DIY Days from Sabi Pictures on Vimeo.

Mobile listing solutions are going to take over as devices become more powerful, Connection speeds increase, displays more beautiful so websites don’t have to adjust to the scale as much. The term “mobile” might even become a word of the past (when describing online versions) as everything is expected to be online everywhere all the time. It’s just going to happen.

The future of the Realtor’s website will need to be more community driven. If their farm area is a certain location then they will be expected to have everything about that location on their website, listing every single business, every event, every listing and how about rentals? Oh, but there are community sites out there already doing this you say? Not really. It cost money and takes time to maintain a site like this. The paid links are not a good representation of what the community is. After all, paid links are what pay the bills.

A community site must be free to the community it serves. As more small business owners realize how important it is to have incoming links from outside sites pointing to them, they will look to a real community site that will list them for free and allow them to log in and list themselves for free, allow them to log in and post events, allow them to log in and take ownership of certain aspects of the community site and even guest post on the community blog. And yes, there will be real estate listings with walk scores, maps and much more. A successful Realtor will own this site.

A site like this is easier to maintain and keep current than most real estate sites are today, (those that do update their sites). It’s conceivable that a Realtor would hardly have to touch a site like this other than to confirm registrations (done through email) and farm the people who have logged in to get more information on the listings. They can go back to doing what they do best.

By providing this valuable resource to the community where a Realtor does business, their perception among those who live, work, play, list and purchase in the area can become a lot higher than it is now (below that of a used car salesman at the moment).

In summery a community site must have:

• Maps with walk scores
• Free organized listings of events and businesses
• Community blog for community postings
• A registration and login for the community
• A “mobile” version

Some Realtors are already starting this.

Paul McEwan the actor, I believe, lives in London England. England for sure. On a Google search my site comes up near the top. The first Wiki comes up with Paul McEwan the Kricket Player which is the only other Paul McEwan I found when I purchased this domain name a few years ago. (I didn’t look that hard). So Paul, if you read this I suggest expanding on your Wiki… and twitter and facebook and friendfeed and a site built in WordPress (or at least something with really good SEO) and link it all together. And if you would like, I can help you with all that. In any event this free promotional post and link will certainly help too. I will add one to my side bar too.

For those of you still confused, here is a list of reasons why I am not Paul McEwan the actor.

1. He’s much better looking than me
2. I live in Canada, he lives in England
3. His representation is Rebecca Blond Associates where as mine is… none
4. He gets to play characters. I am a character
5. He is an actor. I am not (I don’t even play one on TV)

Feel free to give me some more reasons.

a. Scan your computers for viruses / malware, especially if unauthorized tweets continue to be posted in your accounts even after you’ve changed the password.

b. Use a password that you don’t use anywhere else and never use the former password on a compromised account. Create a new and difficult password unique to Twitter that consists of both letters and numbers

c. Check the Connections page at http://twitter.com/account/connections and revoke the access privileges of any third party applications that you do not recognize.

d. Avoid providing your username and/or e-mail and password to untrusted third-party sites. (Many are phishing sites offering more followers)

e. Remove any updates that you did not post personally; leaving these updates can result in your account being re-suspended.

I want to add the risk involved adding third part sites to your Twitter account. Many of these sites promise more followers. Any account that asks for your password is probably phishing.

Here is a link to the Wikipedia.org article on it.

Have a great weekend!

Until it happens to me.

I have just had an account suspended from Twitter. The account was fairly new. The name aligned with my new business that I am getting ready to open. I started to add a few people as well as add a few people back, (blocked a “Brittney Naked” account) and uploaded a logo.

I had tweeted a few mundane things but not a lot. I think I had under 40 tweets. I didn’t want to draw too much attention as I am not ready for business yet. So why was I suspended? Twitter is just like Facebook in this regard: One complaint about you and your account is suspended. It’s up to you to beg and plead your innocence. There is no other recourse.

Keeping in mind the lack of activity from this account, it seems fairy obvious the account was shut down by someone who feels threatened by my business opening. Falsely accusing the account of something untoward is easy.

The new business is simply amazing. Community driven and 100% correct. A completely different “do-no-harm” business model that would scare any expanding waistline CEO competitor who is watching me and direct a minion or two to lodge a complaint.

I suppose I could ask my followers of @PaulMcEwan to complain to twitter about my business account being suspended. That might help by demonstrating authenticity but it’s no way to for a new business to enter the market, maybe if I had already been in business.

Twitter has played into the hands of Social Media Guerilla Marketing and that’s that.

