Well it’s come to that time of year where we recap our top posts from 2010.  These posts were selected based on the subjects staying power in our media and it’s ability to make long lasting changes  to the way we interact with the world wide web.   So, let’s begin.

ad-ition Blog Top 10 for 2010

10. Personalized TV – going past PVR

What we mean by this is the arrival of things such as Google TV and Apple TV, which both allow users to stream not only movies or television shows, but also music and photos that they’ve stored.  Through getting a taste, in previous years, of Internet TV, the demand to push this experience further has been the topic of conversation for many, hence the birth of on demand services such as Apple TV and Google TV.  Although the two are quite similar, the way in which they get their content is different.  Apple already has known relationships with content providers, see iTunes, but Google on the other hand has spent the year forming relationships with networks and movie houses.

This on demand way of taking in media is still formulating in many ways and 2011 will bring to light who the more formidable adversary is, Apple or Google.  The suite of content options for viewers will be the ultimate deciding factor.

9. Newspaper Online Pay Walls

Now although this is a story we started to speak about in 2009, we were and still are, hearing publishers rambling about erecting pay walls.  Results to date however, have shown that many publishers who erected pay wall programs in late 2009,  took them down in 2010.  Moreover, the primary advocate, Rupert Murdoch, for this protectionist movement, has yet to move the majority of his titles to a pay wall system, as he had promised, proving to those publishers trying to follow in his footsteps, that even he thinks that pay walls, as he intended, are not a good idea.

8. News Aggregators and Readers

With the arrival of the iPad, publishers scurried to ensure they were quick to market with reader friendly content that could easily be served up on a tablet.  However, it was not just your traditional publishers who were looking for savvy ways to serve up news content in 2010, you found tech savvy groups aggregating content and serving them up in intuitive ways, especially on the iPad.  The transformation and innovation around aggregated news content continues, as we see apps like Flipboard grow and transform.

7. Location Based Services

Can you remember the last time you went out to a Starbucks, a restaurant or a bar and someone in your group wasn’t checking in on a Foursquare or Gowalla app?  Neither can I!  2010 not only saw user levels for location based services grow, but business aapplications related to these services also gained popularity.  Proprietors were finding ways to celebrate their ‘mayors’ and attract new ‘check-in’s’ in the meantime.

We are still watching this vertical of location based services apps grow, as we saw Gowalla come out with a 1 – 2 punch at the beginning of December, and other large players (Facebook) announce the arrival of their service apps.

6. Beauty in Information

I don’t know about you, but we used an unprecedented amount of info graphics to relay information in 2010.  For example, there was this one, and this, then this, then this one, and … well … you get the picture.

5. Smart Phone Adoption and Development

Yes, we know we’ve had the iPhone and Blackberry devices in play for a while, but 2010 saw publishers kick it up a notch when the Android phone sealed the deal on the forecasted growth trends in the smart phone arena.  It was this year that saw more content publishers release smart phone aapplications to market, then ever before, with the focus being on iPhone and Android OS’s.

The latter quarter of 2010 also showed tremendous changes in market share numbers, again reporting the Android as the fastest growing smart phone OS, faster growing even more so than Apple’s iPhone.

4. Privacy and Facebook

The topic of Privacy and the concern it raises for Facebook users is not a new one, but it was ever apparent in media this past year.  Concerns first became apparent when Facebook tweaked default privacy rules to make most of a users content public in December 2009, and in April they expanded the amount of defaulted public content available to all.  This brewed the ‘Quit Facebook‘ day initiative, which was scheduled for May 31st, 2010, in retaliation to what was deemed Facebooks negligence in protecting their users.  In the end we saw 14 privacy and consumer protection organizations, file complaints against Facebook because of the above.

3. Group Shopping

In our minds, this shopping phenom was fueled by the way users interacted with social networks.  Group buying sites simply combined our love of all things social and shopping to create swarm like mentalities around coupons and deals.  To date, there are an estimated 66 group buying sites in the US, with the majority of them coming to life at the beginning of Q1′ 2010.  The year 2010 even saw auction giant eBay get into the group buying game and many others attempt entry through a plain old purchase.

2. Memorable Parody’s

For good measure, we though we should include a link to  a video we posted this year that garnered a sizable amount of email response.  We are also including it here because we think it’s funny too.  The video comes to us courtesy of Fox News, which in itself breeds its own sense of comedy, without even trying.

