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 The National Association of REALTORS® has carefully considered how we can best support you, our members. NAR is here to assist you and your business with the Right Tools, Right Now.
Are you attending the Midyear Meetings in DC?
If so, check out the CRT technology resources & tools available to you during the meetings.
Connect with CRT
   
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| A Camping We Will Go |
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How better to gain insight, knowledge and understanding about what technology trends are affecting the Real Estate Industry than to meet with peers that are all submerged in the same situation as you? Well, the non-Real Estate Technology world has been been hosting such events since 2005, affectionately known as 'BarCamps'.
Although, if they were really camping trips, that would make for some really engaging times, they are however, more organized as unconferences; (a facilitated, participant-driven conference centered around a theme or purpose).
REBarCamp is an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos, and interaction from attendees. Obviously they are filling a need, as the momentum is definitely building, with at least 9 more REBarCamps scheduled throughout the rest of 2009.
Explaining what goes on at the REBarCamps is a little difficult, because everything and anything can happen. It is really just a meeting of the minds where current topics and trends are discussed. Where the first time participant or the knowledge-hungry attendee will walk away with their head in a daze of all the information they’ve gathered and the contacts they've made.
CRT and the National Association of REALTORS have been an active participant in these events since the first one in San Francisco in August 2008. Going forward, The National Assoication of REALTORS has also teamed up with REBarCamp to start planning one tentatively scheduled the day prior to NAR Annual in San Diego. I almost also forgot about the upcoming Chicago event on June 15th!!
Along with the upcoming August 4th REBarCamp during the next Inman Conference, a similar geek driven event is taking place. Inman ConnectTech will give CTO’s, developers, entrepreneurs and product managers an opportunity to explore innovation in a program tailored to geeks, not marketers. The Center for REALTOR Technology is excited to be a sponsor and participant of this event, and would love to take that opportunity to learn more about your technology needs and roadblocks.
Chris McKeever
cmckeever@realtors.org
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| Connections Matter - Midyear Meetings |
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The REALTORS® Midyear Legislative Meetings & Trade Expo is right around the corner! CRT is hosting a few things in DC…so add these to your agenda:
See you there!
Ana Schmitz
aschmitz@realtors.org
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| Social Web |
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Social websites are a great way to interact with friends and family, keep up with current events, or just kill some time. This is hardly news, but social websites are good for more than just these activities; they are also an effective way of keeping up with what’s happening on the World Wide Web.
What are social websites? They are sites that have at least one of these types of functionality: user-generated content, user editing, user voting, messaging between users, and user look-and-feel editing. New ways for users to interact are being developed daily, so this list is far from exhaustive.
Social websites come in a variety of flavors but they can roughly be broken into these categories: social networking, social news, and social bookmarking.
The first category, social networking, is the most well known. Sites in this category include Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, and many others. These sites are online communities where people form groups according to their interests and their offline relationships. User interaction occurs via instant messaging, which is a large part of social networking sites.
The second category, social news, is typified by the sites Reddit and Digg. These are sites where users post content in the form of links to traditional media sites, blogs, images, music and videos. Users can comment about submissions and vote for both comments and submissions. The number of up votes a submission receives combined with the number of comments about it determines its place on the site. Obviously, higher numbers make for better placement.
The last category, social bookmarking, is the easiest to describe. Bookmarking refers to the Bookmarks or Favorites option in a web browser. Social bookmarking simply takes that tool and allows users to share their bookmarks with others. These bookmarks can also be searched from the social bookmarking site, making such sites another kind web search. And the sites enable users to access their bookmarks from any computer. Some examples of these sites include Delicious, Simpy, and Blinklist.
So what else are social websites good for? They are a bright sign of things to come. Traditional forms of media will be around for a while yet, albeit with an increasingly smaller user base. Online, interactive, user-defined media is here to stay.
More importantly, making use of these sites will help users to stay abreast of Internet culture, learn web etiquette and make sense of Internet memes. As the next generation enters the workforce and consumer-market businesspeople will need to understand how they communicate, social websites are an excellent way to learn their language. For example, REALTORS® now have 20-somethings entering the real estate market, they will have an expectation of near real-time communications via texting, twitter, and social networking sites. Web etiquette, like real world etiquette, is best learned by doing. Interacting with others on these sites will teach people the proper way to address others on the web. This is becoming a real professional need as businesses use social media as a continually growing part of their customer support structure and marketing plans. It’s better to learn how to calm an irate person over the Web as part of your leisure activities than when business is on the line.
Social media is now a part of our culture. We use it to stay in touch with friends, network for business, and send amusing pictures. As our avenues for communications expand and become more complex, business people need to participate to stay in the game. For REALTORS®, becoming conversant with the social web will enable them to reach a larger audience and participate in the culture of many of their clients.
Ian Smith
ismith@realtors.org
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| Internet Security |
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A gentleman is at the airport, waiting for his flight to board. While seated at the gate, he decides to check his email. He takes out his laptop and boots it up. When he checks for wireless connections nearby, he finds a couple. He decides to connect to the one with a very strong signal, assuming that means that he’ll have the best connection. Then he goes about his business: reading emails, browsing the Internet, even doing a bit of online shopping. Shortly thereafter, the gentleman shuts down the laptop, boards his plane, and travels to his destination.
What the unsuspecting gentleman did not know and would not realize for some time was that, despite its legitimate appearance, the WiFi connection he used was actually a dubious, connection set up by a hacker. This particular hacker set up this WiFi access point with a deceptive name and strategically placed it in a location where quick connectivity is extremely important. That hacker can now sift through anything on our gentleman’s computer, including passwords, personal information, credit card numbers, and bank account information!
