Social media has changed everything — even the National Association of Realtors. And there isn’t any way for NAR to take it back.

I wasn’t at NAR’s midyear meeting in Washington, D.C., an annual event where the association’s board of directors weighs policy changes recommended by various committees. I was home in Minnesota working with clients during the busiest time of year for real estate sales.

But I was able to get information about what was going on at midyear through social media. Just because I couldn’t be there doesn’t mean I wasn’t interested in what was going on in Washington. The dues I pay to NAR, and my role as a real estate agent, make me just as much of a stakeholder as any NAR committee member.

Not only did I get real-time information this year, but I was able to discuss it with other members from around the country.

NAR employees and volunteers like that social media allows them to communicate with members. But they seem to struggle with the idea that NAR members can also have private and public discussions amongst ourselves — sometimes disagreeing with NAR policy, or even with the way our associations are run.

NAR and the local Realtor associations in my area recognize only one kind of involvement by members, and that is volunteering to be on a committee. Members who merely pay dues are left out of the conversation. But social media is slowly changing that, even though some members and even employees seem to fight it every step of the way.

Discussions among members are sometimes shot down by NAR volunteers and employees. The idea of transparency is new to some NAR leaders, and they almost seem threatened by the idea that general members are starting to speak out.

They don’t seem to recognize that it’s OK to have discussions and arguments, and that they may ultimately strengthen the organization rather than weakening it.

Taking a defensive posture does not engage members. An engaged membership is more likely to take the time to debate issues and to understand them.

Because there are 1 million of us, there are bound to be members who do not agree with what the leadership is doing. It is better to have engaged members who argue than to have apathetic members who do not care.

NAR needs to recognize that because the organization is so large, there will always be members who do not contribute anything but money — and that’s fine because money pays for staff and programs.

But NAR cannot retain members simply by telling us how important NAR is. We need to see the value and understand it. The real estate industry is facing great disruption and change, and nothing is guaranteed or sacred — not even the National Association of Realtors as we know it today.

When members have public discussions, it isn’t at all unusual for those discussions to be disrupted by NAR leaders and employees trying to control the conversation and redirect it in an effort to protect the organization from some real or perceived harm.

We live in a society where asking questions and debating issues is allowed and even encouraged. Transparency in all things should be encouraged. In an era of social media, there really isn’t any way to hide from it, and there certainly isn’t any way to control it.

There are people in the organization who are still in denial and have not embraced the changes society has pushed onto them. An organization cannot just use social media to communicate with members without those members communicating back to the organization.

Change isn’t always easy but social media is changing NAR, and it will never be the same. There are members including myself who had never heard of NAR’s midyear meetings until we started interacting with other members on the Internet. Social media is and has been the disruptor that is changing NAR, and it reaches beyond NAR leadership and into the general membership.

During this year’s midyear meeting, agents from around the country were reading coverage on Inman News and discussing proposed rule changes that could affect our local MLSs. We have opinions because the decision will impact our businesses on a local level. Some of us have informed opinions, even though we did not attend the meetings.

There is more than one way to get NAR members to participate. Using social media is a great way to engage members — or it will be when it becomes more of a conversation. The next step should be to live-stream the midyear meetings onto the NAR member website so we can all hear the debate.

One NAR staffer told me there is nothing to hear! All the more reason to live-stream it.

Being able to see the meetings and listen would help newer members (who may not have the funds to travel to Washington, D.C.) understand the organization and feel like they are part of it.

Objective five in the 2012-2014 strategic plan is to: “Strengthen relationships with Realtors and within the Realtor community.”

The plan specifically mentions both social media and using social media to engage members. There has to be a conversation, and it isn’t always going to be pretty.

It will take some effort on the parts of NAR leadership and employees to be inclusive and tolerant of people who have new or different ideas. Members will disagree and argue and have to learn how to respect differences.

Teresa Boardman is a broker in St. Paul, Minn., and founder of the St. Paul Real Estate blog.

