The California Department of Insurance has added a link on the home page of its Web site that, with a click of a mouse, takes consumers to an industry-sponsored title insurance rate shopping site -- bypassing the state's own, harder-to-find, but arguably more useful, rate comparison tool.

The last time I switched my auto insurance coverage, about six or seven years ago, I did so after stumbling on a rate comparison tool on the California Department of Insurance's Web site. I'd been with the same company for years, and ignored all those offers you get in the mail from other companies because I thought my carrier (one of those companies with a bunch of As in it) couldn't be beat.

The Department of Insurance search tool -- which surveys consumers on the actual rates they pay, but doesn't provide actual quotes -- suggested there were several auto insurers offering much better rates.

Another reason I'd never been that interested in shopping around was I'd heard horror stories about what a nightmare it could be to get the bargain basement insurers to pay a claim. One thing that was particularly useful about the Department of Insurance site was it provided performance and comparison data about each company, including complaints from consumers.

Turned out the cheapest company for my area also had one of the best track records on performance, so I switched. My wife and I saw our premiums go down by several hundred dollars a year and we have saved literally thousands of dollars on our auto insurance. We've had a couple of minor claims that were hassle free. I recommend this company to people all the time whether or not they've asked for my advice.

When I tried out the auto insurance search tool today, I got a list of 47 companies, with consumers reporting rates for a standard policy for a married couple with no violations ranging from $1,394 (my current insurer!) to $6,056. Our old insurer was charging couples in our area $2,852 a year.

The Department of Insurance offers a very similar search tool for title insurance. You choose your transaction type, county, and amount, and you get back a list of companies and what they might charge you (based on a 2006 survey of consumers). Plus you can click on a "company profile" link for company performance and complaint information -- and a phone number for getting an actual quote.

The industry now has its own title insurance rate shopping site, TitleWizard, which is operated by a private company on behalf of the California Land Title Association. Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner was on hand to publicize the site's launch Oct. 9, calling it "a first step to infuse competition into the Title insurance industry." And, it goes with out saying, a less painful first step than the $1 billion rate rollback proposed last year by Poizner's predecessor, John Garamendi.

The Department of Insurance not only endorses the site, but has taken the unusual step of linking to it on the home page of the department's official Web site. Clicking on "NEW! Compare title insurance rates" under "Highlights" takes visitors away from the Department of Insurance, to www.clta.titlewizard.com.

If you want to get to the Department of Insurance's title insurance rate comparison tool from the home page, you have to go to the "Consumer" drop down menu, select "Premium Comparisons" and then choose from the different lines of insurance there. If you don't already know where to look, it's a lot easier to end up on the industry's Web site than the state's.

So how do the sites compare?

The Department of Insurance site generates a chart, showing what each company charges for:

-- a "CLTA standard form policy" insuring the owner

--an "ALTA residential policy, which provides more coverage than the basic CLTA policy including matters not disclosed in public records such as survey boundaries, and property access rights

-- an "ALTA Homeowner's Policy" with even broader coverage including easements, lack of access, encroachments, violations of codes, violations of deed covenants, and conditions or restrictions -- the default policy for the California Real Estate Sale and Purchase Agreement - Contract Form.

--Title Lender Fee, or the fee paid for the portion of the title insurance policy that protects the lender.

When I searched the Department of Insurance site for a policy on a $450,000 transaction in Oakland, Calif., I got 17 results, ranging from $1266 to $1,608 for the ALTA Homeowner's policy. I got an equal number of estimates for title lender fee, ranging from $546 to $668.

With TitleWizard, if I entered the same information, identifying myself as the buyer (that's who pays for title insurance in Alameda County) I was given 10 estimates, for title lender fees, ranging from $517 to $577, but none for a homeowner's policy. The only way I could get information for a homeowner's policy was to run another querry as the seller. That got me 10 results, ranging from $1,228 to $1,820.

While both sites probably have their pluses and minuses,, the industry site offered fewer companies and less information than the Department of Insurance site that was already in place when TitleWizard was launched with much fanfare.

