I think, over the next 12-24 months, we will see a race between Zillow, Trulia, and Move (Realtor.com) to sign up the next wave of niche real estate sites and media outlets to their respective ad networks. Building an inside sales team to sell ads is an extremely expensive undertaking, but required to reach agents all over the country. Most niche sites that have traffic likely don’t have enough traffic & ad impressions to warrant hiring their own sales team. And let’s be honest — most of those companies would rather spend their time and effort building more cool features and growing their traffic than managing a sales team. But of course they also need to make money – so having another party handle their ad inventory makes sense.

Any guesses as to which niche real estate site is next in line to sign on the dotted line?

For the real estate professionals reading, how important is it for you to advertise on the “largest” real estate network? What do your clients say when you SHOW them (hat tip to Chris Smith) you are spending money marketing their listings on the #1 real estate network?

Strategically this is a great move for Zillow, and will effect the real estate industry in several ways. From a real estate agent’s perspective, this expands marketing reach and puts everything into one user interface…saving agents time and allowing them to focus on other tasks.

On one of the MLS committees I sit on in Maui, there is a lot of opposition to large real estate sites like Zillow. While I understand why some Realtors might see these types of sites as a threat, I encourage you to think about this as an opportunity to gain more exposure for your client’s listings.

So, back to my question. Did Google dump their real estate listings because of partnerships like this between Zillow and Yahoo (and Trulia and CNN)? Well…yes and no. Google does state that one of the reasons they cancelled this service was because of, “the proliferation of excellent property-search tools on real estate websites” (and this blogger would argue that Zillow is one of the best real estate research tools around). However, Google has some of the brightest minds in the industry, and if they wanted to throw their programmers at real estate, they could blow everybody out of the water.

Personally, I think Google has bigger fish to fry. I don’t think Larry Page is taking being dethroned by Facebook as the most visited website very lightly.

Realtor.com realizes their sales team no longer has access to the largest consumer base since Zillow’s sales team is now selling Zillow & Yahoo! RE ad space — and Realtor.com likely views this deal with NAR as the way to gain the flexibility to put some partnerships in place to try to regain that top spot. As a result, I’ll venture a guess Realtor.com will not syndicate listings freely or even for a flat fee — I’m betting they will only do it if it also means their sales team can sell ad space on site X.

Disclosure: I worked for Zillow for 4 1/2 years – but have been given no insider knowledge on the NAR deal with R.com (or the Zillow/Yahoo! deal for that matter).

I know it is inevitable that I will be asked (perhaps 100′s of times) “What did you learn from Inman Connect SF this week”? or “What was the most interesting thing you learned at Inman Connect SF”? or some variation of that general question. In years past I may have made something up to illicit a response like “That’s Nice” or “Wow, that’s great!”, but NOT this year!

This year something very accidental, yet incredibly enlightening happened and it all began with me accidentally walking into the wrong “MeetUp”…

It was like a Bad episode of “Reality TV”

Wednesday at ICSF was jam packed! Stuff happening from the morning bell to the 5pm cocktail call. I was constantly looking at my playbook, trying to decide where I was going…What topic? What room? What subject? It was crazy! So right after lunch I knew I wanted to go to a “MeetUp” of Real Estate Tech Vendors in Continental Parlor #2, that started at 1:00pm. Now the MeetUps were not necessarily open to the public, though they were not marked “Private” or anything, but they were designed for the Vendors to congregate and talk amongst themselves regarding what they were experiencing in the market. This MeetUp was Facilitated by a friend of mine, Greg Robertson from W&R Studios (Cloud CMA), so I knew he would let me “Sit in” on it. After all, I am a Techy!

So off I went on my merry way at about 1:10pm, feverishly typing away at Twitter on my phone, into Continental Parlor #1 ( for those of you who have had your morning Starbucks you probably got it, but for those who have not…I said Parlor #1!). Now in Parlor #1, I was not sitting in on my intended MeetUp, Real Estate Tech Vendors, but instead I was “Transported” to some unknown geographical location somewhere in the 1950′s … It was titled “MLS Operators, Vendors, and Staff” DA DA DUMB! (Cue the music from the 1950′s classic TV show, Dragnet!)

“Son-of-a-bitch!” I thought, I gotta get outta here! but I couldn’t. Something was mysteriously keeping me from moving, it was as if I were paralyzed. The conversation was about the “Consumers” (Keep this meaningless term in mind, it will come up again) perception of our Industry. Specifically, at that moment, about how when they see Listing data in multiple sources (MLS, Trulia, Broker Sites, Agent Sites ect…) that is not the same (different price, Sold vs Active ect…) they say “How stupid is this?”

That’s when it got interesting ….

Think Hatfield’s & McCoy’s, Shark’s & Jet’s, Snoop Dawg & Puffy!

Ok, so I will be the 1st to admit, I have a limited knowledge of the inter-workings of the MLS’s. I am however a keen observer of human behavior, and the overall atmosphere in this room was … hmmmm … What’s the right word? Depressing? no Frustrating? no oh wait… I’ve got it! EMBARRASSING!