Marking another attempt to introduce consumer-professional matchmaking into the real estate industry, theSweeten aims to pair people eyeing renovations or remodeling projects with vetted contractors who are the most qualified to execute them.

The site also may prove a resource to brokers. One already plans to partner with theSweeten in order to better serve clients who are mulling remodeling projects.

Currently, many home remodeling pairings between professionals and consumers are relatively arbitrary, often resulting in mismatches, said the company’s founder and CEO, Jean Lauer.

“The market is really inefficient. Often firms get inquiries for projects that they’re not really interested in,” she said. “There’s no marketplace … this is where you hear all the horror stories.”

There are already referral sites like Angie’s List and HomeAdvisor (formerly ServiceMagic) that steer consumers to contractors listed in their directories. But those sites still don’t provide sufficient guidance, sometimes connecting consumers with contractors who aren’t really equipped to handle their projects, Lauer argues.

TheSweeten, however, holds a consumer’s hand throughout the entire search process, and even up until a project’s completion, she said.

To use the service, a consumer submits a project description that includes a timeline, budget and photos. Then it selects three contractors from its Rollodex of contractors that it determines are most qualified to take on the project, and invites them to offer bids based on the project description. The consumer then reviews the bids and picks a contractor.

“It’s really about understanding who’s the right fit for the $5,000 bathroom,” she said. “We only get compensated if we make the right match … our focus is making sure we get the right firms in front of the right projects.”

In addition to providing a source of business for contractors, theSweeten also may enable brokers to offer more value to clients. Last month, the company said it was in talks with a major New York City brokerage about a partnership.

In such partnerships, agents could tap theSweeten for estimates of potential remodeling projects that clients ask about, as well as its network of remodeling specialists, said theSweeten co-founder Preeti Sriratana.

“Even though they may have a couple names, they don’t have the resources and depth that we have,” said Sriratana, speaking of brokers who advise clients on remodeling projects. “We would be able to say, ‘Oh, we’ve done projects in that building before … we can tell you average price per square foot.’”

Currently, theSweeten serves only New York City and  has an active contractor membership of around 120 that it has selected from more than 2,000 applicants since launching in July 2011, Lauer said. To apply for membership, contractors ranging from “tile guys” and landscapers to architects and interior designers must undergo an hourlong interview, submit four references and later meet for an in-person interview, Lauer said.

A survey the company conducted showed that, on average, 75 to 80 percent of inquiries that contractors receive through theSweeten’s network translate into work, Lauer said. She said that, in comparison, the typical conversion rate in the industry is about 50 percent. The same survey also found that the network appeared to boost a member’s revenue by 15 percent.

The site earns money by charging members a commission ranging from about 1 to 3 percent on projects that they receive through it .

Contact people and companies mentioned in this story: Jean Lauer, theSweeten

Do you think theSweeten could be a useful resource for you? 

Is your to-do list out of control? It is if you’re working at full capacity and can never complete everything on it.

Taming your to-do-list can be easier than you realize provided that you know what to do, and it’s also one of the most important steps you can take to avoid stress-related illnesses, including heart disease and cancer. Here are five easy-to-implement tips that can help you rein in your unruly to-do list.

1. Confront the beast

When you confront your beastly to-do list, you must be willing to face the truth about what is really going on in your business and personal life. The following exercise will take some effort, but the results are worth it. Here’s what to do:

For the next three days (a week would be even better), keep track of each activity in which you engage. This includes how many times you send text messages, how much time you spend on social media, how much time is devoted to phone communication, as well as how much time you spend in the various parts of your business. For example, track how long you spend prospecting, working on existing transactions and troubleshooting transaction problems.

Also be sure to note how much time you spend with your family or loved ones and how much time you spend engaging in self-care — this includes exercise, getting ready for work, preparing meals, etc. You should also track time spent in the car, as well as how much time you spend playing games, watching TV, gossiping at the office, or engaging in other activities that are not related to your business or self-care.

