Two leading Solano County, Calif., brokerages have merged and affiliated with franchisor Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC.

The merger of Vacaville-based Kappel & Kappel Realty Inc. with Solano Gateway Realty Inc. in Fairfield beefs up Coldwell Banker’s presence along the Interstate 80 corridor between San Francisco and Sacramento.

The newly formed Coldwell Banker Kappel Gateway Realty has more more than 200 agents working out of seven offices, including nearly 30 agents from the former Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage offices in Vacaville and Dixon.

The new brokerage’s ownership group includes Steve and Sue Kappel, owners of Kappel & Kappel, and Solano Gateway owners Steve Spencer and Bev Dorsett. Together, the two brokerages had more than $600 million in sales volume in 2012, the companies said.

“We have enjoyed a three-decade-long friendly competition with Steve and Sue, and we have always admired their company’s success,” Spencer said in a statement. “Together we realized that our operations would be best served by a merger. We are thrilled to retain our local ownership while adding the resources, global network and marketing power that our affiliation with Coldwell Banker will provide for our agents and our customers.”

Coldwell Banker Real Estate President and CEO Budge Huskey called the ownership group at Coldwell Banker Kappel Gateway Realty “impressive” and said the franchisor was “thrilled to welcome them and their agents to the Coldwell Banker brand.”

What will the real estate industry look like five years from now, and how can brokers and agents prepare for it?

Leaders of four companies that have been at the forefront of change — Redfin, Trulia, Zillow and Move Inc. — will share their insights at a July 10 panel at Real Estate Connect San Francisco.

“The Industry Destiny: Imagine Your Industry in 2018,” will feature Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman, Trulia co-founder and CEO Pete Flint, Zillow COO Greg Schwartz, and Move CEO Steve Berkowitz. Morgan Brennan, senior real estate reporter for Forbes Media, will moderate the discussion.

Glenn Kelman

Pete Flint

Greg Schwartz

Steve Berkowitz

See more of what’s on the agenda at Real Estate Connect San Francisco, which takes place July 10-12 at the Hilton Union Square.

Follow Real Estate Connect on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn:

Floored, which creates interactive 3-D floor plans that allow users to walk through a virtual recreation of an actual space, was voted the best real estate tech startup today at the Realogy FWD Innovation Summit, hosted at the real estate franchisor’s Madison, N.J., headquarters.

The company took home a prize of $25,000 after attendees voted it the best real estate tech startup among three finalists that were chosen out of 15 startups that presented at the event. Selected by a panel of judges, the three finalists were: Floored, HomeZada and BuyerMLS.

Floored staff members create 3-D models by scanning spaces with a proprietary 3-D camera, using algorithms and manual tweaks to smooth the data. The resulting interactive 3-D model can be made available and shared online.

HomeZada was voted the second best startup, followed by Buyer MLS.

Realogy CEO Alex Perriello said today that the event’s purpose was to ask: ”How can we incorporate some of these, test things, or try things in a real-life situation with brokers and agents?”

The 15 startups that presented at the event were chosen from nearly 100 applicants. Realogy owns major real estate brands including Coldwell Banker, The Corcoran Group and Sotheby’s International Realty.

The 15 startups that presented at the event were: MyCityWay, Realty Mogul, StreetAdvisor, Storefront, Floored, BuyerMLS, HomeLight, Lumentus Social, Onvedeo, Keyzio, Updater, Relocality, Planwise, RealScout and HomeZada.

Realtor.com operator Move Inc. has renewed a content-sharing agreement with MSN that allows consumers to access Move’s property listings and related information from MSN Real Estate, the sixth-most popular real estate site in the U.S.

Under the agreement, Move will continue to power MSN Real Estate’s listings from a variety of databases — existing homes for sale from realtor.com, new homes and rentals from Move.com — and the two firms will share editorial content related to homebuying and renting. MSN Real Estate gets foreclosures from foreclosure.com, which is not a Move property.

MSN Real Estate had 7.1 million visits from desktop computers in the U.S. in May, representing 1.56 percent of all real estate-related Web traffic that month, according to data from Experian Marketing Services.

“We know that Microsoft had a number of choices in online … partners and are pleased to announce our continued long-standing relationship with MSN to deliver the most accurate and trusted real estate information to the MSN community,” said Barbara O’Connor, executive vice president of marketing for Move, in a statement.