At the rate we’re changing, the talk might have been called “Death of the Realtor”. The “Gutenberg phenomena” called the Internet will eventually change real estate so completely we won’t recognize it. Their commission structure have already been under fire for a long time as discussed in a stream on NPR here, read in the New York Times article “Endangered Species” and Maclean’s, “Money for Nothing, Lawn Sign for Free“.

The event he spoke at was a networking shin-dig sponsored by Ubertor and Reachd via Meet-up, and it was interesting, informative and for anyone who’s taken any marketing courses, re-informative. What I found more interesting and just as informative was the fact that a Realtor would act this transparent. I mean this in a ‘good for him’ way. It’s really refreshing to see a Realtor give out his “secrets”. He’s not the only participant at this event who thinks in this way. There is a following to this thinking. The topic of an online ustream.tv discussion I took part in was how the public listing tool realtor.ca was not very transparent and easy for the public to use.

The same technology that makes it easy to market product online, access information and inform the public will eventually have the public scratching their heads as to why the commissions are spread the way they are and if Realtors are willing to market and change then the change will come. I think it’s worth writing a bit about it so I did.

Whether the change is grass roots and forces the industry to change or self regulated is something someone else can speculate on. All I know is this: Those future earners who have never known the world without the Internet, who they choose to help them sell and purchase their homes could very well be a different type of person than today’s Realtor.

Richard Branson, although from a well-to-do family, values personal adventure and risks more than some with less to lose. We understand Branson's Personal Brand.

Personal Branding is becoming an important topic as social media continues to be discovered. Most industries are starting to get it.

Realtors: with the addition of Social Media bringing about a change in marketing directions it’s now more important than ever to step up your branding. That is to say, ditch the old school slogans and awards and become authentic with who you are.

A Realtor’s business life and personal life mix on social media to the point where (I have read) that some create two different accounts on social media networks. Some good recent posts on the subject can be found here and here. What’s worse in my opinion is they have one account and only write about their business  activities, market reporting and name dropping. These Realtors seem to follow each other too. A better alternative  would be to follow your friends and community who happen to be your client base and not talk business, (but bring it up when asked or the opportunity arises).

Let’s do a case in point

(first a disclaimer): For this case-in-point I am going to pick any old slogan out of the hat and in no way intend to intentionally pick on anyone in particular. The fact is the slogan I choose to use as an example will sadly be in use by many Realtors – so you’re not alone if it’s yours.

“Vancouver’s Family Home Specialist”

Let’s choose that one (or something like that anyway- you’ll get the point). If this is a Realtor’s slogan but they don’t comment on family blogs, write blogs about family, advertise on family websites to support them, talk about family matters on Twitter and Facebook and don’t have a following of people with the same interest then what is the point? Their branding is not authentic and everyday people can now see this.

What I’m talking about here are some new concepts in marketing. Conversational Marketing, Permission Based Marketing and a Seth Godin’s new favourite, Leading a Tribe (which people are picking up now and calling Tribe Marketing). This type of marketing all begins with an authentic brand and story that are based on your values.

Realtor’s are always on when it comes to marketing. Anyone could be a future client. Why not just make your life easier and deal with people you choose, create a fan base and deal with all the residual business that naturally comes in as well.

Remember, with all things being equal people do business with people they click with. Even more importantly, with all things not being equal, people still do business with people they click with. So go out there and have real conversations online.

Don’t worry, you still use your regular email address. Only now you get the functionality of instant messaging, website integration, drag and drop photo sharing, community collaboration, website content writing, Twitter integration – oh and email too, but the list goes on.

It’s all based on HTML 5 which has become the standard for all modern web browsers which means it will not run on Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE) without plugins. That’s because Microsoft IE is not considered a modern web browser in most developer’s tribes.

Ambitious as hell. The demo at the Google I/0 ended with a standing ovation.

I have not done it justice trying to explain what Google Wave is here. The best explanation I have found, which I encourage you to read, is here. Register to be the first to sign up here.

I sent an email to their appeals email address. It’s been about 18 hours and I have not heard a thing.

I don’t use Facebook for much but I use it a lot. Everything I connect to online feeds into my facebook account. This blog for instance, my meetup groups, twitter: it all feeds Facebook and there many friends commenting on what I’m doing. I seem to be using Facebook for it’s intended purpose of social networking so why this sudden death of my account without warning?

It makes me look at a lot of social networking companies with a lot of suspicion. What if I built up a business network of customers and associates on Twitter to find it all gone one day?

For now I have this blog. Even though the design isn’t finished I’m going to have to use it to keep those who care updated.