All right, let’s call this a beta launch…
We’ll do a true soft-launch shortly, then work toward a go-live soon after that, at which point this post will go away.
For now, we need a lot:
1. Blog entries appropriate to the site: Historic/distinctive/mid-century posts: news/homes/neighborhoods/architects, etc. Books to recommend, better yet book reviews as blog entries. Web site recommendations, also best as blog entries. If you’ve never done a weblog entry before, relax: The style of blogging is intimate, confidential, low-stress. The first editor I ever had said, “You write like you’re writing a letter to your sister.” But exactly! That’s what works with real live people.
3. Links in general: Web sites, books. The books in the sidebar are exemplars. If you think something else should be there, say so.
4. Content. Of the eight internal pages in the sidebar, one is kinda-sorta done at this writing. If you want to suggest content for the others, jump in in the comments fields of those pages. I’d love it if you took the photos or dug up the info for a Distinctive Neighborhoods page.
5. Bugs! Report unexpected behavior, typos, bad grammar/logic. If something seems wrong, speak up. Ain’t nobody here but us chickens for now.
etc.
We have software coming for the “Show us your house” and “Featured listings” pages, but it ain’t ready yet.
Bloodhound owns this, of course, by the Henny Penny Law, and we are asserting a blanket copyright over everything. With respect to the former, we want to be brokerage-neutral, so other than the copyright notice, we will draw attention to ourselves in only those ways available to other agents/brokers–by our contributions. With respect to copyright, all we’re doing is effecting a common defense. If you acquired something by mixing your labor with it–the John Locke standard–it’s yours. We’ll help you defend it if that proves necessary.
Ultimately, the user community will establish the modus vivendi of this site, but from a Realtors’ point of view, we have an opportunity to promote, educate and grow the marketplace. Everyone else will get satisfaction from their efforts. You will have the opportunity to get paid as a consequence of the work you do.
At the meta level, we’re playing with a lot of Web 2.0 ideas–community participation, wisdom-of-crowds, viral marketing, etc. We’ll be doing more of that stuff as we progress. In the long run, survival for traditional Realtors will come down to findability. Our true competition — national RealtyBots — will be eminently findable. A site like this permits each of us to emphasize precisely those strengths absent from disintermediated business models–all to a steady, stable, self-selected population of volunteer reader/contributors, all of whom are already interested in our product.
If you had the link from me by email, you’re welcome to work. If you don’t wanna, you don’t gotta, but the further and faster we move the ball down the field now, the better the results should be for everyone.
Best,
Greg Swann
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Greg…. you will, without question, revolutionize the real estate business.
Love the website for my new place. Now that’s service. Insane, a bit, but service nonetheless. Get yourself a Massachusetts license and you can sell the place when I’m done.
Thanks, Ronan. We’re blessed to have friends like you and Richard Riccelli, who help us at absolutely everything we do.
Feel free to contribute here. You have incredible insights into what makes a Phoenix home work, even though you’re no longer a Phoenician.
You can see an example of a stand-alone page, as for Neighborhoods, Featured Listings or Show Us Your House houses by going here:
http://distinctivephoenix.com/Neighboring%20Homes/
I’m not happy with the style sheet for these yet, but it’s close to what I want. The code is extremely economical, which helps with spiders.