“In a nutshell, what Barb is saying, is Move Inc. won the business from Zillow,” wrote Greg Robertson, an industry insider who runs the real estate software firm W&R Studios, on his blog at Vendor Alley.

Zillow has a similar arrangement with Yahoo’s real estate site Yahoo Homes, the fourth-most visited real estate-related website in the U.S. in May with 24 million hits representing a 5.24 percent Web market share, according to data from Experian.

Taken together, the “Yahoo-Zillow Real Estate network” accounted for 17.66 percent of U.S. Web traffic from desktop computers to real estate sites in May, according to Experian data.

Move has a similar network. In addition to powering listings at MSN Real Estate, the San Jose, Calif.-based firm syndicates a separate set of listings to AOL Real Estate through its ListHub subsidiary. Desktop Web traffic to Move’s network accounted for 8.32 percent of all real estate-related visits in the U.S. in May, according to Experian data.

Move and Microsoft last renewed their content-sharing agreement in 2010. According to Move, the agreement dates back seven years. According to Inman News’ archives, MSN and Move predecessor Homestore signed an agreement in 2003 that was renewed in 2007.

Editor’s note: A previous version of this story indicated that foreclosure.com was a Move Inc. property, which is not the case.

Franchising rights to provide services to ERA Real Estate-affiliated brokerages in 18 Asian-Pacific countries are up for sale, and could fetch up to $160 million, the Wall Street Journal reports. Singapore-based Hersing Corp., which holds ERA franchise rights in China, Japan, Australia, Singapore and Malaysia, has lined up five potential buyers, the Journal said. Source: online.wsj.com.

Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage has acquired the assets of Century 21 Greengarden Realty Inc., a 63-agent brokerage in Bridgeport, Conn.

Century 21 Greengarden Realty’s Bridgeport office will merge into the Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage office located at 2 Corporate Drive in Trumbull. The brokerage’s West Haven satellite office will merge into the Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage office located at 564 Racebrook Road in Orange.

Mark Greengarden, formerly president of Century 21 Greengarden Realty, will take a sales role with Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage.

“Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage has powerful brand recognition, state-of-the-art technology, robust training programs, and a comprehensive line of real estate services,” Greengarden said in a statement. “Our sales professionals will have the competitive edge and additional resources necessary to excel in today’s customer-driven real estate environment.”

Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage is part of NRT LLC, which operates the company-owned brokerage offices of Realogy Holdings Corp. The brokerage operates 51 offices with more than 2,100 sales associates serving Connecticut and Westchester County, N.Y.

“This acquisition builds on our strategy to strengthen our position in Fairfield County,” said Cathleen F. Smith, president of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage, in a statement. “The professionals of Greengarden Realty have an excellent reputation in the community and we greatly look forward to working with them.”

Forbes’ annual list of America’s most expensive homes identifies more than 30 properties priced at $60 million and up — including a 47-acre estate halfway between San Francisco and Silicon Valley whose owner, Christian de Guigne IV, has placed a special condition on the sale: De Guigne, 75, wants to continue to live in the 16,000-square-foot mansion until he dies. Asking price: $100 million. Source: forbes.com.

Realogy Holdings Corp. franchisor Century 21 Real Estate LLC has hired Santa Rosa, Calif.-based Properties Online Inc. to build custom property websites for every listing that appears on the company’s website.

The unique property websites will be generated at no charge to agents each time a new listing represented by a Century 21 agent appears on century21.com.

Optimized for mobile with built-in social sharing tools, the unique property websites feature domain names that incorporate the home’s address, raising a property’s visibility and making it easier for homebuyers to find, the companies said.

Properties Online, which also counts franchisors Keller Williams, Coldwell Banker, Re/Max and Prudential Real Estate as clients, has “proven expertise” that will enable Century 21 agents “to generate more business by utilizing one of the most effective online marketing tools available for selling real estate,” Century 21 Chief Marketing Officer Bev Thorne said in a statement.

“Century 21 has assembled an extremely forward-thinking, innovative team, and we are very excited to be working with them,” said Amanda Cornelius, CEO of Properties Online.

Jamison Services Inc., which owns 60 office buildings in the Los Angeles market, is converting five of them into multifamily residences and looking for other opportunities to capitalize on rising demand from apartment renters, Bloomberg reports. Source: bloomberg.com.

