Simon Baker, the ex-CEO of REA has invested in bringing the Nestoria property portal to Australia. Nestoria.co.uk is the 4th most popular real estate site in the UK.
There are some interesting connections going on here. Firstly Nestoria is an aggregator of property listings. They receive listing data from a range of other companies. Ultimately they are just a listing service for other portals and real estate groups to display their property on. They compete for the eyeballs looking for real estate and then distribute them to other “destination”.
They specialise in creating a better and more simplified user experience. Nestoria also offers a range of widgets and an api for third party webmasters to utilise their data and embed functionality in their website ultimatley driving traffic back to Nestoria.
If this all sounds familiar it is and that’s because it is basically Google’s model to Real Estate although there are of course still some differences. Nestoria’s user interface is far better than Google’s minimalistic mapping approach but Google also brings synergies with its search integration that Nestoria can’t offer. Another difference is that Google’s income stream is through the display of ads on every page whereas I believe Nestoria is charging the data providers for generating traffic.
Now Domain has signed up as one of the foundation partners for Nestoria. That seems a little hypocritical when you consider that Domain has not partnered with Google over their real estate solution. Domain obviously does not have an issue with the aggregation model itself more the fact that Fairfax is a huge user of Google for its advertising products and thus they believe it should not be interfering in their “space”. Clearly they dont have those issues with Nestoria.
So what we have is the ex CEO and still a major shareholder of the Australian number one portal doing a joint venture (or white labelling) with the UK’s 4th largest portal to create a new Australian portal and partnering with Australia’s 2nd largest portal and others to generate them more traffic. Confused yet?
Something has obviously changed in Simon Bakers thinking. As the man behind REA’s stunning success he operated a strictly subscription based portal that now talks about increasing their “share of wallet” from real estate agents. At the end of Simons reign at REA it was a truly corporate beast complete with executive and middle management levels and a huge administration and sales force.
Nestoria on the other hand is a lean mean fighting machine that operates on minimal overheads and uses smart user friendly design and SEO to create substantial traffic.
Only days before Google launched the first stage of their Real Estate solution Simon was publicly stating on his propertyportalwatch.com blog that Google would not be effective and not enter the mix. In contrast we have him behind a remarkably similar portal whose current partnerships are actively working against his previous employer and his substantial investment in REA.
So can Simon Baker make Nestoria.com.au a real contender in the real estate space? Yes I think he can.
Nestoria certainly has a good pedigree and an established and proven site design, user interface combined with widgets and an api. Simon also brings a wealth of experience to the table and the combination should certainly provide some fireworks.
78 Comments
Craig
Nick, what do you tell people to get them to list on your site along with REA, Domain and their own site? Nestoria are probably using a similar message. Different sites attract people for different reasons and there are probably many people who just don’t like Domain much but love Nestoria. Or certain niches that Nestoria are just better at targeting. Rather than missing those eye balls better to get in bed with them.
Aryan
What makes you link Simon Baker is with Nestoria as shareholder/member etc I think he just mentioned it on his site.
Also he is the chairman of IPGA.
Robert Simeon
Wow – great scoop Glenn. Maybe you should have published this tomorrow being April Fools Day! I can see that Domain will largely benefit from increased traffic so that makes sense – but what about all these conflicts of interest as you rightly point out. Maybe the Domain alliance with Nestoria is a face saving measure opening the way to do a deal with Google.
This announcement has so many twists!
Nick
Its definitely a uphill road for Nestoria.because they have absolutely no brand recognition here in Australia.
The partnerships are interesting though. Why does Domain need Nestoria?
Glenn Batten
Aryan
http://classifiedadventures.com/2010/03/nestoria-australia-launched/
Robert Simeon
Nick,
I would think that Domain just want more UV’s – the model is mind boggling. I imagine that it would have had to be approved by the ACCC?
Nick
Robert, that would be diluting their properties.
There is nothing Nestoria can do that Domain cannot, but they’ve partnered so now there are two copies of the properties and one copy may or may not send visitors to Domain.
Seems a bit pointless to me. Easier to hire a few more programmers and do something similar.
Robert Simeon
Nick, you make complete sense I must admit I am struggling to come to terms with exactly what this possibly achieves. I wonder if this now qualifies Simon to receive an invitation to the Domain Christmas Party 🙂
Glenn Batten
Robert,
Domain have to get more out of the relationship traffic wise than what they lose to it. Obviously at the moment nobody knows exactly how it will pan out but you can be sure that Domain will be looking at the ROI. IMHO I believe that the relationship will be highly beneficial but only time will tell.
Its a numbers gain and any additional traffic would be much loved by domain. It has to be tough to compete with the Realestate.com.au PR Machine. No adwords, reduced google rankings and yet the latest stats get more more.. although its funny how property seeker stats are not used anymore 🙂 The term is still trotted out.. just not as statistics since Neilsen’s rep commented on the whole statistics discussion.
