Meteors and MySpace

Punctuated equilibrium is a theory of evolutionary biology that accounts for leaps in evolution (as opposed to very gradual change). "Species evolve slowly but once in awhile (there is) a huge event like a meteor drops into the ocean and everything changes" -- often in unexpected ways, said Barry Parr, a media analyst for Jupiter Research.

Parr, who spoke Wednesday during a local-search Internet conference in Silicon Valley, said he can't predict when the next "meteor" strike will prompt change in the way people search for local information online, though he predicted that the impact will be ... unpredictable. "Making assumptions about what it's going to look like in the next five years based on what's happened in the last five years is always a mistake."

Greg Sterling, founder of the Sterling Market Intelligence consulting firm, noted that the rise of MySpace and Google are among the examples of meteoric, radical-change events on the Internet.

Searches for local information are not a perfect science on the Web, nor are they likely to be, Parr said. "We're not going to be able to systematize it ... really what we're talking about are people's lives. It's sloppy, it's messy, it's confusing, it's turbulent. There's no Web page for it. You can't contain this in a page."

Even so, folks are spending a lot of time, energy and money trying to figure out this whole local-search thing -- and trying to be the next meteor. The direction and pace of this is important to the real estate industry, as real estate professionals are the feet on the street in neighborhoods across America. Location, location ... you know the rest.

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