What's blowing your mind these days?

I have become bored with video chats in the span of six months.

When I bought a Macbook last July, the built-in webcam was a revelation. Now I rarely call Davison, who lives 250 miles from Oakland. Instead, I click on the video icon next to his name in iChat. I say hi to Lori, his wife, if she walks into the room. I get to see his kids. If there's something in his office he wants to show me, he picks up his Macbook and points to it.

Sometimes we conduct three-way video chats with clients who use Macs. Sometimes there's a little chit-chat about how cool it is. Then it's just another meeting.

Technology now moves at a pace that leaves little time for amazement. Our "capacity for wonder," to borrow Fitzgerald's phrase, is now filled with "transitory enchanted moments" on a regular basis.

The fantastic becomes banal in a matter of days.

This is exciting, fleetingly, but also exhausting. At least it is for me. I find it tough to keep up with everything flying by the window as we speed forward.

Once in a while, though, I slow down enough to let something sink in. And damn if that video chat isn't something! The possibilities, looking forward now, are pretty stunning. Take the integration of 12seconds with Tweetdeck announced today. Or the rapid dispersion of Seesmic across the web. These things, or their progeny, will radically alter how property is merchandised and sold online. It's easier to see that when you pull back from the grind.  

Perspective

My grandmother turned 91 today. I just got back from visiting her. It's shaken me out of my unconscious disregard for the extraordinary for a few hours.

She grew up poor, the daughter of Italian immigrants. They had a goat in the backyard for milk, a wood stove inside for warmth, and a drunken illiterate uncle (exquisitely named Guido Guidi) living in the basement.

Now I video chat with my business partner from my home office... and take it for granted.

So enough aimless rambling form me. What's blowing your mind these days? 

-- Brian Boero

"Seeing" the future of online real estate

A couple weeks ago, Frontdoor.com released its City Guides product [Disclosure: Frontdoor.com is a 1000watt Consulting client]. This is worth noting for several reasons. The user experience is first rate; the balance between content and design, data and vibe is pitch perfect; it supports the decision to live a life somewhere, not just to buy a house.

Their implementation of real estate-relevant APIs is well done. They've done a great job organizing Yelp reviews in each city, and display local events through eventful.

A slice of life

But it's their use of Flickr that got me thinking.

Flikr has been around for a long time. It has been plugged into thousands of websites and blogs. But the volume of geotagged photos it holds is now to a point where users can get a good visual sense for most any place. Frontdoor.com is taking advantage of this.

Check out Fairfield, CA

Or Athens, Georgia.

Or how about this: My wife is from Marshall, MN, a small town way out in corn country. Flikr brings it to life. This image illustrates why my wife now lives in California. 

You get a slice of life from each of these places, usually seen through the eyes of people who live there. I may know that Athens is a college town, but now I can actually see what a University of Georgia college student looks like these days. I can look at a map of Marshall mashed up with points of interest, but this gets me deeper. 

These photos pull you back from the tight focus on the home and touch on the blurry edges of decision making. And this, I think, presents really interesting possibilities for online real estate.

I am not certain what those possibilities will amount to. But the confluence of visual search, location awareness, Street View, online video, and massive stores of goetagged photos will get us closer to "virtual real estate" than we could have imagined even five years ago.

Something else to consider: There are hundreds of millions of photos sitting within MLS systems across the country. Most brokers have thousands of images they're not using. We focus so much on listings data; is there hidden value in the images?

-- Brian Boero

25 things to web 2.0 your company

Following the keynote on opening day at Connect 2008, Brad Inman chatted with Sherry Chris, Charley Young, Don Lawby, Kevin Boer and I on the subject of how to web 2.0 your company. We were to discuss the 25 things you need to do to web 2.0 yourself but never quite got there. Still, it was a good conversation.

What's in and what's out for 2008

We're not going to serve up predictions for 2008. But we do have a sense for what will wax and what will wane in the coming year.

 

Some of the things below are related to hot topics from last year we think will take hold; others are derived from observations taken in the trenches of real estate and technology from 1997 to 2007. All focus on our work with brokerage firms, online real estate startups and media companies.

 

So, here goes ...

 

What's in for 2008

• Honesty and transparency in communicating with consumers left jaded by a rough 2007

• Public-facing MLS Websites (They have the goods and will start flexing their muscle)

• Good blogs and bloggers

• Consumer real estate marketing informed by truly careful consideration of actual consumer needs (This is harder than it sounds)

• Mobile real estate transactions (Less costly, better customer experience, mature technology and apps)

• Cheap and easy online video to market listings

• Using free web apps for things you used to pay for

• Collaborating across old political divides

• Less data, better user experience

• Open source website and blog platforms

What's out for 2008

• IDX products that were cutting edge in 1997

• Search advertising

• "Featured listings" on your website

• Venture funded online real estate startups

• Map-based listings search (just because something looks cool doesn't mean it's the best way to get something done)

• Blogs that are poorly written, unfocused and born of a desire for SEO

• Getting away with a less than excellent brokerage website

• Recruiting anyone who can fog a mirror

• Stealth anything

• Bull****ing consumers

What have we missed? What's on your list? Let us know.

Here's to a great 2008!

-- Davison and Boero

I'm not a lead