful “meme map”:

If the “gravitational core” of Web 2.0 is “The Web as Platform” then every single real estate website in existence today — including the original Realtor.com circa 1996 — is Web 2.0.  If the key to Web 2.0 is “You control your own data” then not one real estate website today is Web 2.0.  Because not one real estate website controls its own data — nor does any user of any real estate website.

Look at some of the other “core competencies” like “Harnessing the collective intelligence”.  Whatever this might mean in Web 2.0, I think it’s safe to say that few real estate websites today are Web 2.0 under this scenario.  And the ones that might be able to make that claim are all portals aggregating the “wisdom of the crowds” of thousands of individuals — Trulia Voices, Zillow Advice, ActiveRain, and the like.

In other words, NOT an individual broker or agent website.

Then look at the peripheral concepts, such as “Trust your users” and “Hackability”.  In some ways, real estate web is almost defined by not trusting your users and not being hackable.

You can (and if you’re really interested, you probably should) read the whole article by Tim O’Reilly.  But for those who want to get to the meat, the conclusion brings the juice:

Core Competencies of Web 2.0 Companies

In exploring the seven principles above, we’ve highlighted some of the principal features of Web 2.0. Each of the examples we’ve explored demonstrates one or more of those key principles, but may miss others. Let’s close, therefore, by summarizing what we believe to be the core competencies of Web 2.0 companies:

• Services, not packaged software, with cost-effective scalability
• Control over unique, hard-to-recreate data sources that get richer as more people use them
• Trusting users as co-developers
• Harnessing collective intelligence
• Leveraging the long tail through customer self-service
• Software above the level of a single device
• Lightweight user interfaces, development models, AND business models

The next time a company claims that it’s “Web 2.0,” test their features against the list above. The more points they score, the more they are worthy of the name. Remember, though, that excellence in one area may be more telling than some small steps in all seven.

While Tim O’Reilly is speaking of “Web 2.0 companies” rather than “Web 2.0 websites”, if we apply the same checklist to websites especially in real estate, confusion reigns.

Based on the above list, for a savvy agent to transform her website from “Web 1.0″ to “Web 2.0″, the following would have to occur:

1. Leave the MLS and institute a proprietary listings database, with direct input from users of the website.  How else to get ‘control over unique, hard-to-recreate data sources that get richer with usage”?
2. Listings without pricing — fully auctionize (is that even a word?) the real estate process.  Let buyers simply bid what they would pay for a particular house, rather than list a price for a home.  How else to “harness collective intelligence” or to “trust your users”?
3. No more “contact me” forms, but a “here’s the password to the lockbox” forms.  How else to enable “customer self-service”?

I am, of course, being just a wee bit facetious.  It would be impossible — or nearly impossible — to do any of the above, nevermind all of them.

It may be that Web 2.0 simply cannot apply to real estate sites that are of interest to the newbie realestista.  They’re not interested in starting a wholly new business model premised upon consumer self-service, wisdom of crowds, and control over proprietary data.  They’re simply interested in marketing themselves and their services (and the listings they are marketing) better.

So how do we do that?

Dispelling the Shadows: Getting Specific

First step, I think, is to get away from vague exhortations and move towards specific action items.

Rather than “engage the consumer”, perhaps the recommendation should be “Have a blog”.

Rather than “push and pull”, perhaps the recommendation should be “Put a RSS feed on your listings”.

Whatever it is, ye legions of web designers, social media experts, and Web 2.0 evangelists need to get much more specific than you have been to date.  There needs to be concrete differences between a “Real Estate 1.0″ site and a “Real Estate 2.0″ site of the sort that can be put into an actionable format.

And those concrete differences have to be meaningful and measurable in some way.  There has to be a reason to put in a blog on a website, or to incorporate user comments onto listings.  The expert who is recommending a course of action should be prepared to deliver performance metrics.

Newbie Academy

What might be a great step forward is for conference organizers to consider creating a whole separate track for newcomers to the modern real estate web.  This “Newbie Academy” track would eschew broad statements and grand gestures and focus on action items with specific things they can do.

