New Real Estate Technology Blog Launches

Zillow has announced the launch of GeekEstateBlog.Com. The new resource's sole focus is on the rapidly changing world of real estate technology. I'm happy to be a contributing blogger and look forward to being a part of the process. As industry blogging evolves, vertical destinations with a clearly defined niche will emerge as "go to" sites for certain topics. I think it's a natural transition for blogging that will take place across many industries. I also think it's a great way for companies like Zillow to extend their brand and establish meaningful relationships in the RE net.

GeekEstate is launching with an impressive group of RE "technologists" that have all agreed to contribute on a regular basis. They are also soliciting more bloggers to participate in the community.

I'm not sure what Greg Swann at the Bloodhound blog put in his kibble yesterday. He has his leash in a twist over the effort. For some reason he has it in his head that the blog was created to divide and conquer the entire real estate blogging community. Sheesh. It would be funny if he didn't really think their was a vast conspiracy of control and domination at foot. That's why I've learned to let my blog posts marinate in the draft area a while before I click publish. I too have made the mistake of not getting all the facts or really thinking things through before I open my pie-hole. It may take GS a while to extract his foot from his.

Technorati Tags: geekestate blog real estate technology zillow

New Industry Association For Podcasting/Web Media Announced

The "Association for Downloadable Media" has been established to help Podcasters create advertising standards, measurement, outreach & education and terminology / taxonomy standardization . The latter issue is one that I think is critical. Whether it's consumer or B2B, the industry needs to do a much better job of explaining what it is we do and how it works.

The association so far has been represented by Apple, Feedburner (now owned by Google), Podtech, Nielsen Online and many other industry participants. The short description

We are the newly formed industry association focused on providing standards for advertising and audience measurement for episodic and downloadable media.

The objectives and mission statement of the association are right on target. The portable media industry will do well to establish standards that work for everyone. We look forward to participating in the process in the near future.

Web 2.0 & Information Technology

Sorry for the lack of posts lately, I've been pretty swamped. I had the opportunity to speak to a few groups of real estate professionals. This post should be a good follow up to our discussions.

I had the opportunity to read an article today regarding how Web 2.0 is having an impact on the way corporations are approaching information technology. It's a perspective piece by the Chief Development Officer of EMC, Mark Lewis.

Every time I read something like this, it makes me wonder why so many in the real estate industry haven't had their "Aha" moment.

Web 2.0 flips the information delivery model upside down--it's now about global access, and information at your fingertips, aggregated from sources that you don't even necessarily know about, or care where they exist. Based on a set of search criteria, information in all its rich forms--media, video, audio, images, documents, text--all will be assembled together in context and delivered to users and applications for real-time experience.

Thinking about the value inherent in data, and how to best package it for consumers as well as industry participants should be the focus of any forward thinking real estate entity. It doesn't matter if you're a broker, agent, trade associations or anyone else in the supply chain of data.

It's not too much to say that a whole new world lies before us--finding effective ways to organize and access information regardless of its origin could spark a renaissance in the way knowledge workers think and perform their jobs.

Let's face it, we're all "knowledge workers", the best of us will figure out a way to use new rules and new tools to be more successful than the next guy or gal.

Carnival of Real Estate #49

CORE #49 is up north in Alaska at ValleyMarket blog. Don't forget to check out the Carnival Podcast (Open in iTunes).

Intel Set to Release Mashup Tool

Intel is joining the world of mashup development. Mashmaker is the moniker that will be assigned to their new product. It's a web based platform that allows you to build a mashup from the pages you surf on the web. Silicon Valley Sleuth has a video demonstration of the product that combines real estate rental listings with restaurant information. Very intriguing indeed. It will be interesting to see how this is used in the RE.Net to create content. Combining several RSS sources along with listing data could be a great way for RE bloggers to present content without the need to understand complex API development. For those who really want the details, here's a link to a PDF document outlining MashMaker.

Featured REALTOR® Blog - The Housechick

Our search for good REALTOR® blogs takes us the sun baked town of Tuscon and The Housechick Blog. Kelley Koehler is an agent with Long Realty and it looks as if she only been blogging for a short period of time. Her posts are local and informative. The feature I like the most in her blog is the password protected area in which she communicates with buyers and sellers. Using the blog to direct clients in this area is a brilliant idea. It helps establish long term relationships and will certainly generate referral business down the road. The categories of her blog are perfectly suited to an Internet consumer. The community tours are well written with good photos. Kelley is off to a great start and sets a great example of quality real estate blogging. Keep up the good work KK. ~MP

Previous Featured Realtor Blogs:

• Harper Team
• State of Mind Real Estate
• Every Kid Deserves A Yard