Versions don't matter today, as soon as you launch a version, you become outdated.

Web 2.0 is now a cliché, web 3.0? - that happened the day after O'Reilly's Web 2.0 conference,
which really was the driver of "Web 2.0's" widespread popularity. Some cite the original source
as an article by Darci diNucci, called "Fragmented Future" from 1999. Nevertheless, the pervasive
use of Web 2.0 has jumped the shark. For example, I had a broker tell me the other day that
an unnamed web provider said their technology was "web 4.0 - and thus better than 2.0" - LOL,
oh man - I am still laughing. Web 2.0 has also managed to break into almost every person's
job description, website application and even became the 1 millionth word in the English dictionary.

In my travels I have noticed that the web 2.0 phrase has done most damage to the average web
user. They think that web 2.0 represents new technologies that that they now need to learn
before they can use them. To those people out there - the web is the web, period. Yes,
admittedly there was a shift, a moment that social media and web technology changed the way
we used the web. I do not disagree that there was a pivotal moment where it was important to
take note of the change. However, these were fluid transitions; they were growing trends that
accelerated very rapidly because of the economy and the exponential increase in web
efficiencies for carrying data, video and live interaction.

We also need to rethink giving ourselves titles that have "2.0" in it as well. It may seem trendy,
but so did parachute pants. If you consider yourself a 2.0 expert, than you are really a Web
Marketing Expert, or Social Media Expert, perhaps some new title - Online Media Pro. However
naming yourself a 2.0 agent or expert is limiting and not recommended.

One of my biggest fears is the concept that a new "2.0" website will last you more than 6
months. Today, innovation comes weekly and you should be prepared to look at your website,
if it is a serious part of your business, as a dynamic marketing tool that should have seamless
and expected improvements. The days of getting a site and sitting on it for 3 years are gone.

If we must use a version, we should use Web X.0 and for that matter Real Estate neXt - because
the medium is now constantly shifting. To put a "version" on the web, or your business, is like
trying to pour the ocean into an 8oz glass - you can't dilute it to the limiting space of a version.
What is your take on this? Is there value in 2.0? What if someone comes out with 3.0?

Heck I am Web infinity squared to the nth degree - beat that.

Best,

Pierre

Our consumer uses Social Media, they do so greatly, and they are not kids.

NYTimes: Who's driving Twitter's Popularity? Not teenagers.

NYTImes: Why adults have fed twitter's growth

It is no secret that the real estate industry can sometimes lag behind the latest trends. However, this time around, real estate agents and brokers really caught on and understood the value that Twitter had to our business, early on - at least when the mass public did.

If there is any other industry that lags the consumer it may be old media and even they jumped on Twitter feverishly.

I believe twitter was the first site where almost every major news portal jumped on board, gung-ho. Unlike facebook and myspace, where mass media saw it as a feeding ground for inappropriate activity and initially decided to stay away. By the time they realized what was going on Rupert Murdoch bought MySpace and Facebook was positioned to take on the world. 

Old media, for that matter, the old economy, learned the lessons of not staying on top of technology and letting bloggers and others get their audience eyeballs. So with Twitter, these industries did not want to let their audience get more diluted and distracted, so they all went on and promoted it. From CNN to the NYTimes, etc - all twitter and ask to be followed. This also subsequently brought more mass media appeal and expanded twitters reach. Obama and his campaign were also early adopters of twitter, further growing its base.

Besides the reasons stated in the NYTimes articles, the real reason why twitter hit it big with adults is easy - TWITTER is easy! Who can't write 140 characters? Or click "follow", the barrier to entry is way low, and you don't need to put yourself out there like you do on facebook. On twitter you can just "watch" - on facebook you need to be heavily involved, adding, requesting, blocking, accepting, updating, yadda, yadda, yadda.

I suppose the bottom line is that technology that is easy to use and viral, with limited barriers to entry will succeed with all age demographics. Having mass media appeal and making people's lives easier to connect or spread the word seemingly can help lead to success.

Trulia also has a rich target demographic - over 66% of our users are over 35, over 40% earn over $100K and over 80% are college graduates. These stats come from Trulia user surveys.

Is there anything you can do to "twitterize" your business? Have you made it easy for clients to connect with you? Are you engaging in conversation on platforms Trulia voices? Do you actually engage, or do you just broadcast like old media?

Best,
Pierre

original post here.

Reference: http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1004004393

Two funny things about this move:

1) Sellers pay $2K to go into papers - "Hello, 98% of buyers shop online"

2) Marketing is NOT what agents are paid for.

Agents and brokers earn their commission for the following servics, (among other things):

1) Properly pricing the home

2) Pre-approving/Screening buyers

3) Scheduling showings, dealing with cancellations

4) getting broker co-operation via MLS, broker open houses, etc.

