What Would Google Do_ - Jeff Jarvis [100]
The other problem with selling a house is hassling with tours. I’d start a company that offers concierge services to schedule and escort would-be buyers. The concierge doesn’t have to sell the house (as a buyer, I don’t need anyone to open closets and point out how allegedly large they are, thank you very much). Buyers could pay the concierge to chauffeur them from home to home. Sellers could pay the concierge to hold open-houses (and make coffee and cookies)—and I think that if buyers knew they wouldn’t be trailed by sellers’ agents, they might be more likely to visit a home. I would not be surprised to see local home-tour bloggers emerge, taking tours, taking pictures, and treating new homes on the market as news. I’d read it and buy ads there.
Closing is the final hassle. We need to change laws to simplify the process and shift control and advantage from lawyers to home buyers and sellers.
There are also technology opportunities. I’d like a mobile-phone application tied to Google Maps and global positioning so, as a shopper, I could enter my requirements—houses this large in this price range in this area—and the phone could map out a day’s house hunting, scheduling the day and giving me directions so I get to open houses at the right hour. The application could show me photos and videos. It could contact concierges, agents, or sellers to make appointments. Who wants to drive around with an agent in a high-mileage Mercedes when you can go it alone? Or maybe I’m just being antisocial.
Buyers can use the tools of the web and mobile technology to research a prospective neighborhood. New services such as EveryBlock.com list all kinds of data around addresses—crimes, building permits, even graffiti cleanings. Outside.in organizes local blog posts around locations so you can read what your neighbors are talking about. With smart searches, home buyers can get school data and local news archives. They can look up and contact Facebook users who live in the area. A neat new service called CleverCommute provides a real picture of traffic headaches. All this open data beats the agent telling you that every neighborhood is wonderful and every house has potential.
Agent 2.0 will have her own rich web site showing the towns she covers and the homes she has helped to sell, with links to lots of information about the area. She’ll want Googlejuice. When I come looking for a home, I may search for someone to help me. That could be a remade agent, it could be a disruptive newcomer, or I could do it on my own. I’ll be looking for the best service and the best deal in an open and competitive market—without anyone paying 6 percent.
Money
Google Capital
The First Bank of Google
Google Capital: Money makes networks
I can’t think of a Googlier industry than venture capital, and that stands to reason: Venture capitalists traffic in innovation, change, and risk. They watch what Google does, covet its success, and follow its investors. When I told venture capitalist Fred Wilson, a partner at Union Square Ventures in New York, that I was writing a book called What Would Google Do? he smiled and said, “We ask that all day long. That’s our investment strategy.” He and his partners also ask, “What would Sequoia do?” Sequoia Capital backed Google. That’s Google envy.
Wilson is the Googliest guy I