Vic
The mind boggles at Domain’s “partnering” with Nestoria. Domain charges its agent clients to list their properties on domain.co.au. Nestoria picks these up for nix out of domain. Agents can go direct to Nestoria and not pay a cracker. So why go to domain in the first place?
Is domain preparing/angling for a financial partnership with Nestoria?
Charlie
Interesting stuff, and I admit I was confused about aggregators and vertical searches and all that til I met Ed Freyfogle, one of the coFounders of Nestoria recently (I interviewed him in fact: see http://www.aussiehome.com/tv) and came to see these sorts of sites as ‘friends to everyone’. How can that be? Well, I suppose the public might like the site, and portals/uploaders might like the traffic. Interesting to see how it develops; all the portals in UK and other European countries seems to like these guys, and the public traffic is good, so maybe the public like their clean simple map search. Time will tell in Oz I suppose…
Shane Dale
Guys its a simple model, they claim to be able to effectively SEO their site, and thus offer you traffic at a cheaper rate than google for adwords.
Comparing to googlebase, which is free, its hard to compare.
Comparing to adwords traffic, its cheaper usually.
Its clear this is a model that was designed and implemented before googlerealestate came out. Once you start a business and you have some revenue – why not continue?
Googlebase at this stage isn’t implemented as fully into the normal search results so nestoria is using those results to harvest traffic.
If you have a revenue stream from traffic – then this is a cost to produce traffic, as is adwords.
I don’t know how this model will exist in the future when googlebase grows more entrenched into the google results. There is still the temptation for google to either use their property results as a driver for adwords revenue or allow this element of their search to also become monetised as per the adwords model.
Effectively nestoria is an adwords type model for property traffic, which they try to deliver more cost efficiently than google adwords but obviously cant do it as cheaply as googlebase. I think that covers it.
Charlie
Are you in it Shane? interested in your thoughts…
Ed Freyfogle
Hi Everyone,
I’m one of the founders of Nestoria. Great to read your comments, we welcome all feedback.
I’m keen to clarify a few points. Glenn, thanks for your kind words about the product, but we’re hardly a “lean mean fighting machine”. We are lean (12 people serving 5 countries), but we’re friendly. We’re not fighting with anyone. We offer a simple service to portals and franchise groups.
We do not work with individual agents, nor do we have any plans to nor do we have any ability to. If agents want to join us they need to work with our partners.
Our model is a bit different, but it works. In Europe over the last 4 years we’ve won the trust of about 60 property portals including all the leading players. They work with us because we provide a service that they value.
We have understanding for the fact that new models require time to digest and be accepted by everyone, it is the same in Europe.
Regarding the comparison with Google (base, adwords, organic traffic, etc) – if you feel like using Google, go for it. You can also use Nestoria. It’s not competitive at all (though I can think of reasons you might not want to be even more dependent on Google).
So that’s it – we offer a simple service that we believe some users will find useful some of the time. Just like in every country we’ve started in – we of course need to learn from the users and their feedback and fine tune it to Australia. We have a lot to learn.
I’ll be in Australia (Sydney and Melbourne) in May if anyone wants to chat about it face to face, or give me feedback on the service – first round’s on
me. Or you can of course get in touch with our local country manager John Hart. Ping me (via twitter) and I’ll send you details.
thanks again for the feedback,
Ed
Glenn Batten
Thanks Ed.. great to see your comments.
I really look forward to seeing how you go in Australia. Considering one of your strengths is your SEO, and getting pages indexed is getting quicker and quicker (this article was on Google News within 10min and Google Search in under 15min) we might see you making some impact for your partners locally sooner rather than later.
Craig Adams
Glenn,
I think Baker is having a bet each way. Yes he is a share holder and why would you pull out of any investment that has grown 3 fold in 14 months.
Significant to note that there is not a single Baker aligned or installed person left in the upper echelons of REA. They all got the flick under Greg Ellis or saw the writing on the wall and jumped. Because of this he is now trying to create his own niche back in the sector through Nestoria.
It’s totally weird to see what he is doing but also quite fascinating as well. It is very interesting to see all these ex-REA execs who fell out with Ellis and News Ltd now popping up again with Baker.
Shaun Di Gregorio is now CEO of IPGA in Asia whose Chairman is Simon Baker, Kelly Millar and Anthony Herman who were both long term REA people now head up the new Baker initiative SOBOX linking social media for interested businesses. As a recent example we have the founder of Nestoria posting John Hart as being the Australian Country Manager for his joint venture with Baker. John was of course the original Marketing man in the Baker years.
With all of these people and many more of his former buddies now out of the business Simon has little or no emotional attachment to the REA business anymore so why would he not want to compete with them even if it is to take a small chunk.
Glenn just a slight over kill on Baker building an empire of layered exec offices and corporate structures you obviously never went to an REA office including Head office.