5) Negotiating price, terms, protecting the seller

6) ancillary services: home warrenties, etc.

7) Dealing with lawyers, inspectors

8) being a mediator when lawyers don't work well

9) Keeping the seller and buyer on schedule with paperwork/deliverables

10) getting the home CLOSED.

And typically doing all of this, with no upfront fee.

My hypothesis: this will be a bust, newspapers are scrambling for revenue, and this is not the answer. Brokers should take heed of this, as that industry is one of followers, it is likely that others will follow suit. their business models are broken, it really is no surprise that they are turning to this!

Agents and brokers, pay attention to this trend, this is not cool.

Best, PC

I get to see many Real Estate websites in my travels. Obviously there are a huge range of features, options, tools that any real estate website can have. So, I think it is good to highlight some brokers that you may not be familiar with, but are doing great new things in the Online Space.

My first pick is http://www.laffey.com, website for Century 21 Laffey Associates in Long Island, NY. Laffey happens to be a top 10 Century 21 franchise office.

The Laffey team is different. Lead by Emmett Laffey and his amazing staff, they are aggressive and have shifted almost entirely to marketing online. Emmett was among the first brokers in the Long Island/NYC market to shift enormous budgets off of ineffective print media to online placements and partnerships.

Century 21 Laffey Associates is very bullish on Open Houses. They hold over 100-200 on any given weekend. Laffey recognized that consumers do so much online, that open house traffic has decreased over the years. Therefore Laffey changed his homepage from Thursday-Sunday into a Featured Open house list. Immediately upon arriving to www.laffey.com the consumer is greeted with over 100+ listings that are hosting real and virtual open houses. Here consumers can see every upcoming open house that Laffey is hosting, along with virtual tours, multiple photos and more.

Laffey takes this one step further by organizing "online open house showings" and compiling it in a report for their sellers. Obviously the seller can now see the full-effect of being a Laffey client, not only do they get the real open house, but they get sometimes 100’s of additional virtual open house visits. They coupled this effort on their own site, with an Online Billboard, with live listing widget on Trulia.

The widget showcases their listings with a call to action for open houses. From Thursday-Sunday, Laffey owns 100% share of the Online Billboard in their key markets, promoting their live open houses. The Laffey team constantly works on optimizing their site. They realize that the web is constantly evolving and that to stay on top, they cannot afford to stop innovating and taking risks. www.laffey.com is a website and broker to watch.

Best,

Pierre

P.S. - If you know of any brokerage websites doing innovative things that should be highlighted, let me know!

original post:http://www.trulia.com/blog/pierre_calzadilla/2009/08/brokerage_company_highli

Trulia has been an innovator, from Listing Syndication to our iPhone application to our partnerships -
innovation is a core part of our company culture. Last year, we really went after innovating and
improving your experience when we introduced our new Online Billboard, live listing widget. This has
revolutionized the “banner ad” you knew before.

Banner ads don’t generally work to drive traffic to your website. They also tend to offer little relevant
content to the consumer. What does that mean? The old banner ad is on life support because
advertisers failed to ask one important question:

Why would a consumer interact with this ad?

Over a year ago we went in search of a solution. A few sites were dabbling with “live content” ads,
however they were very expensive and the technologies were still not meeting the key criteria I
believe a banner ad needs to meet for a consumer to click on it:

1) Relevant to the site they are on, and that specific site’s experience
2) Fresh, live data that won’t be overly duplicative
3) Movement or implementation that attracts the consumer’s eye
4) Deliver EXACTLY what the consumer expects when they click on it, thus making the experience
positive.
5) Seamless integration into the experience

We had to make it easy. So we made a turn-key system that did not give them another project to
worry about. Other than limited creative guidance from the client, we took care of the rest. Thus was
born the Online Billboard listing widget.

It fulfills the criteria above and more when coupled with Trulia’s advanced targeting by ZIP, county,
state, price points and more. We have had several clients test this new display technology for over
a year, and I am happy to share the results.

Our hypothesis was correct. Every Online Billboard unit that ran our live listing widget saw a 3-5X
increase in click through rates when compared to standard banner ads. Some had a 10X increase.
It also did not matter where the widget was targeted - East, West, North, South, Regional or National
- it worked!

Here are some Online Billboards with live listing widgets running now:

1) Rand Better Homes & Garden Online Billboard
2) Prudential California Online Billboard
3) Champion Real Estate Online Billboard

We have an early case study done with Prudential Real Estate, where they ran both ads in
30 day trials – increasing Click Through Rates by 5X. Leave me a comment or e-mail me
(pierre@Trulia.com) for that report.

Learn More: Banner ads have evolved, have you? Join us on a Webinar (Sept 22nd) where we will
share their learning’s about online advertising. Click here to register. Space is limited!

Now a moment of silence for the banner ad…

Best,

Pierre

original post here.