If the Department of Insurance wants to pat the industry on the back for its efforts, that's their call. But should they be redirecting consumers who come to them as a reliable, trusted soruce of information away to an industry-sponsored Web site?

Something tells me the auto insurer I ended up with after using the Department of Insurance's rate comparison tool might not have been included on a site operated by their competitors. They're just kicking their tails too hard.

A new real estate network, Zolve, is launching today. An early morning trot over to the Zolve Web site gets you this: "Launching Soon! The site would be launched in the next few minutes. Please check back soon."

Inman News got a sneak peek for today's story on Zolve's launch: "Social networking meets referral management."

And the company also has mentions around the blogosphere:

"Zolve - a Whole New Real Estate Marketplace for Professionals" (GeekEstate Blog)
"Yo, Check Out My Listings— and Put Me in Your 'Top Friends' List" (BusinessWeek's Hot Property)
"Zolve Tries to Kick ActiveRain While It's Down" (Future of Real Estate Marketing)
"Zolve: A Social Network for Real Estate Agents" (TechCrunch)
"ZOLVE.com - Another RE Network" (RainCityGuide)

Nice coverage for a Web site that isn't even live yet.

The attention bestowed on the new service from broker and U.S. Military serviceman Brian Wilson may have to do with the interesting story behind how he came up with it. Wilson dreamed it up while serving in Iraq and worked with a team of India-based developers while he was in the Middle East.

The idea? Give real estate agents a social network where they can blog and connect with each other, sharing referrals and business while moving digital contracts around online.

The cost? $400 per year. Wilson says the point is to generate referrals between real-estate professionals.

A real life example would be a California agent referring a client to a Denver agent he met on Zolve. The question is how often does that situation come up? Once per year would seem to cover the cost of joining.

Some bloggers have commented that Zolve may come at a good time as many agents are looking for new ways to drum up business and build relationships. The company has a similar approach to ActiveRain, which launched a member-to-member referral service this year.

But is real estate now in a state of social network fatigue? We haven't heard of anyone meeting their agent via Facebook, ActiveRain or LinkedIn. And while the slow market affords many the time to experiment, we wonder what is working and what is just plain fun.

The California Association of Realtors trade group has opened a virtual headquarters in Second Life, a three-dimensional online world in which people are represented by animated characters called avatars.

According to the Second Life Web site, the virtual world or "metaverse" has a total of 9.6 million residents worldwide. As of this afternoon there were about 47,000 users online, and about $966,000 in U.S. dollars spent in the virtual economy in the past 24 hours. Second Life "residents" can buy and sell items using a virtual currency called Linden Dollars that can be exchanged for real-world dollars. It's free to join Second Life, which launched in 2003, though there is a monthly subscription fee to own a piece of cyber property.

Coldwell Banker is among the real world companies that have hung a virtual shingle in Second Life -- that company purchased some land, set up an office and has sold off some virtual homes. Also, the company has dabbled in crossover marketing by dropping a rendering of an actual for-sale property into Second Life.

OpenMLS, which launched a real estate listing service for the Second Life crowd, is even planning a virtual real estate conference and expo next month.

The Conference Board, a business membership and research organization, held its first virtual meeting in Second Life in June. And this month, The Conference Board released a report stating that while "virtual worlds are emerging fast on the business landscape ... few companies have developed strategies to deal with them."

The board developed a list of questions that corporations should ask in considering their approach to virtual worlds, such as: What is your entry strategy? What is the corporate purpose? Do you plan to offer v-products (virtual products)? Which virtual worlds should be used? Who is in charge?

There are critics of real-world advertising in virtual worlds such as Second Life, and questions about its effectiveness, though a basic tenet of advertising is to be where the people are -- or in this case be where the avatars are. Some Second Life participants have claimed to make money in their virtual real estate dealings, though the in-world economy may not be a Utopia as some residents have complained that a handful of land barons dominate the market.

"C.A.R.’s foray into the virtual world of Second Life through our headquarters building features numerous interactive and informational items," association president Colleen Badagliacco said in a statement, such as reasons to use a Realtor, information about the group's October trade show, and "note cards" for visitors.