For example, rather than telling real estate agents that they need to make their websites more engaging, the expert instructor might step through different modes of engagement:

• Professional Resume: Since the consumer is seeking a professional to provide services, you will want to engage the consumer with a clear statement of your professional qualifications, track record, and accomplishments.
  • Action Item: About Me section on the website, with a detailed professional resume, including education.
  • Action Item: A link to your LinkedIn profile which duplicates your detailed professional resume.  Do not assume that users will click over, but make it an option.
• Personality: Because real estate is an intensely personal affair, consumers will want to feel comfortable with their agent.  And you will want to feel good about working with a consumer.  Showcase your personality in various ways.
  • Action Item: Make sure that the overall design of your website, from the homepage to the font selection, matches your personality.  Do not settle for a template site you haven’t even looked over much.  Work with a designer if you must to express yourself through the design of your site.
  • Action Item: Put a list of your favorite books, or books you are reading, in the sidebar of your website.  You can use websites like WeRead or Shelfari.
  • Action Item: Put your favorite movies on your site with Flixter.
  • Action Item: Put your favorite musicians and songs on your site with iLike, or create a streaming radio station with blip.fm.
  • Action Item: Create some movies of yourself talking about yourself, your family, your hobbies, or your interests with a webcam or similar and post them on the site.
• Expertise: Consumers expect real estate agents to be experts on the whole home buying and selling process, as well as the local market.
  • Action Item: Put together a detailed market report for your market including inventory, last sold, median listed price, median sold price, price trends, and days on market.  If you can’t put it together yourself, at least get a pre-packaged tool from sites like Altos Research or Zillow.
  • Action Item: Offer consumers a detailed look into your market with both statistical data about population, median income, employment, etc.
  • Action Item: Provide consumers with information about the schools, both public and private, in your market.  [Of course, if it were me doing this Newbie Academy, I would have to mention my employer....]
  • Action item: Etc. and so on, and so forth.
• Whatever Else: Yadda, yadda, and yadda.

And so on.  In this manner, the newbie walks away with a specific action plan to improve her website from its current sad state to a modern Real Estate 2.0 website.  She doesn’t need to get confused with all the vagueries of theory about what principles constitute Web 2.0 vs. Web 1.0, or whether social media encompasses video or not, or what-have-you.

Those topics are for the illuminati who already know the basics.  And typically, we just argue about them and debate them in an effort to boil down the misty wilds of imprecision to a more coherent set of understanding.

For the Illuminati

And those of us who are the Web illuminati… I think we have to get better at our craft.  We have to get better at understanding what the hell we are talking about, so that we  can put things into the sort of precise language and specific courses of action that a newbie can follow.  If we can’t speak of things in precise and specific ways, then we probably don’t understand it well enough to advise anyone else on it.

This is partially why I like to say that I have no answers, only questions.  Because Web 2.0, social media, and the like are so seriously ill-defined at times that I have nothing specific to recommend.  Categories seem arbitrary — e.g., what makes Flickr “Web 2.0″ and Ebay not?  Metrics seem invisible at times.  Evidence is always thin.

Under those circumstances, I suppose being circumspect, hedging bets and statements, and freely admitting ignorance are strategic advantages.  Something for the illuminati to consider…

-rsh

I’ve been meaning to check out The Local — New York Time’s foray into what they’re calling ‘hyperlocal’ media but only got around to it just now.  Imagine my surprise and pleasure to discover that my neighborhood (Millburn, Maplewood, and South Orange) is one of the two trial neighborhoods for The Local.  (The other one is Fort Greene & Clinton Hill area of Brooklyn.)

Of course, I’m not quite sure why the blog address has to be maplewood.blogs.nytimes.com rather than millburn.blogs.nytimes.com but I chalk that bias up to my L-Dub Lower Wyoming hood mentality.

The Local

In any case, it appears that The Local is written primarily by journalists or people who want to become journalists.

The primary poster is Tina Kelley, who is a reporter for the NYTimes and a resident of Maplewood.  There are, as of this writing, three other writers (bloggers?) for The Local including a journalism college student, a grad student in “politics and journalism” which sounds like a particularly horrible combo, and a Columbia Journalism student.  It is not immediately clear that the three student intern-types have any connection to Millburn/Maplewood/South Orange.

