Rofo: The Commercial Real Estate Community

The commercial real estate business is traditionally a bit of an old boys network, with giant international brokerages controlling most of the choice stuff.

Rofo << it stands for Right of First Offer >> is out to level the playing field with an online search tool and community that helps people find real estate faster and at a better value.

The "community" aspect of this product comes in the form of ratings and reviews of spaces, and through an ability to compare your rent to others in the same building or area.

Another interesting aspect of this is that companies can post their space needs and gather "bids" or proposals anonymously. So, in effect, spaces come to you instead of the other way around.

They make their money from the space owners, by charging $20 for a tour request -- it's a heckuvalot cheaper than a commission!

I conducted a few searches on Rofo, and it appears that they have good levels of inventory, at least in major markets.

For start-ups looking for space, it seems to make good economic and time management sense to give them a try. You can at least narrow your choices without schlepping from one end of creation to another.

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.

Friday Fun From Jib Jab

A classic JibJab. Oh so true...

Yapta Emerges to Save Travelers Money

The worst kept secret in the world is that airline prices are constantly fluctuating, with the result that someone paying $1500 for a round trip could be sitting next to someone paying $350.

What you may not know is that airlines may issue you a credit if fares go down after you buy a ticket. Now, this relates only to certain ticket classes, and there may also be rebooking fees to consider. But millions and millions go unclaimed here because people don't keep track of prices after the sale.

Naturally, the airlines hope you do not avail yourself of the rebates. They'd like to keep your cash, thank you very much, and hope to the heavens that you'll lose interest in ticket prices after you click BUY.

But Yapta never loses interest, and that is how it has gathered such a devoted following. When you book a ticket through Yapta, the system automatically keeps checking after you buy to ensure you can get what;s coming to you. It even considers the change fees so you know when there is a real cash opp out there for you.

When you receive a Yapta alert, you have the choice of following up yourself (in which case the serice is free) or paying $15 and having Yapta do it for you. I'm guessing most people will do the latter. Can you imagine what the wait times must be on customer service to the rebate department?

Yapta does more than just enable arbitrage -- it also can alert you when an airfare has dropped to a price you want to pay.

Their model includes advertising, so travel marketers may do well to consider this compelling new offering.

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.

White Paper Thursdays: How to Tell a Story in a Presentation

I love this deck from a firm called Ethos3 that helps companies make better presentations. Don't click through the slides, press play and it auto runs. Three minutes of your life that may well make your future presentations the sort that motivate your audience and change the way people think.

| View | Upload your own

I have bored all of the Catalystas with my beliefs about how a preso is like a story told around the campfire 25,000 years ago in a Neanderthal village. This preso is a much more complete view on the topic, though I think the analogy still applies. As humans we like stories -- it's engrained in us and it's the best way to communicate to us and get us to remember.

Thanks for watching, and don't forget to write.

People Doing More Important things Than Me

When I get worked up over silly little setbacks in my career of pushing electrons around, I try to take a moment to check out what's important -- what people are doing that is important. This here is an excellent example. It helps me calm down and recognize what matters from what will be forgotten in 24 or so hours.



Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.

White Paper Thursdays: The Social Media Cookbook

This is a really interesting doc on how to create online communities. While the content is especially geared to online newspapers, I think there is a ton of info that applies to any business or organization that wants to build that network of connections online. It's quite long, but you can hop around in it if you are not working for an online newspaper.

The Online Community Cookbook - Upload a Document to Scribd

Read this document on Scribd: The Online Community Cookbook

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.

White Paper Thursdays: Get the Giant Piper Jefferies Internet Trends Report Free!

Yep, you can get it roit heya.

Piper Jefferies Internet Report 2007 - Upload a Document to Scribd

Read this document on Scribd: Piper Jefferies Internet Report 2007

Scribd registration is required to download a pdf. but you can view it tight here without registering. But you should register anyway if you don't have a free memebrship already. Good stuff free for the taking over there...

Note: check the page count before you hit Control-P.

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.

White Paper Thursdays: State of the Online News Category

Hitwise always puts out a good white paper, and this one, on the state of the online news media sector, is no exception. Download it over at emarketingpapers. Registration is required.

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Habbo-tats

Second Life Second Life Second Life. Remember when that was all everyone was talking about? Well, there are lots of other virtual world communities out there, and one of the largest collections of these is Habbo, a virtual world expressly for Teens.

As you can imagine, you join, customize an avatar, and then get wandering and chatting. You can meet people, have chats in private rooms, and all the sorts of things you would expect from a virtual world.

So let's talk stats for a mo', then show you a screen shot.

(stats from their website)
32 local communities
Registered users: 103,000,000
Unique visitors: 9,500,000 / month
Page impressions: 990,000,000 / month
Age distribution: 90 % between 13-18 years old
Average visit: 36 minutes / session

Graphically, Habbo is less ambitious than Second Life, and I think that is a good iea given that they are trying to create a community across national borders and one which is far more focused on conversations and relationships than looks. It's appearance is akin to Disney's penguin world.



There are actually lots of Habbos, each assigned to a different country. And it is quite a country collection. 32 localized online destinations.

Argentina
Australia
Austria
Belgium
Brazil
Canada
Chile
Colombia
Denmark
Ecuador
Finland
France
Germany
Ireland
Italy
Japan
Malaysia
Mexico
Netherlands
New Zealand
Norway
Peru
Portugal
Russia
Singapore
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
UK
USA
Venezuela
Morocco

From a revenue perspective they have a premium services membership system, a paid credits system with which you buy outfits and possessions to customize your room, as well as a very friendly attitude toward advertisers. In addition to traditional banners, you can have products and experiences integrated into their realms.

I poked around in Habbo and was impressed by the level of activity and also with the fact that I could move around in it would bumping into columns and houses and trees like I did in SL because my computer couldn't quite handle the graphics.

If you have a teen targeted brand, and especially if you have an international reach, check out Habbo as a cool venue for your marketing efforts!

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.

Hussein McSame Mashup

Awesome viral vid from the folks at JiBJab entitled "It's time for some campaignin'." I love the part with Barack making a rainbow while riding a unicorn.



What's eleven times cooler is that you can go to jibjab.com and actually put your face in the vid -- a sort of Hussein McSame Personal mashup.

The folks at JibJab have delightful bad taste and the good sense to make their marvelous format interactive!

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.