Original Post: http://www.trulia.com/blog/pierre_calzadilla/2009/08/price_reduction_news_-_s

Ever wonder how Spam became Spam? Do you SPAM on AR? Is Spamming bad for business? Well here is the truth straight from my marketing class a few months back. It all begins with the actual wundermeat - Spam - the wundermeat became popular in america when women joined the work force and the family was adopting quick and easy meals that did had low preparation time.

(For the sake of length I am going to over-simplify some issues to get to the point)

Spam became popular because during their rise there was only 3 mediums, print, radio and TV. It was VERY clearly the birth of "brands" in America. You could literally throw money at these mediums and instantly sell millions of products, because unlike today's MASS (as in size) media, the options were very limited. I am sure that boomers and beyond can recall that even in the 70's TV was not more than 15 channels or so, of which you barely watched 4. All Spam did, was MARKET, buy ads, run commercials, you name it they were there and their sales went up - they SPAMMED SPAM - everyone caught on. SPAM is also absolutely useless for most people - sorry if you love it, but i believe it is really unhealthy.

It did not come to the technology arena until later: http://www.templetons.com/brad/spamterm.html

Now, why do I write this? STOP SPAMMING featured posts, popular posts in Social Networks, it is the ultimate way to get shunned, kicked, banned, booted, blocked, punted, denied and ignored. Social networks are NOT meant for promoting your product gratuitously.

SPAM = Promoting your product gratuitously, without request, without permission, and usually off-topic. Even on topic, it is not welcome.

How do you know if YOU ARE SPAM? ask yourself the following:

1) Am I answering the question in the blog? If you are, it is not SPAM
2) Am I merely stating my company name in a blatant disregard for integrity? If you are it IS SPAM
3) Am I putting words in a link and hiding the URL to encourage click through? 50/50 could be Spam
4) Does the comment I am adding ADD anything of value to the readers of this blog? only Yes if next is NO
5) Is this response strictly for my own benefit? If yes, you are a Spammer.

Look folks, let's Help people out, the next time someone SPAMS your post, send them the link to this post right after you report them as SPAM. They may not realize the negative effects SPAMMING will have on their business.

For example, if you are labeled a spammer, people will not like you - and instead of promoting yourself, you are actually ruining your reputation and opening yourself up for attack from the Social Network. This holds true for Trulia Voices, Zillow Q & A, ActiveRain, LinkedIn, MeetUp, Yelp!, etc.

The sad thing about Real Estate Spam is that alot of the brokers and agents do not realize they are doing it. It's okay, you are new to this medium. But you need to realize that the consumer does not fall for it, nor do they like it. If they are on Yelp! for restaurant reviews - and genuine reviews for other industries, contribute. But do NOT review yourself. Short reviews are also frowned upon, they look "spammy" - if everyone is writing thoughtful long reviews about companies and such - you should follow suit, so you are welcomed.

One Final tip: Look at the network you are joining, look at the popular posts, and learn from them what is read, what is welcomed and what kind of behavior is frowned upon.

Look at those 5 questions above, and I am sure you fellow AR members can add more to this list. Do not SPAM, and if you think it is SPAM, don't do it - But i'll give you a tip, on AR all you need to do to get recognition is to not be fake, be yourself, add to the community and people will naturally become interested in your product as a reflection of yourself. And you can write about your product, i do it. But those posts inevitable do not get featured, do not get posts and are not read. So this is my tip for 2008 - cut the SPAM!!!!!

Best wishes to all in 2008!

Pierre Calzadilla - Trulia - Manager strategic partnerships

We all want "good" leads. I remember my years at my previous broker when we were driving 1,300 web requests a month (to the company - not counting direct to agent, office leads), we were closing around 4-6% of the requests for real commission dollars (*after appointments). We looked at our lead sources and consistently the "for sale sign" and Web were the biggest sources of "leads". Naturally, since they were the biggest sources, we tossed more money at them: bigger signs, easier to read, colored posts that could be sign miles away, larger budgets for keyword buying, site optimization, etc. We got more leads. But, was that what we needed?

In the end those leads, just created more work, more frustrated agents, more misdirected use of time. We needed BETTER leads, not more. Why? Because better leads, lead to the following:

• selling our clients home as fast as possible for the highest possible price
• more closings
• higher earned commissions
• shorter sales cycles

If we could generate BETTER leads, we could accomplish those four goals and more. That is not rocket science. Yes, in the long run, increasing the pipeline will increase your opportunity, but you also increase work and time wasted on - what some would call - "bad leads". I am going to change your vocabulary right now, because NO lead, is a BAD lead. You need to know how to identify and attract leads that are closer to their buying stage. Better yet, you want your lead to tell you EXACTLY where they are in the buying cycle. Here are some ideas:

Which buyer is more likely to buy a property from you in less than 90 days:

1) Buyer A: Types into Google, "New York City Real Estate" or Buyer B: "Upper East Side Condo for sale"

Think very carefully. Which one knows EXACTLY where they want to live, which one knows the property type and neighborhood? Do you think that Buyer B is more honed in on their target?: Answer: YES - So why the heck do we optimize for "houston real estate", or even "new york homes for sale" - are we nuts? heck even "Brooklyn Real Estate".