Zillow Inc. has launched a mobile-enabled collaborative home search and shopping tool, Agentfolio, that’s aimed at buy-side agents and their clients, allowing them to search, comment on, review and share homes they are interested in.

The tool — which is free for agents who advertise with Zillow in one of its “Premier Agent” packages, and $25 per month for agents who do not — is available today in Chicago and coming soon to Boston, New York City and other markets, Zillow said.

Video from Zillow promoting Agentfolio.

The tool allows an agent to create a folio with clients and team members by entering their email addresses into the system. An agent can create custom searches for each folio and get instant alerts from Zillow when a new property enters the system that might be of interest to their clients. The tool also allows agents to see clients’ activity, giving them insight into how buy-ready they might be.

“The home search has gotten too complicated for the inbox, making it difficult for agents and their clients to communicate effectively about listings,” said Susan Daimler, director of Agentfolio at Zillow, in a statement.

“This is a big deal folks,” wrote Matt Cohen, chief technology officer at real estate data security consulting firm Clareity Security, in a blog post today. “Tools like this continue to chip away at the value of everything from the prospecting functions of the MLS to the relative usefulness of having listings on agent or MLS websites. It’s time for folks to recognize that it’s not important just to have the listing content – it’s about making it useful.”

Agentfolio is the product of Zillow’s acquisition of the New York City-based collaborative home search tool Buyfolio in October. A version for brokerages includes a lead capture page for brokerage websites and a lead tracking and management tool.

Do you agree with Cohen? Is this a big deal?

Editor’s note: This story has been updated with comments from Matt Cohen, chief technology officer at real estate data security consulting firm Clareity Security.

One of the biggest challenges in real estate marketing today is creating video content. Let’s face it, agents are not meant to be self-producing video creators. There is a learning curve to production, post-production, equipment, storyboarding, and the list goes on. And yet, the first thing you’ll hear from the experts is that video marketing is one of the trends that has a large impact on search engine optimization, mobile marketing, capturing attention, and traffic. All true. 

So I think you’ll like the news that was released today. Out of Orlando, Fla., MarketVideos.com has just released its agent-focused video marketing platform, which offers turnkey, hyperlocal market data from an agent’s MLS area in a beautifully produced video that is branded and customized by the agent.

Stephen Schweickart of MarketVideos said, “We created MarketVideos for agents after our broker product had rave reviews from the agents themselves. Since video marketing still has a curve, MarketVideos makes it easy for the busy agent to have an affordable, unique, content-packed video marketing solution, that is customizable, and has strong lead capture. Since over 70 percent of consumers forget the name of their agent after the sale, this provides a way to stay top of mind with relevant consumer content with our newsletter subscription as well. Home improvement tips, gardening, mortgage and credit information is all available to help the consumer NOT looking to buy a home right now.”

MarketVideos.com is also mobile and email campaign compatible. You can drop the embed code on your website/blog, upload directly to YouTube, share on your social channels, and it displays beautifully on mobile devices. We generously have been given a custom promo code for our InmanNext readers to be able to give MarketVideos a try. Use the code word “NEXT.” Take a look at the examples below; this would look great in your monthly newsletter! (The MarketVideos are produced in conjunction with metrics from Terradatum for qualified agents.)

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story stated that the Meetup would take place tonight. In fact, it will take place tomorrow.

In an effort to foster cross-pollination between real estate tech entrepreneurs, monthly Meetups are being held in venues around New York City, with the latest get-together taking place tomorrow.

At the meetings, startups and industry investors and experts make presentations in front of attendees after socializing over beers and pizza.

Tomorrow night’s NYC Real Estate Tech Meetup will be held on the fourth floor of General Assembly, an organization dedicated to cultivating collaboration and learning among startups. At the event, Brad Inman, publisher of Inman News, will offer insights on the state of the industry, and startups Apartable, CompStak and iFunding will demo their products.

Tickets to the event are $5. General Assembly is located at 902 Broadway. Visit the Meetup’s Web page to learn more.

Two federal lawsuits brought by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission last week spotlights an issue that is getting increasing attention from home mortgage lenders, rental property owners, local governments, and now the U.S. Supreme Court: “disparate impact.”