Though the Facilitator, Marilyn Wilson a Partner at WAV Group (@marilynwilson), did her best to mediate, like a Beverly Hills divorce case, this was no small task. Don’t get me wrong, there were no punches thrown, no “F” bombs were dropped, nothing uncivilized, Though two MLS operators (one who resembled that Scottish Guy from Austin Powers movies & one who looked a bit like Santa Claus in the off season, ya know, beard was trimmed dropped a few pounds, but the whole grey thing was working for him) felt it was an appropriate venue to make off-color remarks regarding their sex lives. Then there was the MLS guy (who looked a bit like a character from The Sopranos) who felt very comfortable stating that “Brokers are the REAL problem, they refuse to fire the 53% of their REALTORS (c) who are a bunch of Morons and haven’t done a single transaction in over a year” that was kinda weird, being it had seemingly nothing to do with the conversation…other than that…oh wait…

The reason we are headed for Government regulation of our Data

… The room also had a number of bright young minds, from Tech start-ups, some Exec’s from 3rd Party Aggregators, and a few representatives of the Broker/Agent community. These folks were asking for some cooporation in areas like:

• Sharing of Data in more Open fashion
• Involvement by the MLS’s in a Rating system for Agents/Brokers/Affiliates/Aggregators
• More “Open-Mindedness” to new Technologies & Ideas
• An Intranet for the MLS’s to communicate with each other about questionable Vendors
• A more “Open” forum for New Vendors to present ideas

Ya know, Stupid stuff like that!

Each and every time a bright young mind in the Vendor community, or a Consumer Advocate, or a Forward thinking Broker offered a suggestion (some of which, to me of course, were awesome) they were met with the same response from The MLS Boys…”Good Luck with That!” and then came the round of “Belly Laughs” (led by Scottish Guy, Santa, & Soprano Guy)…at first I was amused by them myself. then when I realized that they came from a deeply rooted “Arrogance”, rather than a playful sense of “Humor”, I was faced with the realization that our Industry was “doomed” to be regulated. No one, and I am convinced, No one will be able to get these two opposing sides (Old School & New School) to join together and bring our industry into the 21st century.

The “Straw” that broke the “Consumers” back

It was all made so incredibly clear by a comment from “Soprano Guy”, in response to the statement from Marilyn Wilson “it’s abundantly clear, from all the polls, that the Consumer overwhelmingly wants the Rating System”!

Soprano Guy then blurted out “Who”? “The Consumer”? “That’s not my Customer, The Brokers are my Customers. They pay my bills, not the Consumers”.

In Closing…

You never know what life has in store for you. One minute everything’s all “peaches & cream”. You’re minding your own business, happily “Tweeting” about that nights cocktail parties, or the crazy new Technologies you just heard some Geek talk about on stage and then …. BAM! … Your visions of your industry’s future are shattered by a room full of “Closed Minds”…though it was “riveting” and certainly more interesting than the “Meet The Leaders” segment downstairs, it was then and will forever be my most disappointing “Wrong Turn”

I don’t know how this gets fixed. I just know somebody with the “Schwag” to do it needs to get involved and fix it!

If not, Obama (or the next elected leader of our country) will!

Stay Blogging My Friends!

@TheRECoach

Those who have done online ad sales, and those who have been pitched by online ad salesmen, know it’s powerful tool to be able to say “We’re the largest site in [category X]” when speaking to a potential advertiser or partner. The Zillow/YRE combo now completely dwarfs the size of Realtor.com in overall audience. Realtor.com is rumored to have somewhere in the range of 12 million uniques, while Zillow was at 10.7 last month and, without knowing anything other than that they are the number 2 site, I’m guessing Yahoo Real Estate was around 10 million as well. That means the Zillow Ad Network now includes 20+ million uniques a month. That fact alone means that more money is going to shift towards Z/YRE and away from Realtor.com.

The CNNMoney deal was a nice win for Trulia, but this Yahoo! deal completely blows that out of the water in my opinion. CNNMoney is certainly a massive site, but Traffic on CNNMoney is not really specifically looking for real estate — traffic on Yahoo! Real Estate certainly is.

As for Realtor.com, I hope they have a few massive innovations or strategic deals up their sleeve or else it’s going to be a rocky road ahead for their sales team. I’m guessing there will be a fair amount of chatter about this deal at Inman next week…

PS: I’m obviously biased on this issue since I worked at Zillow for 4 1/2 years and as a stockholder am certainly thrilled this deal (which was in the works prior to me leaving in January) got completed. But now that I don’t work for Zillow I can actually comment on big announcements like this

Below is a screen shot of their new local city landing pages with larger photographs:

Congratulations to the team at Yahoo! Real Estate for getting this redesign out the door!

[via Inman News]

Is one any better than the other? Which service should you be using to promote your business, inventory, marketing experience and advertising? Is there just one? Should you be posting on them all? You decide, I have pulled you in this far, so look at these links and then decide to get on the Real Estate Video wagon. Look what kind of stuff is showing up when you search any of these sites for “Real Estate.” In fact, look what the New York Times is doing with Real Estate Video.