It’s probably the leanest and cheapest operation I’ve seen. Not one person has an office including the CEO and they inhabit some of the cheapest office spaces in Australia. They run lean and mean while Domain inhabit multi million dollar offices and foyers in Syd and Melb.
There is a message there.
Ed Freyfogle
Hi Glenn,
re: SEO. To succeed on the modern internet you need to be good at SEO. But SEO alone is not nearly enough. We like to think about it this way: SEO is a way to get people into the restaurant – if you then fail to serve them good food they’re never going to come back.
I look forward to hopefully meeting face to face in May.
Craig
Simon, how is Nestoria different to Google Maps Real Estate? It seems to me to be essentially the same, although Nestoria possibly is a bit more fine tuned.
Glenn Batten
Craig,
There certainly has been a stream of staff following the piper since he left .
Re your comments about the executive offices and comparing it to fairfax.. I take your point but I think you read something into my post that was not quite there.
“At the end of Simons reign at REA it was a truly corporate beast complete with executive and middle management levels and a huge administration and sales force.”
I did not actually mention anything about offices and the “levels” are management levels typical in a corporation where there are a whole team of executive management, middle management, team leaders and the rest.
I was talking about the people not the offices. You are right though.. I never visited the offices which is probably why I never mentioned it.
Nick
Craig, well I’m not a sales person (I’m a tech) but we are a niche portal which targets a certain demographic and we do that one demographic very well if I say so myself. 🙂
Nestoria is a bit different as well because its a portal teaming up with a portal, rather than just agents going to another portal.
Ed: Good to see you here. 🙂
Its always good to hear from the horses mouth.
Simon Baker
Glenn
Thanks for the write up about Nestoria Australia.
I thought i would reply to some of the questions / statements in the comments section.
Nestoria Australia is not a portal but a search engine. The difference is that portals are 3 page sites while search engines are 2 page sites. A portal has a search, search results and property details page and tries to keep the visitors on the site. A search engine only has a search and search results page and then sends the visitor to the site that originally has the listings.
Nestoria Australia sees the property portals and franchise group sites as its customers. It is not dealling with agents directly and has no plans to do that. Nestoria Australia sources listings from the portals / franchise groups sites, presents them to consumers and then drives consumers back to the original site on a cost per click basis.
Therefore, it is not competitive to REA. In fact, i would love to have REA using the service.
All portal sites and franchise groups sites have a marketing plan. They probably invest in SEO, SEM, PR and perhaps more traditional marketing (e.g. billboards, press etc). The objective is simple, they want to drive traffic to their sites. Nestoria fits into this marketing mix under the category of SEM type traffic. They post their listings on Nestoria and then pay Nestoria on a cost per click basis for traffic that is driven back to them. A simple but very effective model.
Classified Ad Ventures has partnered with Lokku (the owners of Nestoria in Europe) to launch and run Nestoria Austalia. We look after the sales and marketing while they look after the technology.
Classified Ad Ventures is an incubator for new businesses. We have 6 new busniesses in development all focused on the online real estate industry – that is what we know best. Each are separately staffed and funded. SOBOX and Nestoria are just two of them. We also have a web design business and have recently launched the new Raine & Horne (www.raineandhorne.com.au) national site.
In building out these new businesses, it is important that they are staffed with people that know what they are doing and have worked in a rapid growth business. That is why i like to work with the team that helped build REA – they know the industry and have done it before.
Finally – Robert i will see you at the Domain Xmas Party … i know you will be there 🙂
Simon Baker
CEO
Classified Ad Ventures Pty Ltd
Glenn Batten
Simon,
Thanks for that…. in Nick’s parlance thats two horses now!
Just from an operational sense with CPC advertising such as google once you reach your limit the ads switch off.
With Nestoria being a cost per click once a portal or a real estate group hits a predetermined budget what happens then? Do the properties just dissappear? If that happens that is not going to be great experience for the visitor so I am assuming their is a better solution than that.
Simon Baker
Craig
Thanks for the question. Your question could equally be asked of REA and Domian. Both have the same model (subscription), both have a similar look and feel (fielded search, search results and details pages) and so on. Yet both have managed to carve our profitable segments in the Australian market place with Domain having >$50m in revenues and REA having >$150m.
While on the surface they are similar, they are serving different consumer segments – some people like domain while others (more) like realestate.com.au.
I think Nestoria Australia will carve out is own segment of the Australian user base. It will take time and will happen by listening closely to what consumers want and making sure the site meets their needs.
As long as Nestoria has traffic, it will be able to provide valuable leads to those portals and franchise group sites that use it.
Simon Baker
CEO
Classified Ad Ventures
(www.classifiedadventures.com)
Simon Baker
Glenn
Thanks for the question. All search and portal sites have a difficult balancing act between meeting the requirements of the consumer and those of the advertiser. The objective of Nestoria Australia is to make sure that we meet both to the best of our ability.
On the consumer side, we will be listening closely to the users of the site and rapidly implementing those changes that are needed to make it the best user experience possible.