Disparate impact is a legal theory that has been aggressively advocated by the Obama administration. It holds that even if you have no intent to discriminate against a “protected class” of persons under the U.S. Civil Rights Act — whether racial or ethnic minorities, senior citizens, handicapped individuals or others — you may be in violation of the law if your policy or action disproportionately harms that class.

Last week’s suits by the EEOC challenged employment background check programs used by Dollar General Stores and auto manufacturer BMW’s South Carolina plant. Both companies routinely screen job applicants for past criminal activities.

The EEOC charged that by rejecting applications from people who have criminal convictions on their records, the two companies “disproportionately screened out African Americans from jobs” and that their policies “are not consistent with business necessity.”

What’s this got to do with housing or mortgages, you might ask? Plenty. Last week a delegation representing the tenant screening data industry called on HUD to scrap the disparate impact rules it adopted in February that open rental real estate owners “to costly discrimination litigation” if they screen out applicants who have been previously convicted of violent crimes and felonies. Such a policy puts landlords and property managers into an impossible conflict situation, argued the National Consumer Reporting Association.

On the one hand, HUD’s own Section 8 voucher program rules require landlords to refuse to rent to people who have been convicted of certain crimes, such as running a methamphetamine lab inside a prior residence. On top of that, many local ordinances — the group cited Chicago and Milwaukee — “hold landowners responsible for the actions of those renting their properties. This is mandated on the assumption that owners are able to screen and reject potential renters who display historical behavior that could lead to future similar malevolences and, in turn, landowner punishment.”

Yet HUD’s final disparate impact rule puts rental property owners in potential legal jeopardy if they refuse to rent to applicants with certain criminal convictions. They risk money-gobbling lawsuits for doing what they are required to do under federal and local regulations.

In the case of the Section 8 program, it’s especially troubling, the National Consumer Reporting Association said. The HUD office that handles Section 8 subsidized rentals  is telling landlords to do something that could trigger legal action from another office inside HUD, the fair housing and equal opportunity division.

But HUD and the EEOC are not the only players in this controversy. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which has regulatory authority over the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, has announced that it plans to apply a disparate impact theory of discrimination to lending, including mortgages.

CFPB’s biggest mortgage regulatory project , the Qualified Mortgage rule, which is set to take effect next January, essentially creates a national screening process to separate out people who don’t have the “ability to repay” loans or whose debt-to-income ratios exceed 43 percent. (When the rule is first implemented, loans that pass Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac or FHA automated screening will have a temporary exemption. The QM rule also screens out certain high-risk loan features such as negative amortization, interest-only and balloon payments.)

Once up and running, QM is virtually certain to exclude large numbers of applicants, with potentially greater relative impacts on modest-income and minority borrowers than others.

Will compliance with CFPB’s screening process expose lenders to disparate impact litigation, or threats of litigation? Earlier this month, eight trade associations — mainly representing banks and mortgage companies — wrote to HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan and CFPB Director Richard Cordray asking that very question.

Currently “there is no guidance” from either HUD or CFPB on how lenders can escape liability under the disparate impact theory, the group said, even though lenders may have no discriminatory intent. By toughening underwriting standards for mortgages, it’s entirely possible that fewer African-American and Latino homebuyers will be able to qualify for financing.

Certainly that constitutes a disparate impact, but like the Section 8 landlords, different government agencies or offices appear to be telling lenders to do contradictory things: On the one hand, they’re supposed to screen out applicants who may not be able to afford the loan. On the other, if their screening has a disproportionate impact on one or more minorities, lenders may be open to civil rights suits or threats of suits.

The lending groups asked both HUD and the CFPB to provide some urgently needed pointers including how “to assess less discriminatory alternatives in the context of complying with federal guidelines.”

No word yet on that from either agency.

Meanwhile, on Monday the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to rule for the first time on the application of disparate impact theory to fair housing. The court accepted the case of Mount Holly v. Mount Holly Gardens Citizens in Action Inc., which involves a claim of disparate impact by residents of a neighborhood targeted for redevelopment by the Township of Mount Holly, N. J.

A decision is not expected until next year, but it could be a landmark ruling for rental real estate owners, mortgage lenders and employers.

Ken Harney writes an award-winning, nationally syndicated column, “The Nation’s Housing,” and is the author of two books on real estate and mortgage finance.

Carrington Real Estate Services LLC has added brokerage offices in Colorado and Michigan, bringing the number of states where it has agents on the ground to 27.