2. How many billable hours did you really have?

Once you complete your tracking for three days, calculate how many hours you actually spent delivering real estate-related services to your clients. Some people call these “billable hours.” In other words, if you billed for your services and had to assign that activity to a specific client you are working with, how many hours would you have logged over the three-day period? If you logged 18 actual billable hours over the three-day period (that’s 30 hours per week), your business should be doing well. (Please note that billable hours do include prospecting time.)

Next, note how many hours you spent in nonbillable activity. You may have been away from your house for 12 hours, but how many hours did you spend in activities that did nothing to build your business? Most agents are surprised to discover that a big part of their busy day had nothing to do with helping them grow their business.

3. What are your priorities?

The next step in taming your to-do list is to go through your activities for each day and place them in either the business or personal category. Divide your list into two different areas: business and personal.

Next, place your “billable hours” at the top of your business list and then rank-order these. Repeat the process with any remaining “nonbillable” activities.

Once you finish your business list, go on to your personal activities. Make sure that your personal self-care activities are ranked at or near the top of your list. You can’t nourish and care for others if you don’t nourish and care for yourself. Make eating well, exercising, and taking time off to relax and unwind a priority.

4. Your three daily “big rocks”

You now have a concrete description about which activities are most important in your business and personal life. As you begin each day, the first thing you must do is to identify the top three most important things you must complete in order to have a successful business and a satisfying personal life. Some people call these your “big rocks.” Here’s where the term originates:

Assume you have an empty bucket. You fill it with three large rocks. Is the bucket full? The answer is “no,” because you can add pebbles to the bucket. Now is it full? The answer is “no” again, because you can add sand. Is it full now? Again, the answer is “no,” because you can still add water.

The point here is that if you start with pebbles, sand or water, there will be no room for the big rocks. The same is true for your business. By completing the most important tasks at the beginning of the day, you keep your business focused and on target.

Motivational speaker Brian Tracy, in his book, “Eat That Frog,” references a similar approach. Take the biggest, nastiest task you have to do (the “frog”) and complete it (“eat it”) first.

5. Eliminate the bottom 20 percent of activities on both lists

The 80-20 rule describes how 80 percent of your results come from engaging in the top 20 percent of your activities. What this means is that the bottom 20 percent of your activities requires 20 percent of your time, but yields only about a 1 percent return in terms of your overall effectiveness. In other words, you normally devote a full day each week to activities that give you a return of 1 percent or less.

So here’s the bottom line: To tame your to-do-list, focus on the three big rocks you must do each day. Those three rocks can be summed up in six words: “Generate leads, convert leads, close transactions.” Next, stop engaging in the bottom 20 percent of your current activities that are providing little, if any, return. Wouldn’t your to-do list be a lot easier with a full day extra per week every week? Use this approach and you’ll be truly amazed at the results.

Bernice Ross, CEO of RealEstateCoach.com, is a national speaker, trainer and author of the National Association of Realtors’ No. 1 best-seller, “Real Estate Dough: Your Recipe for Real Estate Success.” Hear Bernice’s five-minute daily real estate show, just named “new and notable” by iTunes, at www.RealEstateCoachRadio.com.

Despite rising home prices early in the year, a significant portion of U.S. homeowners with a mortgage — about 44 percent — still owed more on their home than it was worth or didn’t have enough equity to move at the end of the first quarter, according to Zillow’s first-quarter Negative Equity Report.

Zillow’s analysis showed that 25.4 percent of homeowners with a mortgage were underwater on their homes, while another 18.2 percent more were “effectively” underwater, with less than 20 percent equity in their homes.

Taken together, about 22.3 million U.S. homeowners likely don’t have enough equity in their homes to afford a down payment on another home, Zillow said, keeping them in their homes and preventing new inventory from hitting the market.