For the advertiser, we will be delivering the number of clicks they are looking for based on the budget that they have specified. The technology is quite sophisticated and designed to optimise the return for the advertiser while not damaging the user experience.
There will be times that we over deliver and that means the advertiser will get a better deal if we do. If we are over delivering, then we hope to attract more portals and franchise groups as well as attract a bigger part of their spend.
Thanks
Simon Baker
CEO
Classified Ad Ventures Pty Ltd
(www.classifiedadventures.com)
Glenn Rogers
Can’t see the point as yet, Nestoria has 125 listings in Kew Victoria Domain alone has over 400.
It is simple to use but if you just type in a postcode on domain or REA they’re simple too.
It links directly to the listings on the main portal so if it becomes popular it will increase their distribution base.
I’ve given it 5minutes of thought I’m sure Simon Baker has thought it through and can see an angle, I wish him well.
Glenn Rogers
About Simon having a conflict of interest, he would pick up anything he loses in REA share value and more from Nestoria if it works here.
It’s only a personal conflict not professional, he no longer works for them.
Glenn Rogers
Whoops ! Correction, I forgot to exclude surrounding suburbs when using Domain, sorry………
I did notice a search on Nestoria for 3101 (Kew) also brings up listngs in Richmond, Clifton Hill and Hawthorn, I presume surrounding suburbs is included by default in this early stage to give more search results.
Nick
Its a good idea, but Nestoria needs visitors before they can be a contender.
I’ll wait and see. 🙂
wayno
Ah i see, the reason we pay is because we receive leads. So who pays us for our data (listings) so they can receive the traffick to supply us the leads ?
Glenn Rogers
You might ask the same question of REA or Domain or the Age or the Melbourne Weekly or………………….
Simon Baker
Wayno …
Its the age of question … are the listings or the leads more valuable.
The bottom line is that the agents, or more importantly the listings, need advertising and leads. The publisher needs the listings to have viable proposition for it readers.
Its a clear symbiotic relationship that will always exist.
However, the reason the advertiser pays the publisher is due to concentration of market power. The advertiser base is fragmented amongst 9000+ agents. The publisher base is concentrated on a small number (say < 20) of publishers with any sort of scale. Therefore the scales tip in favour of the publisher and the agent pays the publisher.
Anyway, the agent does not own the listing … the vendor does. The agent is actually an agent .. .they are acting on behalf of the vendor to sell the property and should be doing everything in their power to do that. Therefore, if paying the publisher a small fee achieves that outcome, then there should be no problems.
Simon Baker
CEO
Classified Ad Ventures
Mac
You’re in a bind, Wayno. You could always use Shane’s free to list portal and side-step the big portals. However, as Simon and co. are onto, agents like you are now locked-in to the major portals and a re now looking to pick-up what other little tidbits they can, just like you used to do wth the local papers, mags, flyers, fridge magnets etc. i.e. They aren’t intending to and couldn’t possibly battle with Domain and REA. Nestoria works on making money from small percentages of a large volume industry. Your agency won’t notice any difference to leads but now and then the enquiry you receive may possibly (a very small percentage of a chance) have originated from them and been redirected back thru Domain.
wayno
Hi Simon
You are wrong on the ownership of the listing. The vendor owns the house, the agent owns the listing for the period agreed to by the vendor and agent in the written agreement. Since browsing on here i have been following the strength gained by google real estate and I can see why the major portals have a problem with it. At the end of the day even when we are having to pay for it I honestly believe google real estate will not abuse the source of their data, and not see that source as a cash cow to be milked at every opportunity for less and less of a return.
Glenn Batten
Simon,
You said:-
“Anyway, the agent does not own the listing
Glenn
Sorry as having been an agent for 20 years and having also run a portal I agree with Simon, the listing is the property and neither the agent or the portal “owns” it.
In fact if any agent tried to tell me they owned my listing they would be sacked on the spot, the agency agreement only gives them an exclusive to market the property in the most effective manner nothing more.
If I ring the agent and tell him to do this or that he’ll do it , he has the exclusive right to market the property effectively if he doesnt he can be sacked, yes I know you may point out this or that clause in the agency agreement but if I wont give you access for inspections you are in effect sacked.
Glenn Batten
Glenn,
But you don’t agree with Simon. He says a “listing” is owned by the vendor. Wayno and I said the agent does..
You say nobody owns the listings which actually agrees with nobody. In fact that is about half way between the agents and the portal man. Funny how you have pointed out that you have done both and your opinion lies half way between them 🙂
Isn’t it funny how an individual financial position relative to an issue has a bearing on their position !!!
But what do third parties think of a value on listings.?? How about the government and banks?
Rent rolls are sold based on the value of the rental listings and even the bank will use the value of a rent roll as security against a loan. The Queensland Government includes an assignment clause in the official government forms so the agent can assign the listing to another agent when they sell it as part of the business.
