What is a listing?

It struck me the other day when reading a comment from a reader to the various articles regarding the reaction by the real estate industry to Trade Me Property new pricing structure for property, that part of the problem is in someways the words we use and the connotation they infer, borne of age-old experience.

Think about it for a moment, the heart of the discussion is around the notion of the cost / value of a listing. But what is a listing?

So much of our approach to this issue is governed by our old-media thinking. Newspapers still instruct our frame of reference. A listing in a newspaper was governed by column inches. Simply a list of articles for sale (in this case a house). Page after page of the newspaper were full of 'listings' - probably given the 6 column structure of newspapers you would have close on 100 house listings on a page. Such layout in simple black newsprint text could do nothing to provide more than the bare facts - suburb, size, features (though limited) and contact details or open home details. 

As such this basic listing, charged on a per inch basis was never expected to be significant as a true 'advert' for the property, it was simply a inclusion in a stock list. To achieve impact and draw attention of buyers it was necessary to pay for advertising in the form of 1/4 page 1/2 page or full page adverts with photos. In rough terms of cost a listing might cost $30 and full page advert $1,000.

So the use of the word 'listing' in the context of the web is entirely misleading for the costs of a 'listing on Trade Me Property' today costs upwards of $399 but delivers more than the $1,000 full page advert of old. Full colour images, comprehensive details, maps and social insight, contact details and contextual data. Not to forget that the advert is targeted to all property buyers and is seen by an audience of over 100,000 a day - challenge to any newspapers audience at the height of their era. It is also significantly important to remember that the advertising for the property is active 24hrs a day to a global audience until sold - the listing in the newspaper was classically there on Saturday and in the trash by Sunday morning.

So whilst somewhat over simplifying the situation - if we thought of a 'listing' on a website as an advertising feature or a webpage advert we might redefine our frame of reference and squabble less over the price of a listing and think more of the value of the advertising.

Interestingly though, now with over a third of viewing of property on mobile devices we should stake a new term entirely. How about a properties "Digital Profile". In that way you can pay $399 for the digital profile on Trade Me Property and then choose to do an enhanced Feature advert or Super Feature advert upgrade, which is interestingly not 30 times the cost of the old newspaper listing - why? because the basic "Digital Profile" delivers so much more advertising value!.

Why I love the internet

The truth is, this post is not trying to 'boil the ocean' to fully articulate why I love the internet - that would take pages and pages and I might end up boring you with all the great advances, services and experience we take for granted today that we never thought possible just a few years ago.

The truth is this article is in celebration of a friend of mine (I call him a friend as by virtue of the web, I follow him - although we have not met for many year, we worked together briefly a decade ago). He - being Richard Westney, otherwise known by his twitter handle of @HRmanNZ as you might infer is a professional HR Manager. His twitter profile states 'trying to raise the HR/Recruitment bar' thorough the use of social media.

I share a kindred spirit with Richard as my modest ambition is, in a somewhat parallel way, trying to raise the bar on real estate from both the perspective of greater consumer understanding of the property market and from the industry perspective trying to create greater transparency around processes as well as to shine a light around efficiency and professionalism all empowered by digital technology. My impact may be small, but my ambition knows no bounds!

Richard writes an engaging blog called "Up the Down Escalator" in which he shares insights and opinions on the HR industry and all it's different guises and forms and is never shy in expressing his opinion. This 'platform' is what I love about the internet and what I love about the freedom and efficiency of being able to 'publish' thoughts, insights, opinions and even musings on matters that are a trigger to wider issues, everyday issues and challenging issues - having them able to be found by everyone who has a desire to read and comment on them in an open manner - all for less than the cost of a meal per year (if you exclude the cost of time taken to write). I feel an overriding desire to thank Google for without Google we would always be the poorer for not being able to be able to find such inspiration and thereby allow those who wish to have a voice to be heard and respected.

Richard recently posted an article titled appropriately "The 12 blogs of Christmas - my gift to you!" in which he has collated and curated 12 other practitioners within the HR industry to share his platform to communicate their thoughts to a wider audience, as he says people who in some cases do publish on their own site or not but who benefit from the aggregated audience platform that Richard has created around his very specialised area of interest which is HR.

My specialised are of interest is property and the real estate industry and I would welcome anyone from that industry to share their thoughts and opinions and I will gladly provide for them a platform to share their views with a wider audience at this time of year - a time for giving. Drop me a line or post your thoughts as a comment on this article.

The internet is the democratisation of communication, in a world becoming paranoid by fears of spying and interception of data we should not allow our paranoid fears blame the internet, the internet is a great asset. The internet does not spy on us - governments and organisations are the agents of such actions - justified or otherwise - yes we fear invasion of privacy but humans have grappled with just such challenges for centuries. More than a hundred years ago with the invention of the camera and recorded film people were wary of the loss of privacy, again in the later decades with the invention of audio recording and latterly video recording just such concerned were again aired. Each time people established new processes and behaviour that not only dealt with the issues but benefited from the innovation. It is called progress and it seldom happens without some cost.

I am pleased to be living in this era and able to take advantage of the opportunity of the internet, how it has enabled us to communicate in an open manner, to foster innovation as the internet knows no boundaries and no politics, it is at its heart a sharing ecosystem; computer to computer, person to person, object to object - owned by no one, company or government yet maintained by us all for the common good - an ideal, certainly, but one we have achieved in lightening speed that can only accelerate.

I value the opportunity to be able to share my thoughts, opinions, insights and views and just like Richard and many other specialists in this country and internationally I think we all benefit from the collective contribution. My congratulations to Richard on his platform and community, here's to many more such people.