“Reaching positive equity, even barely, is an important milestone,” said Zillow Chief Economist Stan Humphries in a statement. “But things like real estate agents’ fees and a down payment for the next home traditionally come out of the proceeds from the prior home’s sale. Without enough equity, these costs will instead have to come out of a homeowner’s pocket, leaving many still stuck,” he said.

“Looking at the effective negative equity rate could explain why recent, healthy declines in the number of underwater borrowers haven’t yet translated into more homes for sale,” Humphries added. “The only cure is patience, as rising home values continue to build equity to the point where more homeowners can realistically sell.”

Among the 30 largest metro areas covered by Zillow, those with the highest effective negative equity rate, including homeowners with 20 percent equity or less, include Las Vegas (71.5 percent), Atlanta (64.1 percent), and Riverside, Calif. (59.7 percent).

Zillow predicts that the negative equity rate among all homeowners with a mortgage will fall to 23.5 percent by the first quarter of 2014. Of the 30 largest metro areas, the majority of these newly freed homeowners are anticipated to come from: Los Angeles (94,642 homeowners), Riverside (74,693 homeowners), and Phoenix (51,580 homeowners).

Canadian property search portal Zoocasa is obtaining brokerage licenses in order to secure listings data, but instead of hiring its own agents the company will provide referrals to other brokers.

Zoocasa relaunched today with listings in the Greater Toronto area and a directory of “prequalified, experienced real estate agents” from top franchise brands and brokerages including Century21, RE/MAX, Royal LePage, Harvey Kalles and Coldwell Banker.

Buyers and sellers who close transactions using Zoocasa partner agents will receive rebates including cash and gift cards from retailers including Best Buy, Home Depot, Sears and Canadian Tire, totaling about $2,000 on a typical $550,000 transaction, the company said. Zoocasa will earn a referral fee of roughly one-third of the commission, the Toronto Globe and Mail reports.

“Consumers have indicated that they want to be able to research online. Not just to find their next home, but also to find the right agent to help them,” said Zoocasa President Carolyn Beatty in a statement. “We see improving the way homebuyers and sellers connect with today’s experienced real estate agents as a natural evolution of what we do.”

Zoocasa now has information on listings in the Greater Toronto area, and a directory of 200 hand-picked agents, the the Toronto Star reports. The company said it plans to roll out its new home and agent search platform to all major Canadian markets.

Beatty told The Globe and Mail in March that Zoocasa was seeking a brokerage license in Ontario in order to obtain listings data, and would seek licenses across Canada. Although Zoocasa does not plan to employ agents, obtaining brokerage licenses would allow it to operate a virtual office website (VOW), the paper said.

The Toronto Real Estate Board (TREB), under pressure from Canadian regulators, adopted rules allowing virtual office websites in 2011. The legal battle between TREB and the Competition Bureau of Canada is ongoing, with the Competition Bureau recently announcing it would appeal last month’s dismissal of a complaint alleging TREB has engaged in anti-competitive practices.

Before adopting its new business model, Zoocasa, which is a subsidiary of Canadian cell phone company and cable TV operator Rogers Communications Inc., was sued by Century 21 Canada Ltd. for allegedly scraping listing data from Century21.ca from late 2008 through early 2010.

In a Sept. 2, 2011, decision, the Supreme Court of British Columbia awarded Century 21 Canada $33,000 in damages, but concluded that Zoocasa did not act “dishonestly, unreasonably or unfairly,” but instead “apparently entered into the market without due consideration of the legal issues surrounding copyright and intellectual property.”

In a time when some brokers question the value of brick-and-mortar offices as technology allows their agents to work in the “cloud,”  one brokerage has decided to go big, and build a real estate retail space at its office.

Zilbert International Realty, a luxury boutique real estate firm in the South Beach neighborhood of Miami Beach, Fla., has flipped the new conventional wisdom on its head by building a 4,000-square-foot flagship office in a tony South Beach retail center.

The brokerage, which primarily represents condo buyers and sellers, is looking to turn real estate into a retail experience.