And the topics of The Local are a mishmash of police blotter news, cute promotions of local residents, and information about local political or community events.  But it is precisely the sort of thing that I, as a local resident, find interesting and even useful.

For example, I didn’t know that Maplewood is receiving $200,000 of federal money, but that the money can’t save the jobs of three cops who are being laid off due to budget problems.  Interesting info.  That’s actual news.  Maybe now that cops are being laid off in Maplewood, the township might consider promoting greater gun ownership among the residents?  Or maybe not.

In any case, while I find the overly-cutesy tone gratingly condescending, I can see what New York Times is trying to do with this experiment.  If these hyperlocal sites can turn a profit, then that might be the way out for the newspaper industry that is dying off, one by one.

The response from the community has been somewhat mixed.  Tina Kelley posted an initial “Why We’re Here” post and the comments have been a mix of support, brutal criticism, and a wait-and-see attitude.

A “Jay” wrote:

I don’t understand what this is supposed to be. I don’t see any solid mechanism to include content related to news items of pressing interest. Are you tied in with the Times and your wire service to dump stories related to our towns in here as blog entries?

A “MCH” commented:

If this is supposed to be a blog (a new thing), you need to stop modeling it after a newspaper (an old thing.) So, lose the datelines. The bylines. And the take-yourself-too-seriously tone. Surely the old gray lady can learn some new tricks. If not, then it’s buh-bye!

In contrast, people like “John X. Kim” are far more supportive:

I’m glad to hear that the foundation of The Local will be local news, considering every time I pick up the local rag I shake my head in disappointment.

There are tremendous opportunities for stories here in Maplewood/Millburn/South Orange…stories of local significance but also of national resonance. The unique demographics of Maplewood/SO make the towns a bellweather for larger cultural currents on politics, education, race relations, to name a few. (No doubt you and your editors know this already.)

As such, it’s my hope that the site will shy away from fluff and tackle difficult questions that often are NOT asked for the sake of keeping the neighborly peace, community boosterism, and other vagaries of small-town exigency. We can certainly heed Eric Holder’s admonishment about our collective cowardice about race and apply it to other pressing public conversations.

So welcome, and I look forward to joining!

[Now, one sidenote here.  The link address for John Kim's comment above is: http://maplewood.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/02/why-were-here/#comment-43.  Comment-43, got that?

On the thread, his comment is #10.  Where are the other 33 comments?

It seems that even in the blogosphere, the newspaper folks can't resist picking-and-choosing which "Letters to the Editor" see the light of day and which do not.  So I will be posting on my own blog, rather than trusting my "comment" to the tender mercies of the "editors" of The Local.]

Localism: Maplewood

Being that I am in the real estate industry, I couldn’t help but compare The Local to Localism, the ActiveRain project that Jonathan Washburn, CEO of ActiveRain, has said will pull more traffic in 24 months from launch that Trulia and Zillow combined.  That was July 28th, 2008.  So I figure we got sixteen months to go to see whether J-Dub was right or not.

So I went to Localism and searched for Maplewood.  And got to this:

It’s probably an unfortunate coincidence that the very first post on Maplewood’s Localism on the day I write this is an ad for a listing.  But then, that’s sort of a feature, not a bug, considering that Localism is written entirely by realtors and sold to realtors as a way to “connect with the community”.

My initial impulse is frankly to click “Back” simply because I am not in the market to buy anything in Maplewood, and being hit with a listing as the first piece of actual ‘journalistic content’ is enough to make me believe I’m at a spamsite.  But in the interest of science — science I tell you! — I soldier on.

If you do scroll down, and give the site a chance, it does appear that the realtors who write (at least for Localism Maplewood) do provide information and news that is not real estate specific.  For example, here’s a post about an artist who will be coming to do a presentation about animation careers at the Maplewood library.  It’s just the kind of info that local residents might care about.

Except… that I see no evidence of any local residents at Localism Maplewood based on the comments.  The place has the feel of a bunch of local brokers talking to each other, and providing market reports to each other, and out-of-market realtors coming to comment on listings and such.  It’s all so… I don’t know the term… artificial?  Like a circus being put on for the benefit of clowns and acrobats.  I just can’t imagine a local resident wanting to spend any time at Localism Maplewood, since the news and info are sporadic at best, and are completely self-serving advertorials at worst.

