Smart Move For Yahoo?

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=az2NcGvp3sRk&refer=home

Although it makes you wonder why Yahoo/Overture couldn't capitalize since Overture practically invented the advertising scheme that Google uses. Perhaps it's because Google stayed so focused on search + ads for so long and became so good at it, plus their image captured the public's imagination more profoundly than Overture.

It will be interesting to see the enmeshment of Microsoft, Yahoo and Google, if it all comes to fruition. This type of competition/cooperation entanglement is fascinating -- it's almost like internationalism creeping toward globalism in the real world scene.

A Much Needed Get Away

Well, it's been fun, but in a couple of days I'll be back at it. The Master's was fun but I couldn't bring any pictures back since they don't allow cameras. I understand that rule -- it would be a distraction -- but for someone who has embraced technology, The Master's is a curious dinosaur, resisting technology and managing the leader board, and everything else visible, by hand. It's a quaint tradition, but it made me cringe everytime I saw someone sliding the latest information in and out of slots by hand. They also never release attendance information, but this year I'm going to Google to see if some smart person has come up with a method of good estimation. 

I left for Lake Hartwell after a full day at the tournament but never got around to fishing. My mother is in a nursing home there and it's where my brother lives, so I visited and took my mother out for a day on the town. I have an aversion to nursing homes, perhaps it's the fear factor of one day winding up in one. My mother was once a teacher and just as recently as 7 years ago, she wrote articles for a small newspaper where she lived in south Ga.

When I went by this morning to say goodbye before I left for Savannah, she was sitting in her chair writing. I noticed a long list of words in categories. I asked what she was writing and she said she was going through the alphabet to write down all the words she could think of for each letter. I thumbed through it and she had thousands of words written down.

She looked up, smiled and said -- "It keeps my mind alive." It simultaneously broke my heart and inspired me.

I'll keep on writing.

Azaleas, golf, on up to Hartwell Lake for a little fishing - I'll be gone for a few days

But I'll check in from rented spaces with WiFi. I'll be at The Masters for a few days then up to my brother's place for fishing.

Later,

M

Redfin Select: The balancing of service and price

Yes, this is a good move. The balancing act continues and I applaud Redfin for the move. For all the negative coverage they've received regarding service, it's likely they realize by now that service is the key to long term success.

I'm at the other end, thinking about price. Agents like me who cut their teeth on buyer agency have service running through our veins, so it's the first order of business. Yesterday I got a referral from a fellow who devotes all his time to referring home buyers to local agents experienced in buyer agency service. He actually started out with the same franchise I did, The Buyer Agent, out of Memphis, Tennessee. I told him that I now take listings on a limited basis -- he said he understood, given the difficulty of being an exclusive buyer agent in today's market, but he also said that anyone who worked 4 and a half years as an exclusive buyer agent never forgets, so he made the referral -- plus, there are no longer any exclusive buyer agents in Savannah.

Now, every large listing company in town advertises "buyer agent" service, but when I started under my broker, Jerry Robinson, in 1996, no listing company in town mentioned buyer agency and only a few knew what it meant. Times change. Jerry died of a heart attack and I started my own company.

We all have to change and adjust as the market changes. The balancing act of service and price is ongoing, whether through daily transactions of negotiated commissions, or the flat out, announced reduction in commissions.

I don't favor a mad rush to the bottom when it comes to being paid, but I believe a big challenge in RE is to get the price right, and to continue offering better, improved services. Flexibility in negotiating commissions has been a big step by traditional brokerages, and this might be the answer if enough brokerages truly become flexible and negotiate price according to the particular listing and what has to be done.

I still believe the Redfin model has a chance of slowly affecting the price and compensation structure if they continue to make changes and find the balance. If nothing else, it'll be interesting to watch.

Is Wikipedia Reliable? I Find Myself Using It More And More

When I first heard of Wikipedia, I had my doubts, but I'm beginning to believe it can work with constant oversight and corrections. I don't know if I would use it yet for a totally reliable source -- but as a base for information and a quick reference quide it's proven invaluable -- like a lot of the internet, you should always have salt available.

The incredible thing about it is the organic growth of information. It's amazing to watch it evolve.

Accuracy Disputes

One thing it does is challenge you to think and not take everything written as the gospel, to interactively challenge what's been written.