The Real Estate Coach's Weblog

Entries tagged as ‘real estate tools’

Post #1 in the series…What is Web 3.0?

October 29, 2009 · 3 Comments

…or more to the point, what will it be?

I have suggested that Web 1.0 could be described in one word….Availability…meaning that in the beginning (sounds so long ago) websites were simply “Online Brochures”, they supplied visitors with information about what you do, where you do it, and how to find you.

Web 2.0 could be described with…Transparency…meaning the walls between you and your potential client were beginning to become transparent, they were able to see and understand so much more about you form your chat, your Tweets, your Facebook ect…They were also able to communicate with you through these same new technologies.

Now we begin to look at what Web 3.0 will look like. Why? Simple, if you are not ahead of the technology curve, you are behind and I mean WAY BEHIND! It was almost 3 years ago, when I suggested to some friends of mine in Real Estate to begin to look into Blogging, Facebook, Twitter, Social Networking as a whole as well as some very cool tech tools like MLBroadcast, Trulia, Postlets, and many more. Now those things are either “mainstream” , “passe”, or have morphed into something even cooler :) In any event, if you are just now getting into these cool technologies, you are BEHIND! the best and brightest amongst us have already mastered them and have left you in the dust!

I like to think ahead, and thinking ahead right now means asking that question…What is Web 3.0 going to look like? I believe that the one word definition of Web 3.0 will be…Predictability…meaning that web presence’s will be riddled with predictability! They will know the answer before it is asked, they will provide information that the client didn’t even know they wanted, but they did! They will bring the client directly to the answer based on the actual need of the client, even if they didn’t even know it!

What does this look like in a practical sense? Follow along this scenario with me, I will use something very “common”, not really associated with Real Estate, so everyone can say “AH HA!” “I get what he means” :)

Our cars, our phones, and other electronic devices are equipped with GPS. This is a cool little feature that allows us to use our Navigation devices, set up map details, keep from getting lost, find cool lil stores, ect…but they are also leaving (creating) digital footprints of everything we do, everywhere we go. Our cell phone accounts have our ss# associated with them, so they can draw a clear picture of who we are from the information available via that ss#. Our income, our neighborhood, our education…starting to get it? The Internet now knows what I can afford, what I like to buy, what I drive, where I live, and with the GPS, now knows everywhere I go, and everything I do, via digital footprint. So if I am prone to buy Lexus automobiles, and I have an income of over $80,000 a year, and I drive down a particular street each day to get to work, and I buy new cars every 2.3 years, and I stop in at the Starbucks on the corner of 1st and Vine every weekday (See it, see it? Wait for it!) The local Lexus dealer will be placing advertising on the street I drive and in the Starbucks I visit 2.3 years after I bought my last car!

I can hear the skeptics amongst you right now, just as I heard the skeptics 3 years ago saying that Twitter, and Facebook were stupid kids stuff! The advertisements will be virtual in nature and specific to each driver, not just me. They will come in the form of holygrams..they will appear on navigation screens, and PDA’s they will come on my Starbucks receipt and the Guy or Gal behind me will get an ad for Irish Spring soap, because it has been 4.1 months since the last time he bought it at the Supermarket! SEE IT?

Now go back again and listen to Kevin Kelly’s YouTube video, and start to believe that WEB 3.0 = Predictabilty and start thinking about how you can use this to capture Market Share! There are some great ways to do it and we will be looking at them over the next 18 months to help you get started.

For now…Think! Use the Noodle! Have an open mind, and get ahead of the curve. Have any thoughts? leave a comment, love to hear them :)

Thanks for Listening…

The Coach

Categories: Marketing · Technology · Training · Web 2.0 · internet · kevin kelly · marketing on line · mlbroadcast · real estate · social networking · trulia · web 3.0 · website development · youtube · zillow
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What makes a good Real Estate website?

September 28, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Here are some things I think are important for your users IDX experience:
-    Easy to use for the consumer
-    Fast search results
-    Good interact map search that uses Ajax to display properties
-    Fully integrated solution – not framed
-    Consumer backend to manage saved searches and favorite properties
-    Simple sign up forms that do not bounce user to another page
-    Email alerts that have one link to new listings that are displayed on your site instead of the user having to click each individual property link :-)
-    Detailed advance searches

Important website features:
-    Fully Editable pages and meta tags
-    Ability to pull in properties as content
-    Search engine friendly
-    Built for high conversions
-    Built in blog

Important Lead management features:
-    Lead Capture notifications
-    Agent lead assigning functions
-    Round Robin Lead assignment for teams or brokerages
-    Auto re-assignment of leads if agent doesn’t take action
-    Follow Up features and reminders
-    Prioritize leads by motivation or urgency
-    Easy exporting feature

The Coach

Categories: Marketing · Technology · Web 2.0 · internet · real estate · website development
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Real Estate Tools Too Good to Let Slide!

April 17, 2008 · 1 Comment

If your are a reader of my post on GeekEstateBlog, Zillow’s Real Estate Technology Blog, you may have seen a post titled “Link Love”, Peace, and Real Estate 2.0!!! I wrote on Monday April, 14th. It had some good stuff in it, but none more important than a web 2.0 Agent tool called “Postlets” found at http://postlets.com

I make my living bringing new, innovated, and mostly cheap (FREE) tools to the Agents in my company, Prudential California Realty, and I am more than happy to share them with my readers as well. This one you must use. Postlets, after you complete the sign-up and some simple data entry about your Listing, they will then not only distribute it for you to some “Heavy Hitters” in on line Listing site; namely Trulia, Zillow, Google Base, et al, but they will also supply you with an HTML code (Just like Vflyer) that you can use to post to Craig’s List!!!

Also, have you tried MLBroadcast yet?? If not, WHY??? Are you not understanding the significance of what it can do for your Listing’s visibility and the potential traffic to your website, not to mention some unreal SEO for you on Search Engines like Google and Yahoo? They design a video for you, from the Listing photos you already have, not to mention do “Professional” voice over narration to magnify the impact to the viewer. then they upload it to dozens of Video sites like, Yahoo Video, YouTube, Meta Cafe and many many more!!!! All this for $29, you can’t get a Virtual Tour anywhere for that! and with these you will get a code that you can place on the MLS in the box where you load a Virtual Tour. What the heck!!!!????

Come on guys, absolute neccessities in your business…Postlets and MLBroadcast…get them now!!!!

See ya next time, “The Coach

Categories: Blogging · Ca Central Valley · Marketing · Technology · Web 2.0 · mlbroadcast · prudential real estate · real estate · trulia · virtual tours · youtube · zillow
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