Here lies Web 2.0

John Cable published a blog post this past October titled "The End of Web 2.0?"

His end was marked by the drained IV bag of venture capital that no longer pumped its lifeblood into the veins of all the loosey-goosey ideas hatched to amass audience rather than revenue. When the flow stopped, so did they.

Many are now on life support. Last December, Peter Schwartz published this article in the The Huffington Post. He cites the Web's most popular social network, Facebook, and the $300 million they earn as having little impact on the expenses they burn. With ad dollars evaporating and their need to add more servers and personnel, their future, in a way, looks grim. 

Peter talks about Web 2.0 burnout, and the "longing to return to the wholeness of the physical world." That has resonated heavily with me for a while now.

As Peter explains, Facebook grows by reaching new audiences but also recedes as old audiences shut it off. They unhook. And go back to taking long walks, reading books, hanging with real friends and seeking some white space in life. 

Twitter continues to grow at an explosive rate. In better, more fantastical times, fanciful conjecture such the late Portland journalist Russell Shaw's prediction that Google should buy it might be exciting. But this would'nt be too thrilling today unless Twitter or Google could explain how to monetize all those millions of disposable and time sensitive Tweets. 

The true fate of Web 2.0 

In recent months we've read about layoffs in the Web 2.0 space. Jaxter, LastFM, Mahalo, Yoomba, LinkedIn and YouSendit are some of the many firms doing everything they can to weather the storm.    

None of this comes as any surprise given the state of our economy. But does all this point to a pandemic that could wipe out even the most popular Web 2.0 sites? 

It's still too early to tell of course. But we all need to be prepared. There are plenty hanging on for dear life in real estate.

In order to survive they must evolve out of the primordial FREE waters of Web 2.0, deliver real benefits and start charging their users. This presents a challenge to the many people who have been enjoying and benefiting from these no-cost services.

A couple weeks ago real estate's largest online community, Active Rain, enacted a controversial subscription fee for new members. It would be absurd to think that AR could continue operating without finding some way to monetize members who use its platform to build their businesses.

Recently, on Twitter I posed the question, "Would anyone here pay for their Twitter account?" Every single single response I got was "not I."

Really? Mmm. I would. Considering the benefits I've reaped from a free Twitter, I can only imagine what I could garner interacting with a paid membership. The thought of Twitter going away because they can't create revenue from its millions of users who have been spoiled by free is alarmingly sad. 

So given the inevitability that many more Web 2.0 sites will perish, including those inside our own industry, do you have a game plan for what's next when the free service you've been leveraging either goes belly up or starts charging?

You should. After all, it's not likely that door knocking is going to come back into fashion.  

- Davison

Twitter: 1000wattmarc

Real estate on steroids

Stattweets launched today, enabling sports fans to follow their favorite teams, get spreads, scores, standings, ranks etc.

The idea isn't new but their angle is. The content here is broadcast direct from the teams themselves rather than from the arbitrary public. 

Immediate info.
Direct from the source.
I love this.
 
And I would love this from real estate.

Imagine a REStatweets that broadcast Just listed, Just sold, Pending, local stats and spreads from every major, minor and collegiate real estate brand locally and nationally. 

Subscribers might include agents and brokers who would be able to acquire new listing information from any or every one of the brokerage brands listed in the network. If agent A gets a listing right this second, how much time would elapse before that listing is uploaded into the MLS and broadcast to out to the agent population? How much time would it take before it's broadcast out to the marketplace?

REstattweets could reduce that down to seconds. 

This does not replace the MLS. It simply acts a surrogate service that gets the ball rolling quickly. It's a listing alert on steroids. It's an open house alert on steroids. It's what's happening on every block on steroids. 

It's real estate on steroids.
 
Consumers could subscribe too. Now, I know sports engenders a certain fanaticism that you may think real estate does not have. But I'm not dribbling in that end of the logic court. I believe real estate is addictive. I believe it's voyeuristic. And I believe those who work inside it (agents, title reps, mortgage orginators, and the like) as well as those outside - the consumer - possess a healthy passion for it.

Especially now.

Micro-broadcasting in real estate is still in its infancy. Early adopters are currently focused on broadcasting about themselves and what they are doing. I've learned there is value there but I am still convinced that content only has a few seconds of real relevancy and pales in value to reporting useful data. 

Sports might be apples to real estate's oranges. But data is data. Any engine that could power the instant delivery of it is one I believe is worth subscribing to, paying for and driving. 

- Davison
Twitter: 1000wattmarc

The terror of Twitter

The tears of the world are a constant quantity. For each one who begins to weep somewhere else another stops.

-- Pozzo, in Waiting for Godot

What if you could float in the ether and listen to the wails of the world?

The unending hidden noise of humanity.

That's what comes to mind when I think of Twitter. It's marvelous and weird.

And it gives me the heebie-jeebies. But that's my personal neurosis. I don't want people to know what I'm doing now. I don't follow much either. And I got rid of Twhirl, which is beautiful but distracting. So now I peek my head in when I'm looking for something. I occasionally find Summize useful, but that's it.

If that makes me Nixon to your John Lennon, that's OK. I'm comfortable in wingtips.

Discomfort aside, I've been eager for the business case for Twitter to become clear, because I do think there is one there. I have talked with some and read about many who have earned or kept business because of it. But here I'm thinking about scale. The enterprise. The "Waiting in line at Starbucks" writ large.

The launch of identi.ca last week may move us closer. The new open source microblogging application got a lot of play in the the big tech blogs but gained little notice in real estate. But the possibilities identi.ca holds for real estate are interesting, particularly for brokers.

Of course, the overriding benefit to Twitter -- and the weakness of identi.ca -- is not so much the app, but the community. It is the millions on Twitter that make it possible for real estate professionals to enter the stream and make connections. identi.ca can't deliver that and never will.

Nevertheless:

• I'd like to see a real estate blog or website provider throw identi.ca on a server, fuss with the code, and deliver a private-labled microblogging app tailored to real estate
• A brokerage or franchise organization could implement identi.ca as an improvement upon the standard extranet. Agents and brokers could float referral offers and sample from the collective expertise of the organization in all kinds of new ways
• An implementation of identi.ca that weaves in content would be great. I'd like to be able to create a feed of market stats from Altos, mortgage rates from Zillow or listings from an IDX solution.
• A "Neighbors" version would be even more interesting. This would be in the same vein as a FriendFeed room, a neighborhood blog, or a Yahoo! Group. Again, piping hyperlocal content in would help a lot.

The microblogging format is here to stay. Real estate leaders should keep a close eye on it as it matures at warp speed. Even if, like me, they find it a little terrifying.

-- Brian Boero