Service and Reasons To Consider

• Youtube – The Worlds Library of Video
  
• Google Video – The Worlds Leading Search Engine Company (hmmm..)
• Yahoo Video – Do You Yahoo? Your readers and visitors do
  
• Vimeo – People Connecting through Video
• DropShots - The Next Generation of Photo and Video Sharing
• PhotoBucket – 66 Million People Manage their Media
• Veoh – Millions of Videos, Veoh finds what you like.
• VidiLife – Experience the Difference with Real Estate Video
• MySpace – The Largest Social Network – 300,000,000 profiles
  
• Spike TV Video – Real Estate Video on Spike TV?

Here’s a few more to investigate:

• Viddler – Make Comments On Video with Video or Text
• WellcomeMat – Allows you to create chapters in Video
• Mixpo – Online Editing and Publishing – Allows Links in Video

Do You Still Need a Bit More Push or Pull?

This is a good measuring gauge for you to see where you are with Real Estate Video in YOUR business. You might want to seriously start incorporating Video into your business plan asap. Look at others and learn. I am confident in saying that there are more viewers that would prefer watching a video of anything you have to say or do, rather than reading about it.

Now is really the time to start running in the race while everyone else around you is still putting on their shoes. The Pioneers have taken the arrows, the followers are now leaving the building, and the laggards may never catch up as the Internet Real Estate Video takes over the world.

It’s going to take a winning combination of text, links, and video in your RE 2.0 marketing plan if you want to stay in the Online Race with technology and be successful in your Real Estate business. Video is definitely killing the newsletter farm. Now, you can even send video embedded in email. Flip Video Cameras, Webcams, Cell phone cameras and video, come on, you see where it’s going right? Viral Video Marketing is what sells right now… So Sell!!

If you still have doubts about Real Estate Video or Podcasting, take a look at The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly! created by Jeff Turner from Real Estate Shows.

I think I’ll start a “BlogBuster Video” on the web that charges no late fees! LOL!~

Just like an unreasonable seller in a declining real estate market, Yahoo rebuffed the advances of a ready and willing buyer (Microsoft) numerous times. Reason? The offer presented by Mr Softee “shortchanged” Yahoo’s past stock value even though it came at a significant premium over current stock price. At first, the rejection was thought to be an attempt to get the buyer to sweeten the deal. But after Microsoft did just that this past weekend, it is now clear that this is just plain delusion on Yahoo’s part.

That bluff just blew up in their face. Bid is now withdrawn and Yahoo’s only viable suitor is gone.

Though the majority of my readers are the 300 Agents I coach at Prudential California Realty, and they rarely leave a comment (hint hint), I did receive quite a few emails asking me to elaborate on the concept and where a Real Estate Agent may be able to benefit from it. My mind immediately turned to the concept of “Listing Sites” & “Single Property Websites” you have heard much about this concept lately, I am sure, but putting things into perspective is my speciality, so here goes….

Remember this commercial from the 1980′s with Joe Namath and the shampoo…”and they’ll tell 2 friends, and they’ll tell two friends, and so on and so on….(I tried so hard to find that commercial on video, but to no avail, so if you come across it, send it to me!)

Here’s how the math works!!! Look how fast it gets out of control….2, 4 ,8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, 4096…

So now imagine your Seller’s listing on Trulia, Zillow, Yahoo, AOL, MSN, Frontdoor….and so on and so on, someone likes it so they send it to a friend, who sends it to a friend and so on and so on…Now you have someone like MLBroadcast create and DISTRIBUTE a video/virtual tour of the property, someone sees it and they like it, so they send the link to a friend, who sends it to a friend and so on and so on…get the picture!!!!?????

So to summerize (using my first Jim’ism) “A listing without on line exposure, is like an electric fan…Stand in front of it and it blows, stand behind it and it sucks, stand beside it and does absolutly nothing!”

Agents Stop-Listen-Learn-Prosper

The Coach

What does this mean for Prudential Realtors and offices? First and foremost, this we will give them the “inside track” with an advertising campaign formally known as the Trulia “Triple Play”, which incorporated Featured Listings, Brand Identity, & Banner advertising (geographically). I love this play for them; It will be extremely effective. We are getting more hits from a basic agreement with Trulia right now, than the next 4 companies combined.

Web 2.0 meets Real Estate on this one. Now how many Agents will take advantage? This is the part that hurts so much, if you remember back to my post on “Old School vs New School”, you will remember that only 3% of Real Estate Agents nationwide are actively involved in Web 2.0 services like this (even though many are still FREE). So that provides so many of us (Trainers) and Brokers with a real challenge..get this out to the Troops! Everyone wins, when everyone wins!

Don’t let this tip from the Coach go into the trash Agents, budget for it now, so you will be ready when it rolls out in May!

Agents “Stop” “Learn” ”Grow” “Prosper”