I caught this on boingboing this morning:
It’s kinda funny. But it also reminded me that newspapers, now on the precipice of oblivion, were actually pretty quick to jump on the Internet. This piece is but one example. Newspapers were logging into (albeit proprietary) networks years before the 1990′s boom. Early newspaper website efforts like Mercury Center and, later, networks like RealCities, were online early in the game.
But newspapers are nonetheless in dire straights today. Sure, craigslist was a withering blow, but I think there’s more to it than that.
I think newspapers, like the real estate brokerage business, tended to approach innovation in a “same thing, different place” manner – meaning structure of the business, and its culture, remained the same even amid significant moves to embrace new media.
So, today, a newspaper can have a great website, yet still have a newsroom full of journalists from journalism schools that prepared them for a world that no longer exists. It can build significant online readership, but fail to effectively monetize it for fear of cannibalizing what remains of its legacy business.
This is starting to change, but it may be too late.
Think about this in terms of real estate. Is a great website going to save a brokerage unless its structure and culture changes? Can its (independent) workforce be expected to help drive change when they are almost congenitally wired not to?
I have more questions than answers at this point. But the newspaper case seems to suggest that if the real estate brokerage business is to survive, deeper, more structural change — executed now — is in order.
What do you think?
– Brian Boero
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I so agree with you Brian. It is not just the Brokerages but changing organized Real Estate is a slow job. By the time the old guard realizes it, the game has shifted again. I give you lots of credit for having the energy to pull us all along…It is a daunting task, I know.
There was a time when newspapers controlled their future in regard to the internet. However, I believe the have gone over the edge and it will take a miracle for them to recover.
Aloha,
Keahi
PS-can you say "buggy whips"?
Brian,
This was pretty funny. I don't think any of us know exactly where the real estate brokerage is going to end up. But those that guess right will make a lot of money!
It reminds me of kids coming out of college with computer degrees in the mid 90s. They could program all the dead languages very well, but were clueless on what was needed in todays workplace.
A lot of brokerages continue to operate under the belief that they can and will forever control the data – to their clients' and the customers' disservice.
They're the same ones who in 1988 were saying that computers wouldn't change how they did business. And in 1995 said that the internet wouldn't catch on.
You can change the format, but if the foundation and infrastructure are built on sand …
With regards to real estate brokerage/profession – what are those structural changes that must happen – now?
- Compensation structure
- Release the data so that its core (address/history/etc) is true, but allow it to be mashed-up.
- Agency and representation
For starters
Jim -
Regarding compensation: What is it you propose, specifically?
Brian
Brian -
At least three ways –
1) Show clients what they're paying for
2) Divorce commissions so that actual client actually pays for services rendered.
3) Focus on service, not commission.
"It can build significant online readership, but fail to effectively monetize it for fear of cannibalizing what remains of its legacy business"
Actually, they coult not have done this even if they wanted to. You simply can't replace analogue dollars with digital pennies. Also, the newspapers failed to embrace the "link" economy which was anithetical to the culture of traditional news (I own this content and I'm not going to share it with anyone), but most importantly they failed to harness to power of the network–a reason why Goolge has succeeded and newspapers are dying a slow death.
It is difficult to predict the outcome for now.
But one thing is for certain change is on the way.
¿where is the next bounce?
This question will be answered this year for certain, things need to evolve for the industry to survive, let us try to work something out and work on this "share economy".
Brian,
This was pretty funny. I don't think any of us know exactly where the real estate brokerage is going to end up. But those that guess right will make a lot of money!