Thanks to a comment on my About page, I thought to look into the dance going on between CoStar and Reis. It’s fascinating stuff, actually. If the story weren’t being told through boring press releases, SEC filings, and dated news clippings, it might make for a great opera, full of passion and melodrama. As a … Read more
(Management suggests you click play while you read this post.) So while just browsing around looking for info (because I wanted to respond to something Alan Bernier of Rofo.com posted), I found something rather interesting: We believe we are the leading online marketplace for commercial real estate in the United States, based on the number … Read more
Joe Ferrara asks whether listings are like airline tickets in his post about American Airlines pulling its ticket listings from Kayak: Are home listings like airline tickets to be freely given by listing brokers and agents to any and all third party listing sites? Do listing brokers have any reason to complain so long as … Read more
Joe Ferrara asks whether listings are like airline tickets in his post about American Airlines pulling its ticket listings from Kayak: Are home listings like airline tickets to be freely given by listing brokers and agents to any and all third party listing sites? Do listing brokers have any reason to complain so long as … Read more
My friend John is moving from Cambridge, MA to some tiny little town on the Illinois/Iowa border whose name I can’t remember — possibly because I don’t believe he ever told me. The move is on account of his academic wife getting a job at the local college — and seriously, if you think you’ve … Read more
Thanks to Pat Kitano, I saw the cute YouTube ad that San Francisco based Rofo.com produced. Pat already discussed the video itself, and how it shows that smart, creative people can product TV-quality advertising on a fraction of the budget. I agree with him on all points there. All I want to do is wish … Read more
The latest Pew Internet & American Life Project survey on search engine usage has been released (PDF). (H/T: Joe Ferrara) I think they provide an invaluable service in terms of gathering the data. But their analysis ah… leaves much to be desired. To wit: WHY ARE MORE INTERNET USERS NOW INTEGRATING SEARCH INTO THEIR ONLINE … Read more
So let’s say that some brave soul out there has decided to gamble away his life at the urgings of a certain blogger who works for a certain data company in New York City. To him, I offer my deepest sympathies. But courage! If this works, please do remember to look down upon us peons … Read more
In Part 1 of this series, I put forth the notion that a real estate company built on the law firm model — rainmaking partners + salaried associates + support staff — could work. The main requirement is that there is some sort of a competitive advantage that arises from the structure of the partnership … Read more