1. Social Media and Small Business

In addition to seeing a rise in business awareness about location based services, the same could be said with business usage of social networks and social media, to spread the word on their deals, services and just plain old existence.  The heavy adoption also attributed to the increase in the number of third party applications that aid small business owners in understanding their customers, as they relate to the social sphere.  The growth in social networks and their natural data analytics, made social media a must do for business owners. As an aside, we’ve included a link to one of our webcasts on social media branding as reference here.

Online Holiday Shopping Customer Experiences and Expectations

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December 22nd, 2010, In Advertising, Business, eCommerce, by Beverly Crandon

It tis’ the season where regardless of how you claimed last season that you were not buying any gifts next holiday season or that you were cutting back, you now find yourself buying gifts at increasing levels, in contrary acceptance.  Furthermore, the thought of running around and having to  take part in holiday shopping, if you are like me, can be a daunting one. So, naturally, I wait until the last minute to start, execute and complete my shopping. This year, my last minute plan of attack (yes – I plan to be last minute, every year) was impacted by an untimely and intense surgery, which has now rendered me out of kilter for the next couple of weeks (oh yeah…this also explains my scarcity on the world wide web this past week). So, Sunday, one week before the big day, and upon my discharge from the hospital, I decided to power up the laptop at home and commence shopping online.  It was the only way I could ensure my shopping got done, given the circumstances.

Purchasing gifts or personal items online, for anyone accustom to doing product and service research on the web, would seem a run of the mill thing at this point, but I was surprised by what I encountered when trying to complete my holiday shopping online, at nameplate brand sites.

I first set out to cover gifts for my niece and logically went to the Toys “R” US site. The first thing I looked for was an indication that the gift will make it to the house in time for December 25th. Thankfully, Toys “R” Us played into the holiday and gift giving for children and messaging about shipping was above the fold and centre screen – you couldn’t miss it. What was also impressive with Toys “R” Us was that depending on the calendar date, the messaging changed to indicate the now available transportation methods and pricing to get  your package to where you needed it, in time.  There appeared to be a true effort to ensure all holiday gift givers were taken care of, even if they were late to the party.

I then went on to the Best Buy site, because I mean let’s face it, in today’s digital age I can find gifts at Best Buy for my parents, who are now senior citizens, with one being an extreme techie and the other a Facebook lover, all the way through to my fashionista sister-in-law, however, my time on the Best Buy site was not as impressive.  My Best Buy online experience started with me looking for shipping information, and I was surprised that I could not find any related information above the fold or in other obvious places, but I naively assumed that if my Toys “R” Us experience was as easy as it was, so too should my Best Buy experience – given this, I commenced to shop. I spent an hour doing research on site and sourcing other related technical blogs, to ensure I was purchasing durable products that would serve my gift recipients well. At the point of selecting all of my gifts, totalling more than I thought I would spend, I started the checkout process.  I had filled out two web pages worth of information and then got to the shipping section of the checkout process, only to find that  the same annual general terms “5 to 11 business days”, were listed, and simple math told me that these items would not make it to the house in time.  I then looked through the page, thoroughly, to see if other shipping options existed, expedited or air, whatever would get my items to the house in time.   Nonetheless, there was no clear indication that I could expedite shipping, and because I was now heavily invested in the process (I had spent an hour thus far, carefully selecting all of my gifts), I called Best Buy online support, to see if they could shed some light.  I was told that I had missed the guaranteed shipping date and so the service rep suggested that I order the gifts online and then pick them up at the store.  So upset and frustrated, I went on to the Future Shop (a large Canadian electronics store) web site, and found the same or similar products and was impressed to see that the first thing I saw when I got to their site, was ways in which they could help me get my gifts to their destination, in time for the big day.  At the end of the whole shopping ordeal, I was left  puzzled that some nameplate stores could get it right, while others couldn’t.  When things like this happen, it makes a consumer think that there are some businesses who, given their size, tend to focus less on what may appear to be the little things, which when equated to dollars and sense and multiplied by each potential customer, extends to quite a costly experience.

I think the biggest problem is that online commerce for these nameplate brands was initiated as another source to aid in cutting staffing costs at brick and mortar locations and not as a tool to attain additional customers or share. In essence, eCommerce initiatives at nameplates was an attempt at creating positive margin contributors, with regards to operating costs.  What nameplates like Best Buy have failed to factor into their online commerce flow is that it is no longer a shopping avenue solely targeted at increasing margins, it is a shopping avenue that we as consumers use, almost as often as running out to the mall, especially during holiday seasons.  Given its now normalcy, there are some natural expectations consumers have when indulging in online commerce, and missing the mark on these expectations is no longer an option.