Walking into Zilbert International Realty’s new 1-year-old office is open to the public from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., seven days a week. Visitors step into a simple, streamlined space with recessed LED track lighting, terrazzo floors, and Herman Miller furniture.

Zilbert Realty International’s store. Photo courtesy of Zilbert International Realty.

Backlit photographs of active listings line the walls, and several kiosks in the open space hold listing pamphlets. One of Zilbert International Realty’s 30 agents mans a podium, ready to engage walk-in visitors — a role similar to that played by the tech geeks who man the “Genius Bar” at any Apple Store.

The iconic Apple Stores, with their buzzing activity and experts on hand, were actually part of the inspiration for this real estate anomaly, said Mark Zilbert, founder and CEO of Zilbert International Realty. The company “fell into” the setup, and has grown the concept organically, Zilbert said.

“I didn’t want to do a storefront,” Zilbert said, of his mindset two years ago when he was looking to transition out of his 400-square-foot office into a larger, new space for his growing brokerage business, which was 7 years old at the time.

But when Zilbert saw that the last spot in a new retail center in a prime South Beach location was available, he started to mull over an idea.

Looking at the empty, 4,000-square-foot concrete shell — located in a retail center that’s at the end of a bridge that carries traffic from Miami into South Beach — Zilbert saw an opportunity to use it not only as an office, but to take advantage of the retail center location.

“Drivers have to pass the storefront to get to the beach,” Zilbert said. At night, “the entire store glows from the inside out.”

Zilbert said he drew inspiration for the retail store not only from Apple, but from his own company’s website.

The “store” is a physical manifestation of zilbert.com, its walls dominated by images from the website’s listing detail pages.

“We wanted to make (the store) as visual as possible,” Zilbert said.

The store — which is Zilbert International Realty’s only location at the moment –  takes up a little less than half of the 4,000 square feet of available space. The other half is working office space for the firm’s agents.

The office’s prominent location and its accessible, customer-friendly vibe is helping the boutique firm claim its place among more well-known luxury brands like Sotheby’s International Realty, said Jim Hitchcock, chief operating officer at Zilbert International Realty.

So far, the office has been a net positive on the firm’s bottom line, Zilbert said. Net profits have increased from the year before, he said, which is the bottom-line measure Zilbert uses to check if his business is on track or not.

Since the store opened on May 1, 2012, Zilbert International Realty has won every listing presentation it has given in the space — about 30 or 40, Zilbert said. To facilitate listing presentations, the store features two glass-enclosed conference rooms outfitted with 55-inch flat-screen TVs, which agents can hook their iPads up to.

Zilbert said the space creates an experience for clients that allows them to “get the best of who we are and what we do.”

Agents are rewarded for manning the store in three-hour shifts with all of the walk-in, website and phone leads the brokerage receives during that time period. As a result, agents are eager to work in the store, Zilbert said.

Zilbert says he has plans to open similar stores in other locations where the brokerage expands.

“We’ll always do this operation wherever we go,” he said.

Last year, Zilbert International Realty’s agents represented buyers and sellers involved in 200 to 250 deals involving homes valued at $250 million.

In the next 24 to 48 months, Zilbert said, the firm is looking to open stores in downtown Miami and possibly Coral Gables and Fort Lauderdale, among other locations.

Would you do a similar store at your brokerage?

Real estate brokerage and franchise giant Realogy Holdings Corp. has selected 15 emerging technology companies from about 100 that applied to compete for a $25,000 cash prize at the Realogy FWD Innovation Summit. The companies selected to present their most innovative new real estate technology products or services on Tuesday, June 18, at Realogy’s Madison, N.J., headquarters are:

• BuyerMLS: a real-time buyer marketplace for agents.
• Floored: interactive 3-D models of all types of real estate.
• HomeLight: a new way for consumers to find a real estate agent.
• HomeZada: software that helps homeowners organize and manage their home.
• Keyzio: a consumer marketplace where every house is for sale.
• Lumentus Social: makes social media easy and effective for brokers and agents.
• MyCityWay: a consumer app that provides a live view into more than 100 cities.
• Onvedeo: powers videos for real estate listings.
• Planwise: technology that allows people to visualize and understand financial decisions.
• Relocality: a neighborhood discovery tool that uses social data to provide recommendations.
• RealScout: a full-featured search portal for homebuyers and agents.
• Realty Mogul: a marketplace for investors to pool money and buy shares of property.
• Storefront: an online marketplace for short-term retail space.
• StreetAdvisor: a content creation and social engagement platform for real estate companies.
• Updater: helps buyers seamlessly update all of their accounts with the new address.

The Realogy FWD Innovation Summit is one of several opportunities for startups and emerging technology companies in real estate.

Last year, the National Association of Realtors announced a “tech accelerator” program, REach, overseen by Second Century Ventures, NAR’s strategic investment arm. The seven companies selected for the program’s first year — BombBomb, Lumentus, Planwise, Reach150, Treater, Updater and Workface — will reportedly pay up to $25,000 to participate, gaining exposure and guidance from a group of more than 140 mentors and feedback from about 500 Realtor product testers.

Inman News has launched an initiative, the Inman Incubator, that’s intended to serve as a launchpad for innovative real estate companies including technology startups, brokerages, agents, service providers and mortgage lenders.  The Inman Incubator program will provide yearlong mentoring, $100,000 of in-kind promotion, and valuable connections and resources for up to 25 promising companies.

What do you think of real estate-focused technology incubators and accelerators? Leave your comments below.

Real estate brokerage @properties will use interactive floor plans and high-resolution photos to market listings online at no additional charge to sellers on all homes listed at $500,000 or more.

The Chicago-based brokerage said it plans to extend the service to sellers of homes priced at more than $300,000.

The service will be provided by Rosemont, Ill.-based VHT Studios, which photographs and takes room measurements on site, delivering photos and floor plans within two to three business days.

VHT’s interactive floor plans show all walls, partitions, doors, windows, staircases, columns, recesses, chimneys, major appliances, floor levels and room dimensions.

VHT also offers a floor plan reconstruction service when architectural blueprints are available.

“It’s almost irresponsible not to make floor plans available when it’s so easy to do with VHT’s new service,” said @properties co-owner Thaddeus Wong in a statement. “Properties can be equivalent in location, and number of bedrooms and bathrooms, but that doesn’t mean they’re all the same. You need to have a full grasp of how all the rooms relate to one another to help you determine a property’s value and if it fits a buyer’s needs.”

Wong said the majority of @properties listings will soon have floor plans included.

What listing enhancements do you think are the most useful in marketing properties? Leave your comment below.

On its “10 a.m. Special” Tumblr page, The Corcoran Group showcases one jaw-dropping listing every day.

The posts are bursting with a colorful mixture of new media that includes clickable photos and graphics, embedded videos and invitations to follow Corcoran on Pinterest, YouTube and Foursquare.

Highlighting the full range of content and social platforms made possible by the Internet, Corcoran’s “10 a.m. Special” Tumblr page paints a picture of how brokers and agents may use the blogging site to market themselves and their properties.

Many real estate professionals and businesses may soon follow in Corcoran’s footsteps.

The acquisition of Tumblr by Internet giant Yahoo could spark more interest in the platform, by raising awareness of a site that simplifies blogging and potentially providing professionals with a means to target millennial homebuyers and sellers, according to social media consultant Katie Lance and other experts.

Tumblr, a social media blogging site known for its spirit of millennial irreverence, resembles something of a cross between Facebook and Twitter. On Monday, Yahoo confirmed that it plans to purchase the site for about $1.1 billion in cash, with its CEO promising “not to screw up” the site.

The purchase has drawn comparisons to Facebook’s acquisition of photo-sharing site Instagram in April 2012. That acquisition, Lance said, initially raised fears that the site would shed some of its hip allure. But instead, Lance said, it seemed to raise awareness of the site and attract additional users.