This story is entirely fictitious, although the concept is grounded in fact. And REALTORS® need to be especially wary. While using an unsecured wireless connection to hack into your personal information is fairly rare, wireless security is a serious issue for anyone who regularly does work outside of their office. For REALTORS®, the need for outside productivity necessitates better Internet security. And since REALTORS® are entrusted with the personal information of their clients on a daily basis, they have still more reason to exercise caution.
Are you wondering just how safe you are when using WiFi access points? Over the past few years there have been significant changes in the WiFi world; now anyone using these Internet connections must be both skeptical and careful. As someone who has set up and who monitors his own WiFi access point in my home, I can tell you that most of these kinds of connections are not very secure. In fact, as I sit here at my desk, I can find no less than fifteen unsecured wireless connections that could be used to steal information from any computer connected to them.
Moreover, the victims of such crimes are very vulnerable. When someone is a victim of identity theft over WiFi, they likely will not be aware that their information has been stolen until it is used illegally. Fortunately, there are steps you can take to reduce the risks.
So now you know to be wary of WiFi connections, what can you actually do about it?
Keep your computer clean
Even if you are not shopping on the Internet while unknowingly connected to a fake WiFi access point, any form data or information stored on your computer can be accessed by a hacker. A particularly gifted hacker may even be able to find personal information entered on your computer even if it is not stored information in your browser. The best way to counter hackers’ attempts to steal your information is to keep them from finding the information they seek. Any information that is sensitive should always be protected on your computer with encryption or at least password protection.
Be aware
If you find yourself in a hotel or café where you know the operating business charges for WiFi, don’t connect to an unsecured free access point. While only a very small fraction of WiFi access points are deceptive and while most people will never come across an access point that is less than reputable, be aware that unscrupulous hackers can use such access points to steal sensitive information from your computer.
Use WiFi access points cautiously
It’s probably not necessary to avoid all WiFi access points, but you can certainly be safer when using them. Knowing the source of the access point can help you ensure it hasn’t been set up by a hacker. But even if you know the source, avoid inputting sensitive information, which means avoiding personal banking, Internet shopping, or even reading emails while using WiFi connections. More often than not, I find that these tasks can probably wait until you are back on a trusted and secure Internet connection.
Turn off auto connect
Many laptops automatically connect to WiFi networks that have a strong, stable signal. Make sure you turn that option off. Your computer will not know the difference between a reliable WiFi source and one that only appears to be reliable. Forcing yourself to find the connection you will be using means that you can make sure you are choosing the right one.
Use a 3G connection
Most new notebooks have the option of connecting to 3G mobile phone networks. If your laptop has a 3G radio built in, you can buy a SIM card or simply sign up with a mobile provider. Also, most mobile phone providers offer USB or express card slot mobile Internet radios. Using a 3G connection is one of your best options if you can justify the monthly access fee. Because the data is coming from the cell towers and your provider, it not only offers the convenience of a constant connection, it eliminates the worry that your connection is not trustworthy.
While most mobile users will never deal with fake WiFi access points or hackers, the need for increased scrutiny is evident, and can be met by following these simple suggestions. And while some of my suggestions might seem overly cautious or impractical, I hope that this article encourages you to be more aware of the potential dangers when using WiFi access points.
Stay tuned for part two in our next quarterly newsletter.
Greg Stinton
gstinton@realtors.org
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| Twitter Trending |
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Ever since I started using Twitter, I have been interested in the kind of information that you can glean from the mass of tweets send people every day. Given the growing number of Twitter users (and sure to grow even more quickly, now that it has been adopted by the likes of Oprah), Twitter can be a great source of all kinds of information. Companies are using Twitter information to learn in real time what people think of their products, as reported in this NY Times article.
And there are many tools out there that can take Twitter data and turn it into valuable information you can use. One example is TweetStats. TweetStats gives basic information about trends on Twitter, what the hottest topics are right now, as well as information about a specific Twitter feed’s trends. Another, more humorous analyzer is Cursebird, which tracks the use of swearing on Twitter, and can give a Twitter user a swearing score from 0 (Lame) to 100 (George Carlin Wannabe).
Twitter’s search is a good place to start if you want to start tracking Twitter trends yourself. Just type in the search terms you wish to track and a results page will appear. Using a hash(#) tag can help your search for tweets relating to specific topics, for instance, if you want to see what people are saying about REALTORS, just search for ‘#realtor’ and see what the people are saying about REALTORS. Want to know how panicked or calm people are about swine flu, use a search for ‘#swineflu’ and watch take a look at the collective mood of the Twitter community. You can also use the advanced search feature to refine your search by criteria such as location, date and mood.
Another great tool is TweetDeck, a multi-platform Twitter client. Not only is it a great Twitter client for posting and reading the people you follow, it also allows you to create tabs based on Twitter searches, so you can see the results of several searches at once.
As increasing numbers of people use Twitter and as more and more people start digging into Twitter data, we will see some great tools that can make use of all that data. For instance, you could have a tool that tracks how people feel about the housing market in a given geographic area, or the popular reaction to a given news announcement over time. The best killer app for Twitter trending is likely to be something no one has even thought of yet.
Andrew Tillman
atillman@realtors.org
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Copyright© 2009, National Association of REALTORS®
About CRT
Questions? Send an email to info@crt.realtors.org
CRT Report Editor - Jeanne Tillman
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