I guess the initial metrics will be increased sales for the real estate agency with which I’m affiliated. But if it truly takes off, I will probably have to hire some back-end programmers to build it into what I’m imagining. The nice thing about this city is it’s small (around 16,000 people, I think), so spreading the word isn’t all that hard. But, I’ll have a lot of questions to ask myself, and be able to answer, before that happens… Like, why use this site instead of a FSBO site (for sale by owner) or craigslist or trulia or zillow? If the site is to be interpreted as a place where you can get solid information and interact with trustworthy individuals within the industry, who’s going to be making that decision? me? lots of things to consider.

someone told me that i need to patent this or something, so someone else doesn’t steal the idea. i thought that was kind of funny – there are no shortage of ideas out there, and plenty of people have them but never take action, because action requires work. if someone DOES steal the idea and runs with it, i’m ok with that. i’ll just start working on the next project. i guess i have the mind of an artist.. my passions for ideas but not monetization will keep me a pauper. ah well!

Yeah, AC keeps me on my toes. But I hope I don’t get attacked for being a self-proclaimed ‘guru’, because I have never and will never say that. ‘Social media expert’ is overused to the point of being meaningless, and to waste the potential of this platform for marketing is sad.

I guess I could integrate LinkedIn w Twitter, but I don’t really want to tie myself into it. My goal isn’t to be a real estate agent, it’s to create a better platform for them to use. I’ll do a transaction here and there for people I know or via referral (being an unemployed grad student, every little bit of side money helps!), but my interests are broader than that. You’re right though, I have to think about where the people are looking and establish a presence there.

What’s your project?

It definitely takes time to hit that tipping point with Ning. I helped build the site in our city, and I just started a Ning community for New School students last semester… it has around 70 members, but I don’t think they know what to “do” yet. I need to get at least 5-10 students who will post regularly, whether it be a blog post, a comment in the forum, uploading some of their design work, etc, so that others catch on and follow suit. I was really invested in this blog and meeting people that that site got put on the back burner. But I think it’ll take off in 2010, mostly because there’s a niche to be filled. The students have no way to communicate with each other, and the students stick within their own schools (we have 8 schools – Parsons Design school, New School for Social Research, Milano NS for Mgmt and Urban Policy, etc). I think it would make sense for our relationships as students to be as interdisciplinary as the content that’s being taught within the schools.

As far as the real estate, I wonder if enough agents would buy into the system to start using it as an alternate to MLS listings, and start offering a better commission structure. Either it’ll work, or they’ll chase me out of town, lol.

Thanks! I wish we would have “met” sooner – my husband and I just were in Aruba over the summer on a belated honeymoon. Walking through the sand dunes by the lighthouse was like being in a movie, so beautiful!

I still think it will be worthwhile to give some thought to metrics – how will you know if it works? etc.

Venessa – I like this post. ‘Human’ in terms of the Real Estate market (they’re rent-seeking value-suckers in the UK too) could simply mean ‘more accountable’. Estate Agents hide behind their codes of practice to avoid moral censure and their weasel ways are simply a part of their ‘culture’.

And ‘zero sum’ is an accurate description of Real Estate agents too. (Incidentally, Amanda, dearest, honey, pudding, ‘transactional’ and ‘zero sum’ aren’t mutually exclusive terms.) Buying a house is stressful and Real Estate agents can add value. But they seem to work on a model of playing buyer off against seller (the zero sum part) and there must be a way of working out how to isolate the socially (and financially) valuable part of what they do. Good for you for trying.

Most of Amanda Chapel’s Tweets make me snigger. Like I say, I love her dearly. But occasionally, she loses it. This is when she starts asking those bitter, “How about you launch a cross-media platform marketing campaign in all world markets simultaneously before you start talking about yourself as a marketing 2.0 expert?” rhetorical questions.

It’s your life. Learn first then do it. Learn by doing. I really don’t see as it makes any difference to anybody but you. It’s fair enough for Amanda Chapel to set about the gurus with her barbs. Heaven knows, some of them need it. But I don’t think you do – not yet anyway.

Last thing: I’m doing something similar this year – similarly harmless, probably a bit naive, see you on the other side. People keep telling me you can’t just do the 3-prong approach. If you do one, you have to do them all. (It’s a network thing?) I don’t know about that, but if you use Tweetdeck or one of the other clients, you can integrate LinkedIn and Twitter fairly easily. It’s not necessarily any extra work – and I’d imagine your customers are more likely to be there than Twitter.