The fact that an owner can lock out a sales agent for the period of the agency period does not invalidate its value altogether it just reduces it…. significantly..
But this has moved away slightly from Wayno’s point which was about the listing data rather than the listing itself. Something that has been talked about a lot here on B2. Realestate.com.au use an obscure clause in their agreements to feed the listing data that we upload to RPData. If that data had no value and agents had no claim on it why is there a clause in the standard terms and conditions for realestate.com.au to have an unlimited license to it.
In fact the clause use to and I assume still say
Glenn
I hate replying to long posts because I always miss something 🙂
BUT – i thought Simon said the property was owned by the vendor , in any case we’re playing with words here, an exclusive listing is a right granted to an agent for a specific time for the agent to market the property and gain a commission if they’re successful.
I think to say a listing is owned by anybody is a bad choice of words, it’s a temporary relationship that relies on goodwill, without that the listing means nothing.
Rent rolls are sold on the basis that the managing agent has a relationship withe owners of the properties , he passes that on to the new manager for a price but there is a clause that says the price will be reduced if any of the clients decide not to continue, once again I don’t think that constitutes owning a listing any of those clients can leave whenever they like.
As far as having a license to distribute listings beyond the portal thats just to cover the portal for distributing their content beyond their own web site, it’s in the interests of the property owner but you should have their permission.
No one owns a listing, the agent has a temporary agreement to promote a property, thats all, everyone else tries to distribute that listing or content with the permission of the owner for a small fee, thats what makes the world go round.
If I’ve missed anything I apologise, I’m writing this on a laptop in the dark while watching Saving Private Ryan and having a few brandies.
Cheers!
wayno
Glenn
Simon said the owner owns the listing that is where we are disagreeing.
Glenn what you say is interesting about RPdata, so therefore if we approached them and came to an agreement that we would upload our listings and sales as they occured we may be able to reduce our fees and help them reduce theirs to REA because we would load all our data to both portals at the same time eg. price reductions etc.
Glenn
“Simon said the owner owns the listing that is where we are disagreeing”
The owner has more of a claim on content which comprises of property he owns than the agent, perhaps that clears it up a bit..
Glenn Batten
Glenn
huh? of course the property is owned by the vendor.. I dont think anybody would suggest anything different.
I am pretty sure you know exactly where we are coming from as your position has shifted to an agent owning the listing is now a “bad choice of words!”. Maybe your change in income streams has caused you to re-evaluate your position but I don’t think you are even convincing yourself with this one!
The one point the brandy or that dark home theatre room made you miss and not respond to is how realestate.com.au can license something from the agents if the agents don’t actually own it.?? You think the solicitors were just kidding when they wrote that? 🙂
By the very nature that realestate.com.au wants a licence to the data they admit that it belongs to the agent and has some value. I am sure they would argue its not of much value whilst agents would argue the opposite. The fact that they want to sub licence it for free through a hidden irrevocable license is the part IMHO that is really at the heart of it all.
Wayno
If only it was that simple wouldn’t life be grand!
The problem is even if there was a way for RPData to get the info from agents they still need an outlet to sell that data to make it commercially viable and that is realestate.com.au through the upselling on our property pages. I don’t think realestate.com.au would give them that access and without the consumer market the value drops and the whole thing falls apart.
Getting realestate.com.au to pass the information to RPData is probably the easiest way as they are really the gatekeepers of Australia’s live real estate listing data because of their market penetration. It just needs to be done more transparently and Realestate.com.au IMHO need to admit that the data has a value and that their subscription fees are really net of the value after allowing for a license of your listing data.
That is in effect what is happening. If they were not getting the income from the alliance with RPData then agents subscriptions would increase…
The chances of all that happening is pretty slim though. It’s far easier if everything is kept in the shadows and thats the part that I dont like.
With all of the state and federal legistlation we all have to follow one thing is key and thats disclosure to our client of anything that would effect them. This includes commissions, business relationships and what happens with their privacy data. It’s a pity that realestate.com.au does not follow the same rules.
Let me ask you a few questions… in your privacy policy (I hope you have one) do you advise your clients that their private data will be forwarded to the RPData property database travelling from your agency to realestate.com.au to RPData?
How many agents out there do not know that they have given an irrevocable free license for realestate.com.au (or domain) to use that data for their own commercial benefit?
Glenn Rogers
Glenn
My position hasn’t changed at all, just the way of explaining it so you can understand better.
You don’t own the listing, that IS a bad choice of words and implies you have more control than you actually do.
You have an exclusive right to market the property, an agreement that protects your commission against other agents mainly.
The Agreement is tentative at best and relies solely on continuing goodwill between agent and owner.
As to your other statement, I didn’t think that required a response as it’s fairly plain BUT –
Realestate.com.au licenses or is putting you on notice that it may……..distribute it’s content including listings you have placed on their web site to other areas. The relationship between the agent and the vendor is of no concern to REA they are dealing with whoever placed the listing on their site and in that sense they have every right to ensure you understand the listing may be shown elsewhere via REA.
