In my last post on the public MLS site panel discussion, the panelists seemed to agree that IDX programs don’t conflict with a public MLS site. The more I think about this issue, though, the more I think they do conflict or involve a “fork in the road” that needs to be illuminated before choosing one or other or to build a new road that combines the two. Put simply:
As Brian Larson says during the video, there is a fork in the road here. Perhaps new roads will be built that create the best of both worlds, but, today, the difference between IDX and public facing sites remains distinct and choosing both creates the potential for conflicting policies. I think the difference between these policies is highlighted well by Duane Sauke’s refusal to weep for buy-side brokers who get to use his listings on IDX sites.
Some time ago, I wrote this in a post called Listings, Leads and Losers, Oh My!:
IDX was a great idea. Larry Cragun and Kris Berg have it right, the agents should be delivering the listing information to the consumer. Importantly, this argument should not be confused with those who think agents make a living simply by hording the listing information. I seriously doubt that ever worked as a long term business model, but, if it did, there is no question that such a model won’t survive today. No, what I’m suggesting (and what I think Larry and Kris are suggesting) is that the agent is on the front lines and there should be as little friction as possible between them and their potential clients. Isn’t that what the web revolution is all about, efficiency, knowledge, and power to individuals? That was the promise of IDX and I think it can still be brought to fruition.
Here’s how we can revive IDX. Brokers and agents should be allowed to put all the listing information on their web sites. The IDX data set should be complete (which should get the DOJ off the NAR’s back) and brokers should be assured that someone else isn’t going to sell leads from their data (this is called compromise). Once data standards are established, promising a strong and comprehensive data product from brokers and agents to consumers, NAR should create and heavily promote a branding and logo program for legitimate IDX sites so consumers can have confidence they are seeing everything. (No, I’m not crazy, this is a really good idea, if you pause to think about it. See, the NYSE and NASDAQ for examples.) Consumers should be able to shop till they drop, without being bothered, until they’re ready to engage. But, when they are ready to engage, they should be one click away from the agent who is going to serve them. Getting funneled through lead site after lead site before getting to the agent is not efficient and is not consumer-friendly.
This post was the genesis for my question of whether a public facing MLS site conflicts with IDX programs. Put another way, is branding IDX a better investment for members in an MLS than branding a public facing MLS site? Is there enough budget to do both well? What is the market impact of one versus the other? Which would members prefer? I didn’t put all of these questions to the panel, but I think the responses are valuable on the main point.
The first question I posed during our panel discussion on public facing MLS sites is a variant on the classic “level the playing field” issue and whether public facing MLS sites benefit big brokers, small brokers, both or neither. Victor Lund starts off the discussion suggesting that public facing MLS sites would benefit big brokers more, because, having more of the listings, they would get more of the leads or traffic. Duane Sauke, the broker on the panel, said that, if it is true that big brokers would benefit more, then they’ll still not want an MLS web site because they’ll want to own the space entirely.
Brian Larson then follows that up with his mantra throughout the panel discussion, which can be paraphrased as “show me the data.” Lastly, Brian suggests that MLS web sites have the possibility of dampening competition by “treating everyone equal” and puts forward Zip Realty as a new web competitor that has succeeded but may not have if it was competing against a public facing MLS site. Combining Brian’s observations, I wonder what the data shows about Zip Realty in Houston?
What do you think? Do public facing MLS sites benefit big or small brokers more? Or neither? Or both proportionally? Following Alex Chang’s suggestion that the answer depends on how the site is constructed, how does IDX fall into the mix?
P.S. Isn’t the ablity to deep link into a Viddler video awesome?
A week or so ago, we held our annual FBS Summit and hosted a panel of speakers on the pros and cons of MLSs creating and promoting consumer facing listing sites. We recorded the sessions and now have the videos uploaded for public viewing. We had to break the nearly two hours of video into many small parts and the easiest way to show them all is with the links below. Over the next week or two, I’ll be writing some posts with additional commentary on some of the videos and embedding them at that time but if you want the full experience just click through the following links.
Question 1 – Do MLS sites favor big brokers, small brokers, both or neither?
Question 2 – Is an MLS site in conflict with IDX?
Question 3 – If an MLS has a public facing site, what are the best ways to drive traffic to brokers? (Pass through versus destination.)
Question 4 – Are leads from a listing search good leads given dual agency? How do consumers choose an agent?
Question 5 – Is promoting an MLS brand in conflict with the brokers’ efforts to promote their own brands? Is advertising by the MLS in conflict with the advertising of the brokers?
Question 6 – Should an MLS spend member dollars on advertising a portal?
Question 7 – How would the branding efforts of a site like Roost compare to what an MLS could or should do?
Question 8 – Can an MLS promote the REALTOR brand and the MLS web site at the same time?
Question 9 How can MLSs help train agents to respond better to consumers? Is that the role of the MLS?
I’m really happy about the nomination from Inman, and hope it brings more attention to the issues we care about, especially real estate data standards and the future of MLS. Relevant to both of these issues, we should be posting some interesting videos from our panel last week on public-facing MLS-sponsored listing search sites.