Indeed, Instagram’s users, engagement and reach for brands have increased substantially since Facebook bought the site, TechCrunch reported.

“A year ago, many people were skeptical about Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram and whether it would hinder the network’s growth,” Adam Schoenfeld, CEO of Simply Measured, recently told BusinessNewsDaily. “However, today it’s very clear that the synergies are not only bringing new users on board, but also creating incredible opportunities for brands to connect with consumers.”

Lance said that Yahoo’s purchase of Tumblr could run a similar course.

“All of a sudden you hear Yahoo is behind it, and I think for a lot of people, sometimes that older generation, it’s like giving a company validity,” she said.

And if it does, that could potentially spark a resurgence in blogging among business professionals, including real estate agents, who have largely exited the blogosphere following a “big push” there about five years ago, she said.

That’s because Tumblr is much easier to use than other blogging platforms like WordPress, Lance said. Perhaps Tumblr’s “biggest differentiator” is its “reblog” feature, which allows users to share content produced by others, she added.

But whether Tumblr really makes blogging more manageable than other platforms is still a matter of debate. Facebook page “Living in Ann Arbor,”  which is sponsored by broker Ann Arbor Real Estate, said on Inman News’ Facebook page that Tumblr is actually more challenging to use than platforms WordPress and Blogger.

“The Tumblr editor interface isn’t as good as WordPress.com or even Blogger.com if you are going the free route” and “want to gain a social following and share your posts freely,” Living in Ann Arbor said.

Living in Ann Arbor added that WordPress.com and Blogger have features that perform the same function as Tumblr’s reblogging tool. “If one was to use a platform for content curating — I still don’t think that Tumblr is the best option.”

Living in Ann Arbor said the GIF to the left conveys its view of the Tumblr acquisition

Regardless, with the site now in the limelight, many business professionals may also begin to gravitate towards Tumblr in order to fish for millennial buyers and sellers, since the site “tends to skew a lot younger” than other social media sites, Lance said.

Adopting Tumblr as a marketing platform has certainly paid off for Corcoran, according to Corcoran Director of Interactive Product and Marketing Matthew Shadbolt, who oversees “10 a.m. Special.”

He called Tumblr an “incredibly effective” advertising tool, and said the company’s blog represents its largest social media presence, boasting over 115,000 followers and collecting new ones at a rate of 500 a day.

“We’ve found its simplicity, mobile optimization, ease of use, and connection to a different type of New York audience to be tremendous advantages for us, although we only do one thing on the platform – we post the most incredible Corcoran listing we can find,” he said. “Tumblr also allows us to refine our approach to how and where we share our listings, which photos perform most effectively, and what types of properties resonate best with users moving between our interactive platforms. We’ve integrated what we do on Tumblr into everything else we do online.”

In addition to potentially shedding light on a new avenue for agents to intersect with younger homebuyers and sellers, Tumblr could open up promising paid-advertising opportunities.

One of Yahoo’s main objectives is to milk Tumblr for advertising revenue. Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer said Yahoo would initiate that process by putting ads in the Tumblr “dashboard,” a content stream much like Facebook’s News Feed, The Los Angeles Times reported. Later, Yahoo might allow users to post ads on their blogs themselves, and share revenue earned through the ads with Yahoo.

“If an agent is really trying to focus on millennials or first-time homebuyers, specially in a specific geographic area, I think that could definitely be an opportunity,” Mayer said, according to the Los Angeles Times.

What do you think about Yahoo’s acquisition of Tumblr? Leave your comment below.

Maps and real estate websites seem to go hand in hand.

It only makes sense, I suppose.

Everyone wants to know where the house is, what the neighborhood is like, how far it is from stuff, and so on.

A map is one of those crucial bits of information display that gives a wide variety of context about one of the things we assume people are looking for when they’re on a real estate website: the house.