If the agents are concerned perhaps they should ask their Vendors to agree to a similar clause.
REA must, absolutely, as any portal should, cover itself against any legal problems caused by the distribution of their content, it’s up to the agent to ensure their agreement with the Vendor covers them.
Glenn Batten
Glenn
Firstly you are doing that Glenn/Glenn Rogers thing again.
I understand your position I just don’t agree with it.
And your position has changed although your defence is that it was because of a misunderstanding.
“BUT
Glenn Rogers
Glenn
Glenn Batten
Isn’t it funny. You are resorting to the “you dont understand me” excuse when someone does not agree with your opinion as though it was based on a measure of intelligence about understanding the facts.. I on the other hand believe you are smart enough to understand my position you are just choosing not to agree with it. Thats called having an opinion.
You responded.. but you did not answer the question choosing to skirt around the outside as you did again….
How can realestate.com.au license something from the agents if the agents don
Glenn Rogers
I’m not resorting to anything Glenn, you assume too much.
“How can realestate.com.au license something from the agents if the agents don
Glenn Batten
I am the one asking all the questions here and your accusing me of assuming too much 🙂
You keep on stating the same thing… I think it’s clear we both agree they are licensing a right to distribute the information.
The question is how can an agent license something if they don’t own it. You say they don’t own it but you have not explained how an agent can license something they can license it without owning it.
Ownership does not have to be tangible thing. People license intangible assets all the time. Patents, Copyright, Contracts, Agreements, franchises etc etc.. but in all those cases ownership in the asset being licensed is clear.
Since your going to continually avoid the question let me jump on your side of the discussion for second and suggest an answer for you.
You could say that the agent through his appointment to act has an implied license from the property owner to the property information as well as the right to sub license that information to other sources such as the real estate portals.
Sounds fair??
No.. firstly because even it it was true and the agent had only an implied license on everything in the listing then that license itself is an intangible asset itself and that license would be owned by the agent.
But the REAL PROBLEM is that REA’s license generated from this clause covers details not part of the property such as the listing information outside of the factual property description of land size and number of bedrooms, creative writing, copyright on photographs.
All of these are as far as I am concerned indisputably the ownership of the agent and they form part of the irrevocable license unless you want to suggest that copyright law does not apply to creative writing and photographs of property now? The facts like number of bedrooms land size are not anybody’s property and you only have to see the recent court decision with Sensis to understand that. Maybe thats where the problem lies … you were limiting your definition of the term “listing”?
The problem is where is their a definition of the word listing??
I tied mine to the information licensed to Realestate.com.au though that clause and this includes photos, creative text, listing details and property details.
Any agent with an RPData account can see their photos on RPData that has been licensed to them from Realestate.com.au. In fact RPData till recent years even claimed copyright on these license photos which was not true.
IMHO all of this intangible information fits together as the “listing” and is without any shadow of a doubt owned by the agent.
You keep calling for an end to the discussion and you are the final word.. you are saying I don’t understand and now that I might be a forum troll. Debate the facts and stop getting so sensitive. You may choose not to partake in the conversation if you don’t like where its heading but you don’t get to say when a conversation is over… oh to have that power 🙂
Glenn Rogers
Glenn you’re the one accusing me of things so please control yourself, I haven’t accused you of anything.
You are over complicating this and you are the sensitive one, you accuse me of resorting to this or that, yes you are assuming too much, I’m not resorting to anything
“The question is how can an agent license something if they don
Glenn Batten
You ought to learn how to type and read faster.. I have had a very productive day thanks… Sounds like you are the one that needs to chill out 🙂
You keep getting so personal. Next your going to claim I am bullying you… oh wait.. you nearly did that already… that’s normally the next line of defence when someone’s argument is breaking down. Just keep professional and on topic is the only thing I ask.
I just love how you ignore everything that does not follow your own logic such as the copyright issue on creative text and photos. That forms part of the listing and part of the license to REA.
I suggest you do some reading..
http://www.copyright.org.au/publications/infosheets.htm
Not now though… you have to get on with your day 🙂
PaulD
Glenn Rogers, how come if we don’t own the data, we can get prosecuted for misrepresentation if the data is wrong ???
Glenn Rogers
“You keep getting so personal”
I wasn’t being personal at all, you were accusing me of behaviours, avoiding questions and other things you imagined and I responded, so keep yourself nice.
You’re not a bully Glenn, you’re not even in the race but keep practising.
“Just keep professional and on topic is the only thing I ask.”
Practise what you preach Glenn you continualy get off topic and accuse me of avoiding the question or other imagined actions.
“copyright issue on creative text and photos” you’re dreaming Glenn it all makes up the listing, do you seriously think anyone thinks they need to protect your repetitiive one liners of ad copy ? ROFL
I’m sure this is keeping you from being super productive elsewhere so get to it.