Localism features lots of content about the local real estate market.  House prices are doing this, house prices are doing that, here are the past X closed transactions, and so on and so forth.  The “community news” stuff seems really like an afterthought add-on, as if to say, “Hey, we uh… we live here too.”  It’s somewhat like the worst possible agent blog possible made that much worse because it’s a sort of forced group-blog.

Which makes sense.  I mean, I assume most of the people writing for Localism have their own blog.  I know Perri Feldman — a contributor to Localism Maplewood — has her own blog, and her own website, and an active social media marketing thingamajig.  (And she’s a member of the Lucky Strike Social Media Club — woohoo!)  I guess in the time that’s left over, sort of as an afterthought (it seems), Perri must recycle a post or two from her blog onto Localism Maplewood.

And everyone else does too.  So no narrative, no coherent flow, no personality, just a bunch of market stats and listings, with little bits of local info thrown in there like raisins in a peculiarly chintzy loaf of raisin bread.

Perhaps other communities’ Localism pages are far better.  I don’t know.  But comparing The Local: Maplewood to Localism: Maplewood feels somewhat like comparing, well, the New York Times with all of its haughtiness and enforced cleverness to AutoShopper.

Apples and Oranges?

To some extent, I suppose you’d have to cry foul at the comparison.  After all, The Local is a venture by the New York frikkin Times, with a professionally-trained reporter who is getting paid to blog about three small towns.  And she has three interns to help her.  And she has nothing to sell you, so she’s free to just do hyperlocal content.

Localism, in contrast, is a hyperlocal blog put together by realtors who have a vested interest in selling someone a home.  The goal isn’t to provide local news and info to local residents; it’s to educate out-of-towners on what it might be like to live in Maplewood.  Right?

Well… not so much:

Localism is the valued point of connection, a place of meaningful interaction. It’s where neighbors and local merchants share what’s happening in their community. It’s people collectively communicating the unique flavor and nuances of where they live, work, eat, and play.

As long as Localism is run mostly by realtors, this vision is pure fantasy.  In reality, the best that Localism can aspire to is to become a place where local realtors give consumers an excellent rundown of the local real estate market, local listings, and service providers.

Because there is no incentive at all for “neighbors” to share anything whatsoever with the folks at Localism.  If you’re not a blogger-realtor, then you have no way to enter content or to participate, except in the comments.

The Local has a better shot at becoming the hyperlocal media channel, but it too has enormous issues to confront and overcome.

One issue is that Maplewood already has a hyperlocal media channel: Maplewood Online.  The notion may be that the New York Times and its talented journalists can do hyperlocal just better than the gimps over at Maplewood Online, but… I got news for ya (get it? I got news… oh nevermind).  There ain’t much skill involved in copying police blotters and posting up cartoons and pictures of local residents.  Sorry.

If Tina Kelley were to post a piece of investigative journalism where she risked life and limb to expose the decisionmaking behind Millburn lawmakers’ screwing of taxpayers with a $10m boondoggle giveaway to the Paper Mill Playhouse, why that might be the kind of news I would find absolutely indispensable.  But copying and pasting police blotter reports requires a graduate degree in politics and journalism?  Right then.

And The Local really has to drop its authoritarian approach and its condescending tone to local news.  Bigtime journos might think that stories about local police layoffs should be filed under “News By the Slice” with photos of a pizza, since it isn’t about war, famine, or national politics.  We get that you think what you’re doing is “cute” and beneath your many years of reportage, and the tragedy of your having to cover local news instead of the latest Supreme Court ruling or the pronunciamentos of Barack Obama is overwhelming us too.

But those of us who live here are deeply impacted by local laws, local policies, and local businesses.  We happen to think it’s pretty damn cool that Maplewood restaurants are having a “Restaurant Week”.  So have a little respect.  Or expect us residents to stay the hell away in droves.