In Colorado, the company will be opening operations in Boulder, a mountain town about 30 miles northwest of Denver, and will service Boulder, Denver, Lakewood, Fort Lupton and Erie.

Carrington’s operations in Michigan will be headquartered on the outskirts of Detroit in White Lake and will service Ann Arbor, Auburn Hills, Plymouth, Rochester, Troy, Warren and White Lake.

The Santa Ana, Calif.-based brokerage — known as Atlantic & Pacific Real Estate before rebranding in May — has 1,200 agents working out of 35 offices in Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New Hampshire, New York, Nevada, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia and Washington.

Carrington says it has plans to open brokerage offices in 2013 in the following states: Kansas, Kentucky, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

The brokerage’s parent company, Carrington Holding Co., also operates Carrington Capital Management LLC, an investor in mortgage-backed securities, and Carrington Mortgage Services LLC, a servicer of home loans. The brokerage’s ties to its parent company have helped ensure its agents a steady supply of real estate owned (REO) listings.

The federal agency that regulates Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac has raised eyebrows by hiring a lawyer and insurance industry lobbyist to advise it on force-placed insurance. Charles Landgraf “played a key early role in coordinating Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s actions on force-placed insurance,” anonymous sources told American Banker. Consumer advocates characterized Landgraf’s selection as a senior consultant to FHFA “bizarre and inherently problematic.” Source: americanbanker.com.

California-based direct retail mortgage lender LoanDepot.com LLC plans to have 1,000 people on staff within the next few years at a Plano, Texas, facility the company opened last week. Source: dallasnews.com.

Do you have what it takes to be the agent who represents the most luxurious properties in your marketplace? While taking classes can help you be better prepared to represent luxury clients, the real key to your success results from your ability to build personal connection.

Recently, I was at a party where a top-producing agent who specializes in luxury properties asked whether agents should be “certified” to sell luxury properties. She went on to answer her own question by saying, “I don’t know a single agent who specializes in the million-dollar-plus price range who needs a certification.” I spent 20 years selling in that price range and I had to agree. None of the luxury agents who worked with me in Los Angeles ever attended a luxury certification class.

When I first moved to Austin, Texas, a local title company asked me to put together a course on how to market luxury properties. Since I had been an active agent in Southern California (Brentwood, Bel Air and Beverly Hills) for almost 20 years and had run the training program for the 4,000-agent Beverly Hills-based Jon Douglas Co., this was second nature for me.

One of the biggest surprises came as I chatted with the agents during the break. Most of them were terrified at the thought of representing a buyer or seller in the $700,000-$800,000 range. A million-dollar listing was absolutely out of the question. Nevertheless, they were hopeful that this class or a certification program would provide the magic bullet that would somehow transform them into luxury agents. Sadly, this underlying lack of confidence would probably be the biggest stumbling block to their success.

In a different class, we had about 50 agents in attendance. One agent arrived in shorts, a Hawaiian shirt and strapless sandals. Nevertheless, I remembering thinking, I’ll bet he’s a luxury agent. When I surveyed the class, he was the only one who had actually sold a property priced at more than $1 million. In fact, he had owned commercial offices both in Beverly Hills and Austin.

So if it’s not your clothes or the number of years you have been in the business, and it’s not something you can get from just taking classes, what does it take to become a luxury real estate agent?

Perhaps the best answer comes from the law of attraction: Like attracts like. If you want to represent luxury clients, you must in some way mirror who they are. There are thousands of ways to do this. In fact, regardless of who your clients are, in most cases the reason that you are doing business together is that you have found a commonality that is the basis for your connection.

For his book, “Lessons from Richistan,” Robert Frank interviewed people who are multimillionaires. While many of these people were accessible, a large number of them didn’t want to speak with him.

Frank was particularly interested in interviewing one particular woman. He had tried reaching her several times and each time she turned down the interview. When he finally met her at a cocktail party, she was very aloof. He noticed that she was wearing a beautiful bracelet that was worth more than $1 million. He was familiar with the artist’s work as well as the value. When he inquired about whether her bracelet was indeed by that artist, the woman’s whole demeanor changed. Apparently, very few people recognized the value of the bracelet nor were they aware of the artist who created it. Because Frank recognized what mattered to this woman, he got the interview.

