Mark Cuban has an excellent post describing some of the major differences between traditional media and blogging. Well worth a read -(Traditional media) get hired for a specific job and they have to do that job. They get hired by a corporation that is most likely public, which means their senior management , the people they ultimately report to, have to put getting the stock price up above all else. That is really what blogging vs traditional media in 2006 has come down to…. Blogging is personal, traditional media is corporate.Is print media dead?Where newspapers kick the Internets behindPrint will always have a place – for investigative journalism, for the 5,000 word analysis that would be extraordinarily difficult to read on a blog, the sheer volume of information provided and for the satisfying effect that comes from sitting down and reading the paper from the first page to the last. Importantly, does real estate advertising have a future on the pages of newspapers, weeklies, monthly magazines? Why do real estate marketers (Realtors) spend so much money on a format that is inefficient, difficult to track and expensive? The direct connection to consumers the “trust” factor is mightily difficult to convey in a 2 x 3 (or whatever size one chooses) static house advertisement.
Posts Published by Jim Duncan
New Habitat Store in Charlottesville
One of the better assets to our community is the Habitat Store – a place for builders, remodelers and do-it-your-selfers alike. This week they celebrate their move from the staid 4,500 square foot quarters to their brand-spankin’ new 20,000 square foot home on Harris Street – across from Gaston and Wyatt and Intrastate Pest Control. A client of mine who is works there wrote to say this – It serves the community in multiple ways; a place to shop for great home improvement materials at a discount, a place to donate leftover or replaced items that are in good shape and might otherwise be discarded, and all monies raised directly benefits the Charlottesville area by building Habitat homes for those in our community who are unable to compete in our market. Stay tuned for updates on Charlottesville’s Builders’ Blitz, June 3rd throughout the 10th.
Fun with Google Trends
Local builder -vs- national builders in the Charlottesville areaMold -vs- asbestos -vs- radonNational real estate websitesBlog -vs- RSS -vs- PodcastCharlottesville -vs- AlbemarleMLS -vs- FSBO – interestingly, all of the top cities are from Canada. In essence, Google Trends gives another means by which to present one’s argument with one’s own manipulation of statistics.
Links for 12 May 2006
Population data (HT: Business Pundit)Charlottesville (“and surrounding area”) is #90Charlottesville is the 39th “Smartest Place to Live” per Kiplinger’s Personal Finance.North Pointe saga continues. As reported by Cville Tomorrow. My reports say that those in favor of the project moving forward far outnumbered those opposed. The forthcoming podcast will prove enlightening.Google Trends – an extraordinary means by which to peer inside the psyche of searchers. See: Housing BubblePrint -vs- Web -vs- BloggingAn index of SprawlZillow shows a little bit more of its hand – where will they go from here?Finally, a blast from the past:Nevertheless, technology alone isn’t the solution to the arcane world of real estate. “The business of working with realtors is complex,” said Barker. “This is a very fragmented business and realtors have lots of needs and they are expensive to service.”Plus, it is an industry that is very sensitive to relationships and to traditions and practices such as various MLS rules that are dissimilar from market to market.
Searching for homes getting easier
The advent of Zillow, Trulia, RealestateABC, et…. is pushing real estate technology innovation faster than it has ever been pushed. The news today that Cendant will be offering Microsoft’s Virtual Earth mapping on its websites is big news. (Don’t count MSFT out yet!) The mapping wars are just heating up. The guys at RCG are ahead of the curve – watch them.Under the terms of the agreement, Microsoft will provide its Virtual Earth commercial online mapping solutions for Cendant’s real estate brand Web sites – Century21.com, ColdwellBanker.com, ColdwellBankerCommercial.com, ERA.com and SothebysRealty.com – and for the local operating company Web sites of NRT Incorporated.The sooner Microsoft decides to support Firefox (or better yet, web standards) and makes their products accessible to all, the better. As a consumer, whether snooping on neighbors, searching for homes, or just checking up on the market, what are you looking for? What does the end game of the merging of real estate and technology look like?
A Summit for bloggers
One of the great things about the Charlottesville area is the opportunity to connect with others in a variety of interesting and unique ways. Last year the inaugural blogging summit was held in Charlottesville – an unprecedented and unparalleled meeting of many of Virginia’s bloggers. Blogging has grown nation- and state-wide in the past year; the Charlottesville blogging arena has grown significantly, if not exponentially and has become a great source of opinions and information on what “is” Charlottesville. This year brings another summit – this time at the Darden School at UVa.Politics tend to populate much of the blogging world, and for good reason – politics elicit opinions and politics impact everybody in one way or another. Norm at OMT has a succinct summary of the evolution of this year’s summit. The lineup of speakers is truly impressive. Kudos to the organizers.Yet another thing to look forward to this summer.
Back from Chicago
I traveled to Chicago Monday afternoon and returned late last evening. The meeting was informative and enlightening with regards to the future of the real estate industry as a whole. More on this later. For now, back to blogging.