NAR Tech Guy Mark Lesswing Keynote
I met Mark Lesswing, NAR's chief tech evangelist, at a local Realtors Association tech fair today, where he was the keynote speaker. Mark is unique and well positioned at NAR - a tech guy - he codes 2-4 hours per day - who applies his knowledge to real estate.
Before his keynote in an empty room, we reviewed the famous Web 2.0 - The Machine is Using Us video... I thought it was going to a part of his talk, but both of us realize that XML, RSS and deli.cio.us would fly by agents' heads and Mark had no intention of showing it. Instead he delivered a fine keynote addressing the state of real estate technology. Here are few snippets:
- Net neutrality - internet should not favor certain servers and hosters that will create an unfair bandwidth hierarchy. Realtors running independent websites would especially be vulnerable.
- Patent reform - open source and copyright are the way. We don't want innovation to be hampered by patents that can applied for litigation purposes. Mark mentions that there is a case of a tech company suing a mapping company over breach of patent and wants to charge license fees of up to $10,000 per user site.
- Creation of real estate transaction standards (RETS) allows standardization of listings from multiple MLS systems. Data silo fragmentation drives up costs.
- MLS gateways - combination but not merger of multiple MLS systems
Mark explains the differences between Web 1.0 - click on the page and the whole page change, and Web 2.0 - like a TV, content appears from various sources. An example of a Web 2.0 mashup being developed by NAR is a widget. Up to now, the consumer is bombarded by Realtors, the loudest and most aggressive tends to win. The new paradigm is to watch/listen to the consumer and figure out his/her intentions.
Technorati Tags: mark lesswing, nar, net neutrality, mls, web 2.0, real estate 2.0
I had planned to attend, then was supposed to be out of town, then wasn't - but went to the Valley Marketing Association meeting on Friday.
I had reservations about the quality of presentations, but it sounds like i missed at least one good talk.
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