Jan 14
As shared by Google's Sam Sebastian at the Inman Real Estate Connect conference just moments ago:
- Possible (rumored) purchase of Trulia: will not address specifically. Google wants to buy 2-3 nimble tech-focused companies per month. - Real estate is a big "query bucket" for Google. - Small agents, teams and brokers helped build Google business. Some bigger fish followed suit and packaged leads. - Mr. Sebastian's job is to talk to big brokerages - agents have always been innovative. - Google cuts deals with all the big brokers. - Agent can buy same program as CB or RE/Max can. "Democratized"
- Each brokerage has a different plan as to how to share leads with agents. - Several things they are focused on:
1. Continue to focus on data. Now listings are everywhere. Google.com/realestatetools <-- agent can upload their data directly to Google. 2. Continue to refine how users find the info. Examples (A)Recently brought maps into the database. A more seemless navigation; and (B) Place Pages: gives local merchant a place on Google. Listings now can point to Place Pages. The listings will grab Youtube videos as well. They will constantly tweak the interface to make it better for the user. - Mobile and geo-based applications will be huge for Real Estate. We all have some sort of device, and folks will use them for search. - Nexus One Phone: trying to solve the problem of having good device, bad service or vice versa. Unlike iPhone, this is launching a platform that they hope will explode. You can email Mr. Sebastian at
ssebastian@google.com.
