This article from the International Journal of Design, gives a great overview of factors systems designers ought to account for when developing web-based services consumers use to create or co-develop products. As more services migrate to the “cloud”, user experience design is paramount to ensure customer satisfaction and loyalty. As examples of creative-driven web services [...]
Over the last year or so there’s been an ongoing and well-publicized debate between proponents and opponents of real estate property listing aggregators and whether brokerages have ceded too much “control” over the consumer relationship to these entities. In my mind this is a debate with no clear winner and no clear loser, as both [...]
This e-loyalty research paper helps clarify the roll of online customer service in creating customer loyalty (“e-loyalty”). The paper focuses on the Austrian mobile industry but the findings are applicable to many industries, including real estate. Two broad categories frame customer loyalty: customers who become your repeat purchasers and customers who become promoters of your brand. [...]
As you head into 2011, here are three sources to get your innovation game plan together: In the research paper, Collective Intelligence for Competitive Advantage: Crowdsourcing and Open Innovation, the author–a global transition manager at Nike Inc–conducts an exhaustive analysis of current research on the topic of leveraging crowdsourcing concepts and open innovation principles to [...]
http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2010/11/02/altimeter-report-social-commerce-how-brands-are-generating-revenue-by-lcecere/ http://www.briansolis.com/2010/11/the-rise-of-the-social-consumer http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/150/the-new-influentials.html http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.156.8795&rep=rep1&type=pdf This article on social media New Influentialshttp://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/150/the-new-influentials.html raises an interesting question regarding “incluence” on the social web: what’s the core driver of influence in the social web when it comes to commerce, a person, her community, or both? The article profiles six individuals who have variously used YouTube, corporate resources, quasi-anarchist [...]
This research paper focuses on the influence of word of mouth (WOM) on customers’ perception of service. It’s axiomatic that negative WOM can significantly impact brand reputation. Studying the effect of WOM on such perceptions, though, is another matter. And the research article delves into some interesting bits. First, customers’ perceived service value influences their [...]
Here’s an excellent article on the PR 2.0 blog about the new homepage design features Facebook will soon release. The article gives a reasoned analysis of the new Facebook feature-set as well as possible implications for brands, individuals, and services like Twitter and Friendfeed. What could be considered the Wall 2.0 or quite simply, a [...]
Digital Trends is a big topic and this post really goes through a substantive analysis of Edleman’s recent predictions. The digital train is tearing down the tracks and has no signs of slowing. Every industry is being reshaped by the expectation that everything should be digitized. Add digital hungry consumers with web devices, NetPCs, Kindles [...]
Here’s an interview about Twitter with a friend of mine who owns a manufacturing plant in Northwest Chicago. Of course, I was evangelizing the incredible value, benefits, and just awesome coolness of Twitter, but he was a little skeptical… I think Tom has good advice. It’s easy to get caught up in a Gartner hype [...]
What’s the value of a real estate firm’s or agent’s service? What actions justify a firm’s or agent’s fees? I’m contemplating these questions as I re-read “The Theatre and Its Double” written by Antonin Artaud, and some of what he says in his writing has a certain philosophical resonance with respect to the current state [...]
This post on real estate brokerage future and this one on hyper-local targeting are two excellent discussions about the strategic decisions real estate brokers will face over the next few years, especially with the technology side of the equation. I will focus on two salient points from these posts: (1) the ascendancy of broker power [...]
This Universal McCann study states that Blogs are a mainstream media world-wide and as a collective rival any traditional media The blogsphere is becoming increasingly participatory, now 184m bloggers world-wide And as recently referred to in my previous post on the long tail, the New York Times discusses the power of blogs for real [...]
This video, sourced from Bring the love back, beautifully illustrates the new dynamic–and power shift–between consumer and brand.
An e-Marketer recent report shows that moms are a major power on the Internet. Notice how FrontDoor.com leverages this fact. And this research article points out that women adopt e-Service loyalty programs at a higher rate if their enjoyment and perceived social presence of the site is high. Notably, the researchers point out that In [...]
Create value for the swarm. That is the overarching goal of a swarm business mindset. Swarm creativity embodies the passion that drives this goal, along with coolhunting as an adjunct exercise. Real estate, as an industry, seems well-poised to take advantage of swarm creativity. Nicholas G. Carr, of the Economist.com explains the basics of swarm [...]
In 2004, Inman News profiled e-mortgage processes. In the ensuing years, paperless mortgage processes have improved but have yet to achieve wide agent adoption rates, as do many other real estate technology initiatives (e.g., real estate ecommerce centers). Could this be a classic example of the Technology Acceptance Model theories at work? ( Wiki definition [...]
Continuing the discussion from the McKinsey interview of Cammie Dunaway, she states [Yahoo!] is using behavioral data–really mining the wealth of transactional data we have about how people are spending their time online and trying to marry that data with attitudinal data…that’s where the most powerful insights can really come from. Insights into what? It [...]
Notes from my presentation on ROI at the recent Inman Real Estate Connect conference: Issue: What are the first steps real estate firms should take to get a handle on their data to enhance near-term and long-term ROI on this data? Since 80%+ of all originating real estate transactions begin on the Internet, firms should [...]