"The virtual building replicates the C.A.R. logo, with an open-roof design to accommodate 'fly-ins,' the primary means of locomotion in Second Life," she also said. There is an interactive video screen at the site, too, a swimming pool, and palm trees.

With an ailing real-world real estate market in California, maybe a place in cyberspace doesn't look so bad these days?

A New York Times article this week details a law enforcement crackdown on prostitution ads posted on popular Internet community site craigslist.org. Where's the real estate connection here? (Hopefully it's indirect.) It's another discussion about online liability, and the potential problems with user-generated content on Web sites.

Craigslist has played a role in assisting law enforcement investigations over users' fraudulent real estate ads, for-sale stolen goods and illegal drugs, and prostitution ads.

That site and other Internet sites accepting user-generated content rely on protections offered by Section 230 in the U.S. Communications Decency Act passed in 1996.

The article states, "Law enforcement officials have accused Craigslist of enabling prostitution. But the company’s president, Jim Buckmaster, said its 24-member staff cannot patrol the multitude of constantly changing listings -- some 20 million per month -- and counts on viewers to flag objectionable ads, which are promptly removed."

There are a range of real estate industry sites that accept user-generated content, such as discussions and ratings of specific homes, real estate agents and neighborhoods, and there are some very different approaches to monitoring and screening this user-generated content.

Michael Erdman, a Chicago lawyer who publishes the Real Estate, Real Competition and the Law blog, addresses online liability issues in his Online Liability Blog. Referencing the New York Times article in this blog, Erdman states that if the prostitution ads posted at craigslist "were to expand to promote/offer additional illicit activities (drugs, weapons, etc), there again remains the possibility that craigslist's involvement -- albeit as an intermediary -- could trigger federal criminal liability."

Craigslist has been placed on a legal hot seat by a Chicago lawyers' group, which charged that the site violated the federal Fair Housing Act because of discriminatory housing ads posted at the site by its users. A U.S. District Court judge found that craigslist is considered an "interactive computer service" by the Communications Decency Act and is not considered a publisher by law, though the lawyers' group filed an appeal in January 2007.

Wednesday's WSJ article discusses the new online reputation management firms like ReputationDefender and DefendMyName, and their methods for removing or ameliorating unwanted online postings for their clients. Most interesting is how the methodology is still being tested - sometimes they work and sometimes they backfire. Efficacy depends upon the "vengeance factor" of the owner of the offending website. In more extreme cases, correspondence from the reputation management companies is mocked and the owners escalate publicity of the unflattering items, just the opposite effect of what their clients wanted.

Real estate agents, saddled with their poor occupational public image are particularly vulnerable to even one damaging online review, which can easily pop up in a Google search. The potential problem is how easily an anonymous or pseudonym party to post a bad review, simply as a slander tactic. One agent review site Incredible Agent revealed through their blog that many agents want to have their profile, culled from Department of Real Estate records, removed so there's no chance of a review. The post goes on to say that Incredible Agent has even had a death threat... it's just an indication of how threatened agents feel about such review sites.

However, the Web 2.0 era has launched a number of sites where agents can be reviewed so there's no turning back. On the positive side, the review sites do monitor bad agent behavior.

At Transparent Real Estate today, I provide a comparative analysis of the agent review sites and give tips on how to manage online reputations.

--Pat Kitano, Transparent Real Estate

As I was writing up an article today about real estate marketing opportunities on the new hyperlocal Web sites, I discovered three blogs with recent in-depth articles that survey hyperlocal Web 2.0:

• Local Onliner - 10 Takeaways on Mapping from Where 2.0
• Evans Ink - Perry Evans, CEO of the newly launched localguides.com -  Introducing localguides.com: local, meet social. social, meet vertical. - Adams unabashedly admits localguides.com is Web 1.0, but is poised for Web 2.0 enhancements
• Content Bridges - Citizen Blog Wildfire: A Map and More

FYI, the "post-as-it-happens" resource in this space is the entertaining Screenwerk.