With online commerce growing in acceptance and adoption, the need to ensure the delight quotients expected when I head into your brick and mortar store are also present and possible to experience online, is stronger than ever now.  The review of the average sale per source (brick and mortar stores versus online storefronts) alone prove that businesses need to translate their online shopping experiences to a level of heightened focus.  The bottom line is that many of those with store fronts offline still take for granted and do not recognize the power and potential of their store fronts online.  This neglect is also what has made it easy for pure play online sites, such as Amazon, to make such an impact on traditional storefront brands, even the large ones.

As an aside, Future Shop was purchased by Best Buy Co. in 2001, but it operates as its own entity in Canada, hence the very different online holiday buying rules.

Header Image: All rights reserved by ideas4christmas2010

Participation in Digital & New Media Requires a Publisher Make Over

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December 14th, 2010, In Advertising, New Media, Newspapers, Print Media, Publishers, by Beverly Crandon

A few weeks ago, I had dinner with some digital executives from a US newspaper group and as usual, the conversation landed on the perils of the industry.  The discussion was ladened with commentary about the past, present and the future of publishing.  We also spoke about resources and strategic partnerships that make sense and the competitive landscape.  But one thing that stood out from our conversation was that so much, with regard to newspapers and their digital efforts, still stood within the realm of control of  newspaper publishers, and depending on the newspaper group, this could be 100 individuals or 10.

Publishers, for the most part, are individuals who have worked at their newspaper for a lengthy period of time and as a result, have built strong relationships in their local markets – a true asset when it comes to ensuring brand integrity and awareness, but their main focus has always been their printed products, when doing community outreach and here in lies the conundrum.  If the power to make decisions on digital products, digital business models and new media rule books, lie with our traditional publishers, it stands to reason that the results of their digital efforts will be pained.  Now to many of you who read this blog, this notion may be old hat, but my referred to dinner conversation brought to light how much the traditional mindset in media,  still exists in the newspaper industry.

What’s the solution?

If newspaper groups want to maintain absolute product power at the publisher level, then the solution must be in who we place in the role of publisher.  The same way it was touted that the profile of a media sales representative had changed, given the convergence of new media and the same way it has been recognized that the Ad Director of yesteryear is not the same Ad Director needed today, is the same way the recognition of the fact that the publishers profile has changed, is a must.  It’s only a logical notion – if everyone else within an organization is required to transform, then why too wouldn’t the key thought leader, considering that the company culture is driven by them?  Given all of the above, I thought I would share my thoughts on what we feel is the strategic publisher profile in today and tomorrows (based on trends) news publishing world.

Protectionist vs. Architect: The newspaper industry has been accused of executing under a protectionist mentality, meaning building pricing schedules around their digital products to ensure the price points either remain comparable to their print rates (unrealistic go to market strategy) or the process to participate digitally is made complicated and difficult for the advertiser.  To combat this, we suggest hiring publishers who come equipped with the ‘Architect’ mentality.  In this mindset, there is nothing to protect, but opportunities to make and build upon.  They see competitive threats as insight and callings to assess they way they’ve been doing business.

Indulges in Multi-media: To date, we’ve done a great job finding publishers who can personally attest to integrating print into their lives – reading the newspaper at home, browsing through flyers searching for coupons, etc…, but getting more than a handful to truly state that they’ve used mobile aps to aid them in their day to day or read news and bookmark items of interest or actively participate in a social network online, consistently, is a rare thing.  Any publisher hired today for a newspaper group, must come with personal experiences in utilizing these media types.  Personally using these medias enables company thought leaders to build and understand the sentiment around each media type and align benefits and value propositions to make their media suite (all of it) attractive to both advertisers and readers.

Media Agnostic: Meaning, focusing on the client and their needs –   Let that drive the solution the sales organization pitches, even though per unit rates dictate that you would get more for a full page newspaper ad in that one day, then you would for the digital buy on exactly the same day.  The difference is, the number of individuals you consistently get to pay top dollar for your full page is shrinking, where as the number of individuals you can get to spend with you in your digital space, repeatedly,  is growing.  With that being said, being Media Agnostic also requires an unbiased approach to product suggestion.  For some clients simply looking to do a feel good branding ad, print may be their solution, but that advertiser looking to do an interactive ad, will most definitely require a digital solution.

