In an interesting twist, the same week Twitter deemed itself to be less personal, it made people searches one of its main search features.

Remember MySpace? In an attempt to reinvigorate its image and membership, the site is unveiling a new look, with a major focus on news streams. It will be interesting to see if it can catch up to rivals, especially as numbers show that, since last year, membership has dropped 5 percentwhile Facebook membership has grown 50 percent. (Facebook is actually expected to announce its 500-millionth user– WOW!). Do you think MySpace really stands a chance?

In our industry, we are constantly on the go, driving to new homes around our area. If you have a tendency to get lost, check out Google’s “Send-To-Car” feature that lets users send destinations from Google Maps directly to their vehicles. The service is compatible with 20 car brands including BMW, Ford, Lincoln and Mercury. Don’t ever be late to an appointment again!

Within three weeks of posting her house on Facebook, a woman in Iowa accepted an offer. This just goes to show the power of the Web as a sales tool.

If you are planning to advertise soon, take a page out of About.com’s new campaign. In research, the site “found that consumers responded well to ads that helped them go from a ‘need’ to ‘accomplish’ state.” Think of how you can communicate problem solving in your ads. If you are developing a marketing campaign, check out Old Spice’s “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” campaign, a very innovative use of social media which has gone viral. The face of the campaign, former NFL-player Isaiah Mustafa, responds to consumer’s questions via video in almost real time. Can you integrate real-time responses into your efforts?

In closing, if you are planning any late-summer barbeques, check out Weber’s On the Grill iPad app for recipes, rubs, sauces and grilling tips. Enjoy!

Trulia.com reports that last month, sellers lowered asking prices on 22 percent of homes, totaling $26.7 billion. There may be many reasons why, but clearly the role of the real estate professional in pricing a home is growing evermore vital in a changing market.  This will only increase in the years to come as the Mortgage Bankers Association this week gave buyers and sellers another reason to move with a sense of urgency, saying they believe thirty-year fixed-rate mortgages will creep up to the high six percent range over the next two years.

In good news/bad news reports, the “State of the Nation’s Housing” study from Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies predicts household growth could approach 15 million from 2010 to 2020, thanks to the emergence of the echo-boom and baby-bust generations, if employment picks up.  However, the US Labor Department reported only 41,000 private sector jobs last month, this is only one-fifth of the April number.

In other news from Washington, in what has been dubbed the “the mother of all bailouts,” Fannie and Freddie have been de-listed from the NYSE.  These government sponsored enterprises, which own or guarantee almost 31 million home loans, will need at least $160 billion to be fixed and can spiral up to $1 trillion.  Even the “low end” of this estimate surpasses the amount spent on bailouts of American International Group, General Motors or Citigroup.

Lastly, if you have homebuyers considering a fixer-upper with limited funds to remodel it, look into the FHA 203(k) Loan. A variety of home repairs, from painting to room additions to kitchen remodeling, can all be financed with the loan.

To all dads, Happy Father’s Day!

Instead think of a triangle. What makes this shape special is that it’s three sides are all the same distance. I view the relationship between broker, agent and consumer like a triangle. In other words, equal.

The consumer is on the top and both brokers and agents should be focusing on meeting the consumer’s needs in the best way possible. At the base of the triangle is the broker at one side and the agent on the other. Both need to bring equal value to each other and both deserve to be rewarded for that value.

We saw this relationship get out of balance starting back in the late 90′s. With agent centric business models being adopted by brokerages, the agents kept more and more of the commission dollars. Brokers began offering fewer and fewer services and tools. However, agents expected certain things from their brokers and were often disappointed. The broker and the agent were in a bad marriage with each other. They shared the same house but had stopped communicating and started sleeping in separate bedrooms.

Then the market downturn hit. That combined with the emergence of technology and the changing needs of today’s consumer left the agent and the broker looking at each other agreeing that it was time to work things out.

And that leads us to today. The successful brokers and agents I see across the country have recommitted to each other. They have found a place where they are each offering a mutually beneficial value proposition and collectively as a team they are focusing on delivering exceptional real estate experiences to the consumer.

Brokers and agents are like parents who should be working together to provide the best possible environments for their kids (i.e. the consumer). Isn’t it time we worked as a team?

No wonder a room full of designers sat nervously while Marissa Mayer gave her presentation at AIGA’s national conference in Atlanta last weekend.  Marissa is the guardian of Google’s home page. He presentation was on design. And the data the supports Google design decisions. But must data drive every decision? At what point does creativity and inspiration factor into the mix. Read more from Fast Company here

From SearchEngineLand.com 8 Tips for Getting Your Facebook Fan Page Found in Facebook Search.

Calculated Risk delves into the uncertainty of the housing market and attempts to provide a an outlook which at the end of the report provides us with a very uncertain outlook. They cleverly titled their post The Uncertain Housing Outlook. All kidding aside their overview is filled with good facts that provide any real estate pro good sound bytes and facts when presenting their outlook to buyers and sellers.

As Joel explains, in this post “Augmented Reality (AR) is definitely one of the hot new mobile technologies right now.” The possibilities for search and decision support for real estate are now expanding as a result. Brokers, smartphone technology is the next frontier for real estate. Set budget for some R&D here. This is a chance to ride the front of a very cool, new wave in technology and consumer engagement.

Average Broker Commission Rate (ABCR) is the average percentage of commission collected on one side of a real estate transaction. Relatively small changes to ABCR can result in significant changes to Gross Commission Income (GCI) and profit.  In the example below, please note that the increase to ABCR is only .2%, yet the impact upon profit is an increase of $80,000. All other drivers (sides, ASP, % Retained etc.) have remained constant in the model, so the only characteristic manipulated is ABCR.

Each real estate organization must independently establish its own policies by creating listing parameters and holding agents accountable to performing to highly professional standards. Focusing on the following measurements will help assess ABCR performance and may provide an indication of consumers perception of service delivery.

• Study ABCR differences between agents within the same location. This may highlight those who are effectively communicating the company’s value proposition.
• Rank locations by ABCR. Is ABCR being driven up or down by specific regional factors? For those locations where patterns are inconsistent, seek to understand the factors the behind the phenomenon.
• Analyze listing data by measuring ABCR performance. Measure results with and without outliers such as one-time exceptions, new construction and referrals.

In short, measuring ABCR can present an accurate assessment of how consumers perceive organizational competency.  Consumers hire one real estate company over another based upon their perception of value delivered.  Certainly,  there should be an expectation that the service delivery will always meet and often even exceed those expectations.  Since consumers vote with their checkbooks, a quick study of ABCR could well be the best quality control survey available.