So apparently there has been a little movement on the mobile real estate technology front. According to Inman News, there's a new company that has just introduced a "new tool, called SMS/MLS (SMS is an acronym for "short messaging service," or text messaging), allows buyers to search for homes by address, neighborhood, MLS number or a company-created code assigned to a property." Its called CellSigns and it is quite clever, but is it a "new" idea?
Come on...we all know that this isn't the first instance of real estate listings being sent to cell phones, as
QWASI representative explained to Inman News.
"We have created the only real estate text messaging search tools available anywhere. These new tools put the Realtor and the real estate industry at the forefront."
Anybody keeping up with the times knows that this is just something extra added to a tactic that the LOFTNINJA essentially created (see Urbanfoto) listings-to-mobile phone early last year when he basically rigged his blog's RSS feed in such a way that NYC space seekers could subscribe with their email and/or text mail address. At the time, no such tactic had ever been used (in real estate or any other field). In fact, it was on a social networking site, Tribe.net, that justiNYC asked the pros and public if there had ever been a way to hook a blog up to RSS. After a week or so of confusion, a pretty well know developer/blogger coughed up a tool that seems to have been inspired by the question...voila! Rmail. When LoftNinja first started doing this with Ninjalistings (now called Ninjalist), the seriously spaceless in NYC finally had something to work with...for the very first time ever, real estate listings came to you. If someone was interested in a particular type of space not listed on the blog, they just subscribed (for free) and everytime a new listing/post was published-BOOM- phone calls. Unlike new versions of this idea, this type of tool was created out of a need to adapt to both a changing market and to the fact that LoftNinja's company at the time had no website. Today, convenience isn't as free. In fact, it wasn't two weeks before Corcoran began to copy and mass produce this idea in their own advertising. There's money to be made in them there hills!!!
The point here is this: Artists are the first (in most cases) to create that which the capitalist takes for granted and expands upon, having (in many cases) never credited those that came first. Such is the case with money and real estate and and and....i know! and i can hear many now saying "Oh Whaaa...cry me a river...thats life. Get over it!" To those that would say this aI ask one simple question: "Have you ever created anything out of thin air? Is there anything that you can actually say that is your invention, having originated in your mind and driven by your vision of a better something, anywhere?" More often than not, the type of person that would accept a comment such as "Thats life" as a satisfactory truth and consolation is just the type that has allowed their life to become a shadow of other peoples' lives- merely a collage of convenience. So the question remains: Do we create tools such as these to help other people out or are we merely ready to rake in the dough that can be generated off of a product (rooted in ideas that have been borrowed and not returned) rapidly distributed as something "New"? In LoftNinja's case, the tool became the product of an honest approach to real estate that, lets face it, is seriously lacking in NYC. He wanted to find a way to help people feel a little more comfortable about their need for space by becoming a little more familiar with the agent they choose to help them. He gave them tools that might make finding a home a little easier- not because he thought he might ultimately become rich, but because he slept better at night, knowing that other are pleased with having turned to him for advise. In other cases with similar tools, it is hard to find where this element is present. Most real estate agents just wanna make money- never caring about whether someone might have paid them to steer their direction towards hazardous situations. An artist will care about the color of paint that gets used because he knows that it will effect the entire work. An artist will bring color to a grey neighborhood along with life, community and services, only to be the first forced out when these amenities become fashionable and inspire the rents to go up and the creativity to go down. Much like listings-to-phone ideas, this is nothing new. But in the same way that true art deserves recognition, the agent of change must seek to understand his place in time. Only then will he truly be helping other people out. Only then will the product of his action be something "new."