Consequently, if you want to represent luxury clients, the first step is to engage in activities outside of real estate that put you in regular contact with luxury buyers and sellers. For example, if you are interested in the arts, join an organization that raises money to support the local symphony or light opera. Attend art auctions and chat with people there about what they find interesting about that day’s sale.

Other luxury clients are highly engaged in organizations that rescue and find homes for animals.

If you enjoy doing charitable fundraising, do more than just writing a check. Volunteer for committees, help at events, and make yourself useful in whatever way possible. If your charity raises money for cancer, heart disease, diabetes or any other illness, always be the person who is willing to go that extra mile to help someone else who is experiencing a difficult time.

The point is that real estate is always about connection, about similarities and common interests. If you understand what matters to the client as well as the pressures of their lifestyle, you will be well equipped to do business with them. A piece of paper saying you are certified to sell luxury properties never has been nor ever will be a substitute for the two things that ultimately matter: connection and trust.

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.

I was listening to Alec Baldwin’s “Here’s the Thing” podcast the other day. It’s a great podcast in a conversational interview style.

Baldwin was interviewing Billy Joel. Aside from Baldwin’s generally good-natured interview style, this one was especially good because Joel and Baldwin are both from the same part of the world: working-class New York City. So they had a lot in common to laugh about.

But the thing that struck me is that while they were talking about Joel’s career in music, so many of the songs that everyone knows weren’t really hits. Even songs that everyone of a certain age can sing along to.

It used to be, way back when, that songs would get played on this thing called the radio. The songs weren’t chosen by an algorithm or anything fancy like that. They were chosen by individual disk jockeys playing the music. Sometimes, if people called in enough, they’d play songs by request.

Hit songs weren’t determined by radio play. They were determined by sales. Cold hard cash.

A song that got a lot of play on the radio but didn’t get a lot of sales is called a “turntable hit.” Lots of people heard the song but it didn’t sell a lot of copies.

Billy Joel noted that most of his most famous songs weren’t actual hits. They didn’t sell through. They were turntable hits.

The phenomenon of the turntable hit happens because we tend to use radio plays as a key performance indicator for sales of music. Instead of measuring the important thing — record sales — directly, we measure something a little easier: how often it gets played on the radio.

The problem is that sometimes the key performance indicator doesn’t match up with what we want to be measuring. Sometimes we choose to measure what is easy to measure instead of what we should be measuring.

It’s dangerous to do this, for a business just as much as for a musical career. We can chase something because it’s easy but not get what we want.

Digital marketing is fraught with a “turntable hits” style of thinking.

Instead of measuring whether people truly care about our brand, we measure how many times they click “like” on Facebook.

Instead of measuring whether a channel delivers customers, we measure traffic volume.

Instead of getting the people working the phones and meetings to report honestly on their ability to be helpful to people who contact via digital sources, we just count goal completions online.

By using one metric as a stand-in for what we want to achieve, we may be creating our own turntable hits. And like Alec Baldwin (and myself), be very surprised to learn that “Piano Man” wasn’t a hit song even though everyone I know can sing at least one verse of it, given the proper lead-in.

[Editor's note: According to billboard.com, the song "Piano Man," from Billy Joel's 1973 debut album of the same name, was a top 40 radio hit when it was released as a single. Joel's 1977 album, "The Stranger," produced four top 40 singles and sold 7 million copies over two decades.]

An example that I encountered earlier this week was a situation where a website was receiving far more traffic from Facebook than from nonbranded Google search. In other words, more people were entering the website by way of Facebook than they were from topic terms — things that didn’t have the company name — in Google search.

One way of looking at that would be to say: “Why bother with SEO? Facebook is delivering more traffic and is cheaper than doing SEO work.”

That’s a reasonable thing to consider.

But by moving the measurement just a little further — manually calculating how many visitors arrive after applying the bounce rate — it was quite clear that the Facebook traffic didn’t look at enough pages or the right pages to be considered genuinely interested in doing the thing the website was built to do: look at property and connect a customer to an agent.

By paying attention to the turntable metric, the site owner might give up on the part of traffic generation that was working to generate sales in favor of a metric that isn’t.

This sort of thing happens across all metrics. And to make it worse, one company’s actual metric is another’s turntable metric.

The important thing to remember is that these things exist: turntable metrics, key performance indicators, vanity metrics. As long as you know what they are, then you can use them to generate insights relevant to your own business.