You see, not only has the web evolved, but web search behavior has evolved. For some of the most popular real estate sites in NYC, the most popular terms are actually ADDRESSES - of course that is because of buildings and such, but imagine that consumers are going as far as to just type in addresses into Google and see what comes up? Try it out - if you don't believe me.

Try this on for size: A school district is one of the biggest criteria for buying a home (I think we all agree), do you think the Mother and Father go on to Google to search for the city name - real estate, or a "Zip Code - homes for sale", think about it. If YOU were going to buy a home in your hometown, what would you type into the Google  search box, if you were not a broker? One final test, grab someone, out of the industry, or ask a client that just made an offer on a house, what they were typing in to the search engine 12 months ago, and what they typed in before they made their offer last week.

2) Your method of connecting to the buyer/seller:

Do you have one call of action on your listings? I hope at LEAST one. But you may want up to 3 or even 4! Again, before you throw up your hands in shock and awe, let's walk through this. A buyer, 6-9 months out of a purchase, heck even a year out will want to ask a question, about anything - but the only option available is one contact form - why? So you have to determine the order you answer? So you can sit there and answer back in 5 minutes to every mundane question? Well THAT is exactly what you force yourself to do when you have ONE call to action. At the very least, you need two: "Ask a question about this listing here" "Set an appointment to view this property this evening", the consumer themselves will choose which pile they want to go into. What others could you have: "Sign up for a weekly update" - "Let's talk on the phone" "e-mail me similar listings" - etc. Think of all of the options now available. By doing this your e-mail system becomes a prioritization tools and the people that want appointments get the best treatment and instead of having to voraciously watch your e-mail, you can just look for the subject line: "appointment request" and answer those ASAP and leave the others for when you can sit down and give a great response.

In the end, our role is to help our sellers get the highest possible price for their homes. To do that effectively you need to work hard on the consumers that are most likely to buy NOW, they are out there. But they are not searching for "New York Real Estate" they are looking for homes for sale in 11223, an "Upper West Side Coop for sale", etc. They know exactly what they want - are you there? Can you be found? Can you tell the 90 day buyer from a 360 day buyer? Improve your marketing methods to improve your leads and close more business. these tips above are just the beginning.

Cheers,

Pierre Calzadilla

Trulia - Manager Strategic Partnerships - East Coast

Hey all, this is from my article in this month's RIS Media (http://rismag.imprev.net/2007/12/) pg 124/125

http://rismedia.com/wp/2007-12-11/how-to-establish-your-mega-presence-on-the-web/ (complete)

"The average agent would probably count a website as part of their marketing plan and as important as their PDA, computer and digital camera. Yet, like many marketing tools of the past (see Polaroid and the Newspaper) the website is not timeless. As the web has matured to its proverbial adolescence, the sites that were created in recent years have quickly become outdated and non-functional. With today's "web 2.0" connectivity, data sharing and the mega-presence available to today's agent, a personal website is now optional. To understand my point, we need to assess the original intention of a website.

Some of you may say that the original goal of your site was to connect with consumers, or to display your knowledge, maybe even to market listings. These are all true. But something had to happen for this venture to be successful, you needed to be found. The race was quickly on to get to "page one" of Google for countless scores of keywords. We competed broker to broker, agent to agent and broker to agent and all against the lead farms for those coveted 10 spots on page one. An essentially painful and fruitless endeavor, that was quite costly. We can agree that unless your website can be found, it is virtually useless. Enter the "blog."

We did it, we found a way to connect - to speak with our clients and create connections - fantastic. But wait, so did 9,970,000 others according to my Google search for, "real estate blog." At first it was a genuine smorgasbord of actually good writing; it looked so easy. Quickly, thousands upon thousands of consumers, brokers, agent, mortgage bankers, lawyers and more started blogging too. The battle for supremacy raged again and blogs have now replaced websites as the medium of choice. They are text heavy, therefore easily indexed by Google, they offer quick and easy posting - and heck they don't have to be pretty. The blog has become the centerpiece of today's agent, but even that has a shelf-life that is nearing its course..."

for the rest of the article please read it here(http://rismag.imprev.net/2007/12/), I cannot link to it directly as it is a "flash" scroll to page 124-125:

"Commentary - Establish your Mega-Presence on the Web"

Happy Holidays!

-Pierre

Read Below for the full article:

http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/12/06/edgeio-to-shut-down-in-the-deadpool/