In this way I suppose it could easily be argued that maps are a sort of data visualization tool. They take a handful of variables and plot them using symbols to show relationships.

There is even a little bit of standardization to them. That’s why we can look at a Rand McNally road atlas and Google Maps and figure out that both are maps and that we use them to get someplace.

Online, the standard for the past few years has been Google Maps. Wherever we see a map online, we see the familiar yellowy-beige, the familiar typefaces, the line weights representing roads of various capacities.

But since maps are such a big part of real estate websites — some sites even focusing almost entirely of the map-driven experience — there’s a bit of a drawback. There’s a sameness that creeps across the real estate Web landscape.

As maps increase in size and prominence, the sameness also increases. There is less room for distinction or brand differentiation as the non-Google Maps portion of real estate websites continues to shrink.

Years ago, when Google Maps was released, there weren’t any other viable options to integrate map data into the visual experience of websites. The few that did exist either weren’t practical (custom map images from a designer get unwieldy as you try to extend that to every property in an IDX feed), weren’t that different anyway (MapQuest? or that other mapping tool I can’t even remember?) and certainly none of them offered the excellent integration API that Google provided out of the box.

Life was pretty good for digital mapping for some time after that. Everyone started figuring out how to customize elements of their maps and incorporating Google Maps into everything.

Then there was that whole fee thing. Sooner or later Google needed to get a little revenue for the computing resources being devoted to serving up maps for the world. Most just grumbled a little bit and carried on as before.

A few switched to Bing maps, which look just different enough from Google maps to push their own blanditude across the real estate Web. It’s like being excited because you can choose Coke or Pepsi.

But lately a viable alternative to map blandness has been growing. It’s a combination of open source technologies: OpenStreetMaps (to provide the actual data about where streets, buildings and other features are) and MapBox.

MapBox provides the ability to style maps any way you like. So instead of Google’s beige-yellow color scheme, you can use something else.

MapBox allows you to create styles for maps using coding techniques that will be familiar to anyone who knows how to use cascading style sheets (CSS) to change the look of a Web document.

Will absolute chaos and anarchy ensue from this? Will maps suddenly become reminiscent of the final days of MySpace? Probably.

But that’s just the way things go when people with little taste get their hands on production tools formerly available only to professionals. Once people get a little familiarity — or successful examples become available demonstrate the economic value of taste — then things cool down a bit.

Perhaps things like MapBox will usher in a map design experience of the mid-90s grunge design phase made possible by a generation of designers who grew up with a Mac in the house. Or perhaps not. Who knows?

What it does provide, however, is the chance to use one of the most-used visual design elements of your real estate website to re-enforce your visual branding efforts.

Shouldn’t there be uniformity in all maps?

A friend of mine made the argument that all maps should look the same — that consistency in cartographic design makes them easier to use. I disagree.

The maps and “wayfinding” designs used by the New York City Metropolitan Transportation Authority to guide subway riders are quite different than those employed by the London Underground. Both seem to work well enough that many people use both of them in their lifetimes with minimal trouble.

The different cartographic design choices in those maps — typefaces, colors, symbols, organizing principles of the lines themselves — not only serve their intended function but also help to reinforce the different character of these two different cities. The brand of London is carried forward in their use of Gill Sans, just as the brand of New York is carried forward in the use of Helvetica.

I suppose one could say that the branding of the cities to their respective underground transportation systems came about simply because of familiarity. The branding happened through repeat use of the systems.

But that simply emphasizes the importance of repeat exposure to visual branding elements — nothing new to brand advertisers.

In fact, it furthers the case that if real estate website owners and designers are to continue to increase the size and prominence of maps on their sites, then imbuing the design of those maps with visual brand-driven decisions would be a clear path for distinction and differentiation.

Let’s just hope it doesn’t end up looking like MySpace did.

Or if it does, that it’s your competitor’s site.

Gahlord Dewald is the president and janitor of Thoughtfaucet, a strategic creative services company in Burlington, Vt.