Understanding the Convergence of Multi-media: Often, publishers possess extensive knowledge around their printed products (newspapers, magazines and flyer’s), but lack a general understanding of other media’s that compliment both the user experience and a business owners marketing campaign.  By no means are we saying the nouveau publisher needs to be a jack of all trades, but an understanding of how one media compliments the other and the importance of media by type and then by consumer type, will definitely help.  The recognition of media convergence will ensure customers are sold the products that make the most sense based on their end goal and that development dollars and R&D are aligned with strategic products that have staying power and longevity in the market place.

Openness and Transparency: Let’s face it.  There are going to be mistakes made and that is not because we are talking about newspaper group digital initiatives, but it is because we are talking about new media.  Trends and data collected within six months of each other, surrounding the web and user activity, can be dramatic in differing results.  What we think will be a great idea today and spend 12 months building, may not be so hot when we go to market.  There have been large digital companies that have made mistakes, and executed on decisions they felt were data driven; Facebook and Privacy; Google and Google Buzz; etc….  Given the expectation that not everything we set out to do will be completely flawless, openness becomes a necessity, as you want to wholeheartedly listen to feedback from those who get that realm of your digital business, and you want to be transparent and honest with your clients, readers and product users, when you’ve messed up.

It’s as simple as what I once heard one of our European counterparts say “In some cases it’s better to shoot yourself in the foot, then have someone else shoot you in the heart”.  We recognize that making changes at the top level of an organization, regardless of vertical, is a difficult exercise, but there is too much at risk to not do anything at all.

Twitters Top Trends list is out and they’ve not only given you the overall top 10 trends, but they’ve also broken it down by category, Top News & Events, Top People, etc….  Below, we’ve embedded the image for their overall Top Trends list, but in reviewing their ‘tops’ by category, there are some noteworthy and comment worthy personal realizations I would like to share; Like, how much attention the Wikileaks/Assange story has garnered and quickly – it appears on both the Top News and Events’ and ‘Top People’ lists.  The ‘Top Movies’ list looks like a collage of sci-fi and psychological thrillers –  does that tell you something about the number of slightly nerdy sci-fi lovers on Twitter, and yes I am one of them.   If you already follow my personal Twitter account (@beverlycrandon), this should come as no surprise – sci-fi mixed with some horror for good measure! Personal realization number four; apparently I need to get on the Glee train, everyone else is.  Felling good about owning an Air, iPad, and iPhone, if I didn’t, apparently I’d have no business in discussing nouveau technology – Apple products took four of the 10 spots on the ‘Top Technology’ trends list; and my final observation, Jimmy Fallon’s Late Night #Hashtag game seems to be quite popular, as at least two of his past announced hashtags appear on the list.  Wonder why I have never ‘hashtagged’ it up with Jimmy Fallon… hmm… I am sure I could have used #slapyourself in a tweet somehow….

See Twitters complete Top Trends report here.

Not so long ago, Salesforce users were made aware of the Salesforce product release called Chatter, a social network of sorts that allows users to operate as they would on other online social spaces, but with their network of licensed users.  The release was fine and dandy, but did not do much to compel businesses to stop using tools like Skype, Yahoo! or MSN chat applications, to communicate thoughts internally.  It was probably this that compelled Salesforce to work on an extension of Chatter, which they released today, and it has been appropriately named Chatter Free.  The premise behind Chatter Free is that licensed Salesforce users can now invite others to join their Chatter network and conversations, even if those being invited are not licensed, and with this, we now see value.

If businesses adapt the Chatter or Chatter Free model into their operations, we could see it replace other applications that manage projects, or even wiki like knowledge bases.  It’s application could further be extended: imagine having a vertical of customers who all share an interest in a particular topic, automotive for auto dealers, recruitment for recruiters and real estate for agents.  Sales organizations could invite like clients to Chatter Free, with accessibility to relevant content shared in specific groups.

Now, as great as this all sounds, we do not see Chatter as something having further utilitarian uses, as a free account is limited, with the only hope of unlocking the full sweet of tools if one upgrades for $15 per month.  Regardless, this is an interesting play on integrating social relevance in the workplace.