Glenn Rogers
Paul,
Good question I guess thats why you have disclaimers at the foot of everything you publish
Even information the vendor gives you is wrong at times, you have to distance yourself from making absolute statements unless you’re 100% sure.
Glenn Rogers
The whole of this argument could have been cleared up by your Institute, thats what they’re there for why not ask them to clarify a few points Glenn.
Glenn Rogers
Glenn just saw your web site, it’s too wide for the screen i’m running 1024 x 768
Also you have 2 domains for the one site nfn and nerangfirstnational if Google see that they could drop you altogether.
Glenn Rogers
and I see you’ve submitted both sites to DMOZ and one was rejected as a duplicate, naughty naughty !!!
Peter Ricci
Guys, seriously?
Glenn Batten
Its nice to see your checking up on me and getting all off topic 🙂 ummm why would you bother though?… why would you feel the need to investigate our different domains and look at their submission history in DMOZ?
What relevance does it have to this discussion or is there a hidden message in there somewhere ? Am I being digitally stalked here ? 🙂 Maybe you should stay 400 digital meters away hehehe
You should be happy to know I have never googled you or even clicked on your website..
If you want to discuss my DMOZ entries feel free to send me an email through the appropriate email registered with the submission… I dont think DMOZ would be all that happy with you bringing the subject up like this as it could be construed differently that what you really meant….
You need to look a little harder though . The two domains do not point to the same website. The two domains point to different websites at different hosts and even in different countries as are another few domains for the agency all with different content. Most (one to go) have similiar styling and a similar right sidebar. The main site has about 200 plus content pages and the other only has about 20 or so. The front page text at the moment is pretty similar but thats because I have not had time to finish the tweaks since setting it up a few weeks ago.. most of the new text is in drafts so thanks for the reminder.
As to the screen resolution.. you need to get rid of that dinosaur. Only 15 or so percent of our visitors use that res now so the redesign a few weeks back resulted in a wider style and that fits all the page content and only pushes the right column off the screen for those on lower resolutions.. Surely that could not be a desktop you have running at that so it must be a laptop.. They are pretty cheap now you know.. time to upgrade!!
Now.. I did ask you to keep it on topic.. so lets get back to it.. . tsk tsk tsk!!!
As the receiver of agents listing information yourself its easy for you to devalue all of that listing data.. I actually expected it and said as much earlier in the discussion but to say that the photos and text do not belong to the agents is just wrong…
I bet if you were selling and you invested heavily in your photos and another agent stole them and uploaded them to the portal you would have rightly said they were yours. I have done exactly that and as the copyright holder of the images I issued Realestate.com.au with a takedown order which they had no problem complying with. They guy from REA was fantastic about it. Funnily though he never wrote back and said they were REA’s photos .. or the owners photos.. 🙂
Sure some agents pay no professional attention to these photos and text.. but to state to agents out there “do you seriously think anyone thinks they need to protect your repetitiive one liners of ad copy ” is a little disrespectful.
Glenn Rogers
no more comments allowed ?
Glenn Rogers
I’ve tried 3 times to respond but it doesnt work except for these small messages.
Glenn Rogers
Didn’t mean to be disrespectful but the descriptions are all the same aren’t they, slight variations but all the same.
Put watermarks on your photos if you want to protect them, there’s a strong case for a portal to have a bank of photos so if you list something you just have to log in the photo bank, an idea of mine I never got round to.
The previous discussion was finished as far as I was concerned, it was becoming like Groundhog Day.
I looked at you web site out of curiosity screen size of 1024 x 768 was still the most popular screen resolution in late 2009
http://www.hobo-web.co.uk/seo-blog/index.php/best-screen-size/
You can’t hide duplicate content by tweaking the web sites they are both for the same agency with the same listings.
You end up being flagged if you try to get round the system and believe me there are some very much more sophisticated efforts than yours out there. This may also effect how Google treats you, not worth the risk.
I don’t feel at all uneasy about talking about DMOZ, I’ve been a national editor there for many years, don’t do much now though but I take my reponsibility there very seriously and it’s not out of bounds for me to discuss it anywhere I like, not that I do.
Glenn Rogers
Didn’t mean to be disrespectful but the descriptions are all the same aren’t they, slight variations but all the same.
Put watermarks on your photos if you want to protect them, there’s a strong case for a portal to have a bank of photos so if you list something you just have to log in the photo bank, an idea of mine I never got round to.
The previous discussion was finished as far as I was concerned, it was becoming like Groundhog Day.
I looked at you web site out of curiosity screen size of 1024 x 768 was still the most popular screen resolution in late 2009.
You can’t hide duplicate content by tweaking the web sites they are both for the same agency with the same listings.
You end up being flagged as a spammer if you try to get round the system and believe me there are some very much more sophisticated efforts than yours out there. This may also effect how Google treats you, not worth the risk.
