Zoomf Blog - UK Property Blog

Anyone who was working on the internet back in 2000 will remember the height of the browser wars between Internet Explorer and Netscape. Netscape died a quick death once Bill Gates got serious and Microsoft owned the browser for the next 6 years.

Then came Firefox from the Mozilla Foundation in 2006. With the re-birth of Apple, Steve Jobs and Safari, entered the game.

So who has just launched a new open-source browser? You guessed it, Google has and it’s called Chrome.

It is a significant entry into the market and something everyone will be watching. The NYTimes has a good overview of the implications, but if you’re on a Windows PC, go try it yourself.

Overall this will be a good thing for end users as browser security, privacy and render speed will evolve faster due to the competition for Internet Explorer’s last 7 years of dominance. Let the war begin anew!

Asda has launched a property portal-like advertising service. Similar to the Tesco’s attempt less than a year ago, Asda seems to think this is a great ‘new’ idea.

For different monthly fee’s, you get the following:

1. “access” to 1.5 millions users to asda.com.
2. Ads in Kiosks in 345 stores which is “seen” by 36,000 customers per week.

So the real question is whether or not people looking to do their shopping online can be distracted to look at property lists. Then the other question is whether a nice snappy kiosk in the Asda store is enticing enough for me to stop in and browse property listings while I fight for fresh milk.

Hopefully Sainsbury’s will get in on the game soon by launching property listings for hot air balloons. Imagine the audience reach of that balloon !

Estate Agent Today is running an interesting poll on property portals. Results to date -

• 76% will leave Rightmove while 24% will renew when current contract expires. (ouch)
• Property Live has a 24% of the vote. Not bad for a website that has yet to go live.

Click here to have your say.

Gordon Brown’s government has announced the it is ax’ing the stamp duty on properties less than 175,000 gbp in hope of reviving the property market. London estate agent, Winkworths, wonders if this will have any effect in London or mostly be a boost in the provincial market. Read all about it here.

Big brands are quickly coming up to speed with how to manage their reputations online. For an example of this, have a read of the reputation comparisons between BA and Virgin Atlantic.

According to Wikipedia, the definition of reputation management is as follows -

Reputation management is the process of tracking an entity’s actions and other opinions about those actions; reporting on those actions and opinions; and reacting to that report creating a feedback loop.

In regular speak, this means it is important to know what is being said about your brand, who is saying it and being able to defend yourself. In 2008, this is becoming more important for all the following reasons -

1. Today’s web is a read, write, and comment environment. Everyone can contribute and comment online about any topic including property. The easier it becomes to contribute, the more you are going to hear the voices of the masses when it comes to working with you.
2. Offline reputation for agents is very bad, that’s a given. With the property crunch you’ve got lots of people secretly thinking that the industry is getting it’s just rewards. This offline reputation will soon spill over into online world if not already.

So what can you do to prevent a bad reputation starting to creep into your online property brand? Here is the Zoomf 3-step strategy to getting your protection in place :

1. The first step is learning. Understanding what it means to protect yourself and what tools are available will help your efforts to stem any bad publicity. This article is a good start.
   
2. Google Alerts. Setup (free) Google Alerts for your brand name. Google will make sure to send you (via email) anywhere it finds your brand name on the web. After a month you’ll have a good idea about what is being said.
3. Get involved. Probably the hardest part. You need to be pro-active and participate in discussions. Comment on articles, start blogs, respond to questions on Yahoo Answers and Linkedin. The opportunities are out there if you seize them.

Good luck with getting started!

The Zoomf blog is going thru a spectacular growth curve this past 5 months as seen in our tracking chart from Feedburner.

Not that we should be using our own blog to do self-congratulatory diatribes, but it’s great to know that our thoughts, views and rants are being read and distributed to the property and technology masses. And if you’re really clever you’ll notice I didn’t include the exact numbers of blog readership as we don’t want to release that data just yet

We’re even on top for ‘uk property blog’ in the mighty Google along with our friends Nestoria and Rat and Mouse. The power of blogging as a channel to speak to your audience. Can’t say it enough.

One of the most interesting areas of property online is the mapping functionality. If you’re looking for places to buy or let, you always want to see the location on a map. This gives you a basis for where the property is located in relation to transport, greenery, schools and anything else that the map provider provided.  With the launch of Internet Explorer 8, the mapping will be part of the user experience. This means that when the browser detects an address on any web-page, it will attempt to map the address automatically. This small innovation should begin to put an end to one of the most inefficient processes on the internet - having to always go to a map site, type in the address, and look at the map. This should provide more innovation opportunities for everyone, including agents, the property software guys and the portals.