Hyperlocal Media

For what it’s worth, hyperlocal media may very well be the future of media.  Seriously, while the current march towards the worker’s paradise will affect me and (more importantly) my children in a few year’s time, what the Millburn School Board decides to do at the next meeting might affect me this year in a far more personal and immediate way.

It would be great to have a single source that fills the role that newspapers and these journalism degree-havin’ folks like to fill at the national stage.  I would read that site religiously.

Localism ain’t it, unless it undergoes a total transformation of focus away from trying to sell real estate.  The Local ain’t it, unless it too undergoes a transformation and embraces the community on which it is reporting — and in fact, actually does some, you know, reporting.  The answer may be in social media, like MaplewoodOnline and Baristanet, as more and more journalists leave the newspaper business (by choice or not) and end up having to learn whole new skills in web-based, local, community-powered media.

It’ll be interesting to watch.

-rsh

Sometimes I’ll get a really nice comment or praise from various folks who read this little blog of mine.  Like this twitter I got recently:

@robhahn haha, you always have some of the best reads. Will spend the necessary time. Keep up the forward thinking.

In those moments, because I am human and subject to the Seven Deadly Sins, I can almost feel my head swell.  And that’s when I have to go read Mark Steyn.  Or Bill Simmons.  Or Gregg Easterbrook and learn me some humility.

Here’s a passage from Mark Steyn, simply the best writer of the English language of this young century:

If you’re feeling a sudden urge to “invest” in a gallon of tequila and a couple of hookers and wake up with an almighty hangover and no pants in a rusting dumpster on a bit of abandoned scrub round the back of the freight yards, it may be because you’re one of that dwindling band of Americans foolish enough to pursue his living in what we used to call “the private sector.” You were never exactly Giant-Man, more like Average-Sized Man. But you have a vague sense that you’re gonna be a lot closer to Ant-Man by the time all this is through.

I could write for a solid week without rest and never come up with that passage.  I’m a fair writer, but not in the same class as these gents.

There is a craft to writing.  There is a different craft to blogging, I think, but that there is artistry and skill involved in putting one word next to another is indisputable.

When folks are kind to me, and tell me what a great writer I am, I go and read the really great writers and get back down to earth.

A while back, I read On Writing by Stephen King, who is a truly underappreciated talent by the East Coast Intellectual Illuminati.  I maintain that when my grandkids learn about American Literature in High School, they will be studying the works of Stephen King.  Anyhow, I found this blog with some excerpts that are worth considering.  Check them out.  For example:

Talent renders the whole idea of rehearsal meaningless; when you find something at which you are talented, you do it (whatever it is) until your fingers bleed or your eyes are ready to fall out of your head. Even when no one is listening (or reading, or watching), every outing is a bravura performance, because you as the creator are happy. Perhaps even ecstatic.

Writing for Blogs

At the same time, I also believe that the craft of blogging is different from the craft of writing.  As I am trying to get more people around me to blog, I’ve found myself repeating some things.  This is not a “how to blog” type of thing here; more of a, “just some things to think about” type of thing.  And do keep in mind that your scribe may actually know nothing about writing, or blogging.  You have been warned.

Read, Read, and Read Some More

James Kilpatrick, the longtime columnist who penned The Writer’s Art, once wrote that to learn how to write, one should “read everything. Read matchbox covers, read labels on cans of cleaner; read the graffiti on lavatory walls. Read for information, read for style, read for instruction, read for the sheer love of reading.”

More and more, I believe this to be true.  Reading naturally leads to an improvement in writing.  We somehow absorb cadence, style, phrasings, imagery, and language itself from others.  While it’s best to read as many great writers as possible, it is also instructive to read not-so-great writers.  At least you learn what you don’t like, and what to avoid.

I believe any serious blogger should read books, columnists, and other bloggers — in that order.

Read books, because these are the finely honed examples of the writer’s craft.  They’ve also gone through the most rigorous editing for content, pace, and style.  For what it’s worth, I average about a book a week.  (Don’t be impressed — most of them are trashy paperback novels I read on the train.)

Read opinion columnists, because blogs by their very nature lend themselves to editorializing.  The best editorial columnists are tight with language, and know how to construct a narrative that drives their point home.  That these have been edited for clarity, content, and style also helps to keep the writing tight.