I don’t feel at all uneasy about talking about DMOZ, I’ve been a national editor there for many years, don’t do much now though but I take my reponsibility there very seriously and it’s not out of bounds for me to discuss it anywhere I like, not that I do.
Glenn Rogers
works now for some reason i took out a link perhaps that was it
Glenn Batten
“You can
Glenn Rogers
“Knocking sites back on DMOZ because they are all of the same company seems weird when the have different information and different audiences. Is that the official policy.. each business can only have one website even though each would have unique content?”
It’s generally seen as an attempt to get more listings in when you could have it all on the one site. (aint it the truth ?)
Just had another look, they both have the same address so there’s no getting round it, your second site http://www.nerangfirstnational.com was knocked back in Dec 07′ http://www.nfn.com.au is the site that’s listed.
Glenn Rogers
Which might explain why nfn is higher up the results in Google than the other.
Glenn Rogers
I must say that while creating many sites linking to each other with different content is a good idea they were separated out and flagged as spam in DMOZ I don’t know if that necessarily means it won’t work as a strategy though.
I mean I really don’t know…….. things have changed and I’m not sure if Google works the way it used to in that regard.
Glenn Rogers
the first of my last 3 posts is awaiting moderation so I presume you cant see it
PaulD
So what’s the trick with getting listed on DMOZ. I tried at least 6 months ago, maybe more, and no success to date. Are they just bone lazy or couldn’t they care less. They say that they want to create the best web directory around, but I’ve never heard a thing. They don’t seem like they even exist. ????????
I also read somewhere that DMOZ is pretty useless anyway – any ideas ?
Glenn Rogers
There’s no trick there’s 11,000 sites waiting to be listed in the que right now, it’s just a matter of time.
DMOZ is the Google directory, every now and again Google take a dump from DMOZ to update their directory, I believe it’s still important others don’t.
Glenn Rogers
11,000 sites waiting to be listed in the que right now – for Australia that is
Glenn Batten
Glenn
Thankfully they have been and continue to do ok but like everything with SEO that is subject to change. My guess with DMOZ is that the editor did what you did and thought that the are all the same content twisted around. Does not matter so much but one of these days I might submit the others and point out in the submission the different and unique content aimed at a different audience.
PaulD
Still very important.. but arguably not quite as much as they use to be although only a few google engineers could tell you for sure 🙂
Glenn Rogers
You need to be very careful you don’t activate any flags in Google if they see you as a spammer it can kill you dead.
There have been business go out of business overnight because of it, not that that would happen to a real estate agent but if REA were to piss them off , well you could imagine.
That won’t happen though as I’m sure they have a good relationship with Google but just rememebr that if Google banned REA a $300m business would eveporate overnight, it’s frightening.
PaulD
So if they had 11,000 on the waiting list even 8 months ago, and they have a heap of people (I understand) working for them, monitoring etc. Then 11,000 divided by the number of working days ( say 160) is less than 70 sites a day. How hard is that ???? So if anyone out works for DMOZ shake a leg and process the websites who have applied. Thank you.
Sal Espro
We submitted to DMOZ 2 years ago (following info from in here I think) and still aren’t there! Same happened with some friends. We both tried a couple of times but gave it up as one of those tech head systems that you’ve got to know mystical online tricks to use. So many tuggers in the online World that like to pretend they are above everyone else when they have no idea about the ordinary World and are really just nerds.
Sal (Looking forward to the realisation by the World that nerds have no clothes 🙂
Glenn Rogers
They’re all volunteers Sal, if you don’t like it you have a go and see how far you get, you too Paul.
PaulD
Can you volunteer and do your own website ??
Glenn Rogers
As long as you follow the rules, if they suspect you’re only there to self promote the guards of Google and DMOZ will take you away to a dark place and no one will ever hear from you again.
I could have a look at your site if you like, no conflict as long as I follow the rules which I always do.
Nick
I don’t see how portals don’t / won’t consider Nestoria as a competitor. Classifying a site as a portal / search engine etc is a tactic vertical search engines use to try to convince portals that they are not competing with them. I don’t think consumers think in this way. A consumer wants to find a site where they can search for property – that’s it. Both nestoria and realestate.com.au, are sites where a consumer can do this.
The aim of both nestoria and other portals is to position themselves in such a way on google that they become the site that users click on to find property. In other words they compete directly for SEO traffic. A portal’s interest would be better served therefore by investing in its own SEO rather than giving it’s content to Nestoria so that it can do SEO on it and then charge (recurringly) you for sending you traffic. Strategically why would you want to add another middleman between your customer and your site – you already have Google there.
hbujas
Definitly if you have effect from some new concept ( search in verticlas not so new but you understand ) you can be partner / client….and nothing alse matters ( Metallica )…
If You can get better targeted and cheaper click, visit….why not ? What is a real problem except ego stuff…:)
Simon has a good point in explaining..
p.s. also, Simon I send you e-mail, it will be nice for getting some feedback…thnx in advance…:)