I can’t tell you of another time where we’ve seen so much hype and excitement around mobile, across all ages, and mobile integration into everyday life, outside of the utilitarian activities such as, making a phone call, email and I would argue that texting and SMS has now become utilitarian too.  The cause for such excitement, in our minds, is primarily because of the choices out there; and it’s not just that there is choice, but it’s that there are a ton of formidable choices out there.   So, given the ‘kid in a candy store’ reality around mobile, we are not surprised to see mobile OS’ moving up and down market share lists, rapidly. A recent report by comScore (the source of the market share chart below) shows Google’s Android phone making astronomical growth  of over 6 per cent, in only three months and what was once the behemoth of the mobile space, RIM, loosing 3.5 per cent.

The fact that there is so much choice and so much customer adoption for many brands, does make it difficult for mobile developers or publishers deciding what platform they should focus on first.  Well, regardless of growth indicators, you should still focus on current market share trends and develop to that, but yet be mindful of operating systems and their users likelihood to use downloaded applications; and in using this formula, your developers should focus on Blackberry development, after iPhone and Android, given the rate of downloaded app. adoption on the different platforms.  Blackberry users are 73 per cent less likely to download applications on their mobile devices when compared to iPhone users and 54 per cent less likely when compared to Android users.

So we Tweeted about it like crazy yesterday as soon as we heard about Gowalla’s new version 3 release.  Moreover, as soon as we heard about the release, we made sure we updated our Gowalla apps on our iPhones.  We thought about blogging then that the release was available, but instead we decided to spend the day using our newly updated Gowalla app, so that we could better get a handle on all that could happen.

Before we continue and to bring everyone up to speed, yesterday Gowalla updated its iPhone application to a sleek new interface, of course, but most importantly, a one time check in process for all of your location based services (foursquare, and Facebook Places).  Up until this time, Gowalla and foursquare have fought for the same user base and up until now, foursquare was the Goliath of the two.  With Gowalla’s recent change however, they’ve leapt ahead of foursquare.  The new Gowalla V.3 will encourage, and it has already started, users to check in with only one service (Gowalla) to syndicate their location to friends, instead of updating multiple properties – and this is good news for Gowalla.

What’s Next in the Location Based Services Battle

1. Gowalla’s single point of check-in efficiencies, will drive more users to the application, limiting the amount of organic check-ins on foursquare
2. foursquare’s revenue model, which is dependent on an interactive user base, will be threatened
3. Gowalla will quickly move to monetize their new platform and user adoption rates
4. foursquare will fight back with an incorporated group buying strategy, to continue to build leverage with its business clients and users
5. One of these two location based services will be acquired in the next six month – up until now we were confident that it was going to be foursquare

Nonetheless, another reason we held off before posting about the Gowalla changes is because we were hoping we would see a response from foursquare on  Gowalla’s v. 3 release, especially since the integration was not done through partnership.  The integration was done through using API services.

In the end, this was a brilliant move by Gowalla.  It pushed them ‘up a bunch of notches’ in the location based services game, but a lot tells us neither they of foursquare are done.  2011 will be an interesting year as we watch social media extenders (group buying, location based services) transform for the better through competition.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Flipboard, I classify it as a reader on steroids, created for the iPad.  It’s sleek design is reminiscent of an elegant, electronic magazine, but because it allows me to customize my content, from multiple sources, it falls into the reader classification for me.  Nonetheless, Flipboard users today were greeted with a publishers message announcing their print media centred product called Flipboard Pages.   Some of the print media publishers who have signed in for this, the early stages of Flipboard Pages are, Lonely Planet, San Francisco Chronicle, and the Washington Post Magazine.

Flipboard Pages in essence will help these publishers syndicate their content in an elegant and modern manner, while still using the page turning experience that their offline users are accustom to.  This move also opens up a revenue model for Flipboard and its investors, who amassed a whopping $10 million in funding for the start-up.

Gartner has released its list of Top Predictions for IT Companies and Users for 2011 and Beyond and its contents are fascinating.  Amongst the list of eight predictions, there were two that struck us as comment worthy; By 2015, tools and automation will eliminate 25 per cent of labor hours associated with IT services; and By 2015, 10 per cent of your online “friends” will be nonhuman.  According to Gartner analysts, the rise of self serve options and cloud computing will greatly impact the tech heavy mentality at IT organizations.  We would argue that that number could be increased by at least 10 points when looking at non IT positions, at all organization types.  We are already seeing a trend in staffing shifts where companies are doing more with less people power and more technology prowess. (This applies to not only traditional media newsrooms, but to all businesses in general).  To their second point of 10 per cent of our friends being non-human, to that I say “very sad”.  On one hand I express great concern that my social media communications will no longer be humane and real, but on the other, I am not surprised.  The same way we can apply smart algorithms to know what I want, based on previous site interactions with me, is the same way that by 2015 we’ll be able to anticipate conversations.  It makes sense, I mean the root of our behaviours never change, the technology does.

