Real Estate Web 2.0: Epiphany — Thanks To Kevin Kelly

by Mike Farmer

Real Estate Broker

Author website

Reading Kevin Kelly’s post again created a fire storm of epiphanies as I relate his generative points to RE web 2.0.

http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/01/better_than_fre.php
I will take his ideas and twist them a bit to meet my purposes. First, the ideas of “copy” – in a sense all RE sites are a copy of one another — plenty of listings to look at. What makes one more valuable than the other is the “generatives“. I see the free copy stage as the beginning, but just the bare beginning – bang bang bang, site site site – popping up here, there and over there. Now we are entering the generative stage and this is where it gets interesting, where winners joke and losers yell “DEAL!”.

Kelly listed eight generatives, with the first being “immediacy“. This is a little vague, but to me it’s related to constant innovation, getting ideas out to the consumer, and being the first to experiment with new ideas. One thing I liked about my website provider Point2Agent was its “immediacy” with press releases coming out on a regular basis of new ideas and functions and plans. Now it’s lagging, and whoever achieves immediacy will outshine them. There’s a lot to be said for being there, being present, being vital and creative. Zillow is doing a great job with immediacy, and lately Homegain has shown a gift for immediacy. As for my own site, I need to “be there”, be vital.

The next generative is “personalization” and this is something I’ve written about ad nauseum. To me, it’s the Big Key to success with Web 2.0. Adding value by personalizing your offer opens the great door that few go through. Kelly writes:

“It is deeply generative because it is iterative and time consuming. You can’t copy the personalization that a relationship represents. Marketers call that “stickiness” because it means both sides of the relationship are stuck (invested) in this generative asset, and will be reluctant to switch and start over.”

Nothing is truer. Once the generative process of personailzation begins, a relationship is borne between provider and user. It’s time consuming, and this is what makes it valuable. It’s one of the big weaknesses of RE sites and the great strength of the individual RE professional. As talked about recently, if these two forces are joined in a meaningful way, great things will happen, and the personalization process will separate winners from copy-cats.

“Interpretation” is what I’ve called analyzing information. It’s one thing to provide information — it’s copied across the net freely — but it’s valuable to be able to interpret information. One of the problems I have with “micro-blogs” that primarily give links to information is that no interpretative value is added. This also fits into my idea of context as the second weakness, along with personalization, that I see holding RE sites back from reaching the monetization stage of growth which will be vital to their survival. Giving meaning to information so that it can be used profitably by the user is a value users truly understand.

I’ll have to stretch a bit with “authenticity“. I’ll relate this to Zillow’s recent announcement of Mortgage connections being screened up front. This is a great generative value that’s been overlooked. NAR and other professional governing bodies are supposed to be the clearing house for authentication, but they haven’t gone far enough. It’s time for real authentication that lets the user know “this is the real thing”. I wrote recently about a possible scenario where pros have been vetted and have met strict criteria for authentication. Does the agent have the knowledge and experience to be a real “expert” or is the agent a poseur? Whoever becomes a TRUSTED clearing house will be of tremendous value to the user. Homegain also has Agent Evaluator, which is a step, although controversial, toward authenication.

“Accessibility” speaks for itself and those who organize information to be easily accessed the best wins. People want ease of use, accessibility. They want to click and find, no complications, no deep links, no codes, no treasure hunts, they want accessible information organized so that it’s easy to navigate. The advantage the big players have is that they can afford talent to devise easy navigation, but small local sites can take advantage of the generative value as well. Make it easy and fast.

Graphics, maps, visualization, videos, and for local agents, face-to-face — these are the “embodiment” that create value. Of course, local pros have the advantage of having a live body that meets the user, but RE sites can add value by coming alive through graphics, making their sites as alive as possibile over a computer screen. When users can imagine the site as a body, it adds values through a personal touch, a touch that fires up the imagination and builds trust. And, trust is Kelly’s theme all throughout.

“Patronage” is a genius concept when we talk about monetization. If a site builds generative value, users will pay small fees to keep it going. A brilliant idea. The reality is that it takes money to exist and survive, and users know this. They will pay if the value is great enough, if for nothing else, out of appreciation for excellence. Further on, Kelly states that ad revenue will not be enough — ads only come when value is present and users use. If enough value is created and enough users use, sites might be able to keep their “free” model, but the value will have to be extraordinary.

I’m going to relate “findability” to SEM. It’s been talked about extensively, but no matter how valuable an offering is, if no one sees it, it’s useless. All RE efforts will have to become expert at being found. The small local site will find it more and more difficult to be seen, this why partnerships with larger sites may be necessary. Partly in seriousness and partly as a joke I wrote an open letter to Google addressing this concern. Hopefully the larger sites will understand the generative value of true partnership arrangements with small local sites — recent developments are promising.

I’ll close with this quote from Kelly:

“Beneath the frothy layer of advertising, these eight generatives will supply the value to ubiquitous free copies, and make them worth advertising for. These generatives apply to all digital copies, but also to any kind of copy where the marginal cost of that copy approaches zero. (See my essay on Technology Wants to Be Free.) Even material industries are finding that the costs of duplication near zero, so they too will behave like digital copies. Maps just crossed that threshold. Genetics is about to. Gadgets and small appliances (like cell phones) are sliding that way. Pharmaceuticals are already there, but they don’t want anyone to know. It costs nothing to make a pill. We pay for Authenticity and Immediacy in drugs. Someday we’ll pay for Personalization.”