And read other bloggers, especially the stronger writers.  I’m a big fan of reading Kris Berg because of her natural voice and general narrative flow.  But there are others — particularly not in real estate space — whose writings are always a pleasure to read.  Read them, and often.  The blogs are usually unedited, but that gives you a sense of how blog writing differs from other types of writing.

Don’t Censor Yourself

The most important lesson for blog writing, I think, is to avoid the temptation to censor oneself.  The biggest obstacle I see new bloggers struggle with is how long it takes for them to write something.  I have to constantly remind them, “You’re not writing for the Economist; just get it out there.”

The best feature of blog writing is the spontaneous openness of the voice.  Mistakes will be made; some sentences won’t be as elegant as possible.  Grammar mistakes may abound.  But done well, there’s a freshness to the voice and an openness that conveys authenticity.  The art is, if you will, to be artless.

Plus, the nature of the medium is that corrections are always possible, and retractions and clarifications are not only possible, but perhaps desirable.  If you write something stupid, then hopefully the audience will point that out in the comments.  Which lets you respond in the comments, clarifying things, or admitting you got it wrong.  Then you can go back and edit the original post, appending the correction right there on the original post.

Again, blogging is part of conversation — not an oratorical holding forth.  Don’t censor yourself too much; don’t edit yourself while writing.  You’ll find it easier to write, and eventually settle into a routine and a voice you are comfortable with.  Just shut up that little editorial voice inside your head.

Write A Story

While there are certainly exceptions in blogging — for example, if your post is simply a compilation of interesting posts you’ve read that week — I do believe that if you are creating original content, you need to be telling a story.

Tell a story! It’s fun!

There needs to be a beginning, a middle, and an end.  There needs to be a plot of some sort that moves the narrative along.  Character exposes are fine, but I think the best blogposts have a narrative flow that is naturalistic and effective at exposing the ideas and the voice of the blogger.

Advice blogs (like this one) usually suck because they lack that flow of narrative and often read like a bullet list of rules.  Since realtors are writing a lot of advice blogs — “How to stage a home!” or “What to look for in a REO sale” or some such — I think it’s particularly important to realestistas that they give a thought to the narrative they are presenting.

Link, Link, and Link

The advantage of the Interwebs is in its reference-ability.  If I say “unemployment is X”, you don’t have to take my word for it — you can go check the source yourself.  But only if I provide the link.

This is, in a sense, the counter-balance to the open and freewheeling nature of the Web and blogs.  We don’t have editors and factcheckers; what we have, instead, is the ability for our readers to check the source for themselves.

As a general rule of thumb, if you think it’s something you reader might want to check for himself, then provide a link.  Every single time you quote someone else, you should be providing a link.  The goal is to provide the context, the framework, around your blogpost’s own narrative.

Hit “Publish”

The final piece of advice, and perhaps the most important, is to actually publish the damn thing.  I know I have had dozens of nascent blogposts just sitting in my queue waiting to see the light of day.  Some of them never will.

All of the narrating, the writing, the linking, and all of that won’t mean a thing if you don’t actually publish it.

Keeping in mind that all blogposts can be revised, and any mistakes corrected via the comments or by editing the post, go ahead and publish that post no matter how nervous you are about it.

Chances are, you are your worst critic, and your audience will love it.  (And when they don’t, they’ll let you know, and that’s how conversations start.)

Happy blogging!

-rsh

Courtesy of Jonathan Miller, I learned about Wordle.  The funnest thing you can do with this is to answer the question: “So what’s your blog about anyway?”

Here’s what, according to Wordle, this blog is about:

Who knew?

Here are some other popular RE.net blogs, and “What They’re About”

Sellsius:

1000Watt:

FOREM:

BloodhoundBlog:

All images are courtesy of Wordle.net.

Obviously, Wordle isn’t perfect — seems like it scans only the first X words of a blog.  But man, it is kinda fun.

-rsh

Honestly, one of the coolest things I’ve seen related to this blog of mine:

Clicking on that link brought me to this page:

Apparently, I am ロブの悪名高い in Japanese.  How can I work that into a business card….

-rsh