Below is a list of the eight predictions released by Gartner. You can read more here.

1. By 2015, a G20 nation’s critical infrastructure will be disrupted and damaged by online sabotage.
2. By 2015, new revenue generated each year by IT will determine the annual compensation of most new Global 2000 CIOs.
3. By 2015, information-smart businesses will increase recognized IT spending per head by 60 percent
4. By 2015, tools and automation will eliminate 25 percent of labor hours associated with IT services
5. By 2015, 20 percent of non-IT Global 500 companies will be cloud service providers.
6. By 2014, 90 percent of organizations will support corporate applications on personal devices
7. By 2013, 80 percent of businesses will support a workforce using tablets.
8. By 2015, 10 percent of your online “friends” will be nonhuman

In working with traditional publishers you become akin to the fact that there are large business verticals that we must pay attention to, because of the potential ad dollars.  Those said verticals are, automotive, employment and real estate (including rentals).  For the most part, we are able to exercise fair and common sense in the rules and business processes applied to the advertising solutions we provide across all of the clients media, but I can’t help but question some of the unspoken, but yet widely known, rules around real estate.

In many geo’s real estate listings are heavily controlled by real estate boards and a communal property listing web site. In North America, we know this communal property to be MLS (Multiple Listing Service).  Given the control over listings and the inherent advantageous position, many web publishers wishing to serve up real estate listings in a new and intuitive manner online, have to make nice with the boards to be able to use the content.  In many ways, the argument could be made that it’s their content anyway, so they have the right to determine where to publish it, but the weight and opinion of local real estate boards go deeper than just speaking to the use of their own listings, they often affect or impact the external publishers business rules.  Let me use a true story here to better describe this point.  There was a real estate service I had once known and they were an extension of  a large national department store.  This service would partner at the agent level in local markets and would connect potential home-buyers they had met through their other services, with their partnering agents.  For the home-buyer, the process was useful, as the large national player would certify each partnering real estate agent and offer guarantees and service numbers in case an agent was inattentive or unscrupulous.  Nonetheless, this real estate service started to advertise online through local real estate listing sites, using banner ads and advertorials.  They were advertisers of one real estate listing site for eight months, until their campaign was ended and money refunded because of the potential threat that a real estate board would stop sending listings to the site, if this service continued to  advertise.  In cases like these, we ask, who really benefits and have we forgotten about the consumer?  When one group gets to dictate the depth of advertising for another, for their own benefit, I think we could be bordering on items better left for our Competition Bureau.

In the end, I do not think anyone would suggest a home-buyer not use an agent – they are well trained and the business of moving homes is their core competency.  What we do suggest is that the consumer be given choice.

Two large indications that we’ve left the consumer behind

Real Estate Board Driven Sites

Because of the position of leverage boards often have, there appears to be no real driver for them to improve online services, especially their listing sites.  It is not surprising to arrive at a board driven site and be shocked at how much the functions you are accustom to using on other properties, do not apply well there.  Looking at how neighbourhoods are referred to (M15, M11) is a clear tell tale sign that one or two improvements could be made.  Internal reference codes should never make it to a consumer facing site.

Third Party Real Estate Sites

To date, there have been some advancements here where some smart people are trying to serve listings as best they can, but we still argue that their are too many handcuffs to allow an online publisher to properly execute in the real estate listing space.   In our opinion, if you are providing an online real estate listing site, I expect to find all available listings there, FSBO (for sale by owner) and agent driven.  I would like to see all of the services available to me, even if they are offered from non-traditional real estate companies, and this today does not exist, and it is not because it cannot happen.  It’s because real estate industry rules dictate how much of what they will allow users to see.

I liken what we are seeing in this space to the protectionist mentality other traditional media and services companies held on to, and who now are suffering from those short-term strategy decisions.  With the uses and functions of social networks, with the mentality of everything being open, I would not be surprised if home-buying leapt to levels where you would see less reliance on real estate board driven tools – still including the agent in many cases, but removing the business barriers that protectionist play-books usually bring.