This week is known as “Summit Week” around FBS, because we’re hosting a bunch of our MLS clients for several days for our FBS Summit. We’re usually running around like crazy the few days before but this year has come together pretty smoothly, so far, and so I thought I’d take a few minutes to write a post that’s been rattling around in my head since I finished reading Wikinomics a week or so ago.
The main theme of Wikinomics centers on “mass collaboration,” or the idea expressed in Bill Joy’s (co-founder of Sun Microsystems) often-quoted statement that “innovation happens elsewhere,” because no matter how smart you and others at your company are there are always more smart people elsewhere. There are two off-shoots of this premise: (1) companies today need to make their products customizable by the consumer (e.g., application programming interfaces (APIs), use of standards, open source); and (2) companies should focus on their core competence and out-source or out-collaborate with others on non-core products.
Considering these ideas right before our client Summit is particularly valuable for me because the Summit is and has been a platform for our strategic thinking at FBS for the last decade or so. We’re trying to engage our customers on both the big picture industry trends we see and also learn from them where they see the industry going and how they hope we respond to help them navigate through the changes to better serve their members. In this regard, we are engaging in mass collaboration. In fact, I think one of our strengths as a company is listening to our customers and isolating what’s most important.
This latter point often requires significant choices. We cannot make every change every customer wants. We have to choose the projects we believe will have the most benefit for the most users. We call this process Net Results, always trying to remember that we’re helping our customers sell more real estate. The point of Wikinomics, however, is that by developing products in an open and collaborative way, the choices can be expanded beyond the limited resources of any one organization. Put another way, the role of the organization is to organize, but what needs organization today is not just inside the company but also outside it.
The theory that great ideas can come from outside just as likely as inside is one of the reasons FBS has engaged in the RETS/RESO process, hopefully to create standards around which innovation can occur on an industry scale. We also hope to augment those efforts with our own APIs to enable more mass customization of our specific systems. The idea that you can’t do it all and that others want control over their own systems while leveraging yours makes perfect sense to me. There simply are too many examples today of the open web driving hyper innovation to ignore.
At the same time, balance is required. FBS’s core competency (how we add value) is providing excellent response to our customers’ needs. One of the reasons we’re so good at this is because we control our code and our support team works closely with our development team to ensure prompt and effective responses. This is what I mean by “defining customer support” in the title of this post. When many hear the words “customer support” they think of the folks answering the phone. Certainly, that human interface is critical and our team is the best. At the same time, when it comes to new feature requests or bug fixes, access to the developers is equally critical and often the difference between a satisfied and unsatisfied customer response. The more a firm outsources and ends up with code outside their control, the more difficult supporting customers becomes. And when supporting your customers is your core competence, having control of your code (building in-house) becomes a strategic imperative.
The most prominent example of this balancing act is Apple. Traditionally, Apple has created closed systems they tightly control to ensure the end-user experience is up to their expectations. They control the entire stack, from the hardware to the software and everything in between. In many ways, Apple has been the poster-child of what the Wikinomics authors decry when they state in their conclusion that “the monolithic, self-contained, inwardly focused corporation is dying.” And yet Apple has been terrifically successful with just this approach with the iPod, iPhone and Macs over the last many years, earning unwavering loyalty from their customers.
But there’s more to the story. Just yesterday, Apple announced the opening of their API for the iPhone to outside developers. This is a significant change in philosophy for Apple and is further evidence of the unstoppable trend toward mass collaboration. Turning inward again, however, Apple is putting some pretty tight reins on the developer program, trying to balance the quality of the applications against open development, by providing robust tools for testing and debugging the code.
This sort of balance is exactly where FBS needs to head in its development. Our customers expect both rapid innovation and excellent support. We need to build core systems on which our customers and their developers can innovate. I think this same balance should be considered by MLS organizations themselves. There is a very real trend in MLS system development and deployment today where separation of the back-end (database) from the front-end (user interface) is being advocated on the theory that the core competence for the MLS is the data and the rest should be left to outside innovation. This often is called the front-end of choice.
In theory, front-end of choice is a great idea — the MLS should be focused on data quality and data access and open development of the user-interface to broad competition to foster innovation. At the same time, like FBS, MLSs add value by supporting their customers and having many front-ends nearly forces them to outsource that support to the many different companies providing the front-ends. When MLS members have problems, they expect answers, not being routed from one vendor to the next with all pointing fingers at each other. Organizing the many different efforts and the quality of the applications becomes critical, just as it is for Apple.
The conclusion here is that balance is required. The organizations that succeed in the coming years will be those that develop open applications while maintaining high levels of support for their customers. This is a big challenge and one we aim to meet.
There’s an interesting article in the NY Times today about Google. Some of the highlights for me:
That Google measures everything isn’t too surprising, but that Chinese New Year and Mardi Gras show up as factors is. Also, that real estate searches are less than before isn’t too surprising, but that Google charges more for “lower-quality” ads is. I wonder what the quality score is of many real estate ads? I agree with the article that Google should be more transparent about what “quality” means and that could be a win-win for everyone.