--Pat Kitano, Transparent Real Estate

IAC, the company that operates RealEstate.com, LendingTree and a host of other online properties, has launched an Internet-based virtual world called Zwinktopia. The world is based on Zwinky, an online tool to create avatars, which are customized personas that can be used to represent users on the Internet. There are 4.7 million active Zwinky users, IAC reported. There are 29 unique locations within the Zwinky world.

"Users can shop for the latest fashions, chat with friends, play games, participate in events, and hang out in their dorm," IAC announced. The world has its own currency, Zbucks, and participants can shop for clothes, furniture and other items.

Another virtual world, called Second Life, also has its own currency and allows users to buy and sell real estate. Coldwell Banker is selling virtual real estate within Second Life. Several other real-world companies have a presence in Second Life, too, though marketing real-world brands and products in a virtual world can be a challenge.

Rumors have swirled for awhile about whether Google will buy an established virtual world or launch its own breed of social virtual world -- the company already has a foot in this door with its Google Earth application, a 3-D virtual representation of the planet. Google also owns SketchUp, a tool that can be used to build virtual 3-D objects for use in Google Earth or other applications.

Can a Web site solve the problems California regulators have with an alleged lack of competition in the title insurance industry? Maybe not by itself, but the state's insurance commissioner, Silicon Valley entrepreneur Steve Poizner, thought enough of a demo he saw of the site, TitleWizard, to cite it as an example of the kind of efforts he'd like to see the industry make to increase consumer choice (see Inman News story).

Two years in the making, TitleWizard is being touted as a tool for consumers, who will be able to track down title insurers in their area, get information on rates and policies, and use a "Learning Center" to educate themselves about the closing process. The site was developed in conjunction with the California Land Title Association for use in California, but can be adapted for other states, site developer Anthony Farwell told Inman News this week at the CLTA's annual convention in San Francisco.

Watch highlights of Poizner's speech, get a briefing on TitleWizard from Farwell (above), and listen to some of what CLTA President Rich Macaluso, and Deputy Insurance Commissioner Woody Girion's have to say on the current status of a proposal to cap title insurance rates in California based on providers' actual costs.

In a panel discussion before Poizner's speech, Girion said he thought TitleWizard was a promising idea, but questioned whether consumers would use it. (Another site that allows consumers to shop for title insurance, Get Title Insurance, was launched last summer, and there are others out there).

Many home buyers rely on their real estate agent, mortgage broker or home builder to help them select their title insurance policy. As a result, title insurers market to those who control the customer relationship, rather than customers themselves, Poizner and other regulators have said.

"The relationship building expenses, some legal, some that have been deemed to be illegal, between the title industry and other players in the real estate transaction, is at the core in my view of the problem," Poizner said.

Fix to Flip is a brand new web site that hopes to build a community around flippers. House flippers, that is.

The site promises to give interested members the right tools and resources they'll need to flip properties, and says they're different from other like-minded services in that they help you decide which properties to get into before you buy with their "proprietary evaluation system".

They also give you preconfigured forms to help you plan your project and access to a network of associated professionals that can help you along the way. Realtors can pay a fee to advertise their services to Fix to Flip members.

The site seems a little late to market in my opinion. Is flipping dead in the water these days? Would anyone pay to be part of a service like this?

Outside.in, the local blog search site, announced a new site design today. The design cleans up the site considerably and puts more prominence on local information, as well as highlighting interesting places and hot spots in the neighborhood. The new design is a huge improvement over the old site and greatly improves the usability.

If you're a real estate blogger you should think about getting your blog included in Outside.in's search results. As should all the apprentice bloggers competing in the Project Blogger competition - especially those pursuing a "hyperlocal" strategy (e.g. Living In Plainfield, Rancho Santa Margarita Lifestyles, InsideBu, Route66 Living).

John Geraci, President and Co-Creator of Outside.in, spoke at Inman Connect conference in January in New York as part of the New Kids on the Block session that highlighted emerging technologies for real estate on the Net. It was one of the most popular sessions at the conference and it'll be running it again at Real Estate Connect SF 2007.