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Why SOPA / PIPA matters to us all

Why SOPA / PIPA matters to us all

Ever since the age of the cassette tape the media industries across the globe have been “lobbying” and “contributing” to our politics in a way many of us do not even understand. We pretty much live in a world now where where just about all levels of government are enabled not by the people, but [...]

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The True Impact of the Internet on Holiday Rental Property Management

“Every act of creation is the first act of destruction “ – Pablo Picasso As the balance of control and profits in the short-term holiday rental market continues to change for the players in this market: the owners, property managers, internet marketing channels and the clients, the response we make as property managers to the [...]

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Thoughts on Realestate.com.au’s dominance

As a follow up to Dave Platters excellent, well articulated post on why anyone “is dreaming” that they can beat real estate.com.au, it made me revisit an idea I had a few years back. I think for the most part Dave is correct, however there is something that needs to be done about property content [...]

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Beating realestate.com.au, and other fantasies

I’m talking to you. Yes, you. The person who thinks you will start an Australian real estate portal that will shoot right past domain, dethrone realestate.com.au and become the new number one. Or, maybe you’re an agent who for some reason (perhaps because you have to send them a check every month?) doesn’t like realestate.com.au [...]

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Is Domain threatening Competition within the real estate industry?

Changes to you Domain advertising rates: On December 15th. 2012 a Domain National Sales Manager wrote to PropertyNow (and presumably to some other companies) The email communication sent to PropertyNow is shown below. The essential elements of  Domain’s email to PropertyNow, is that Domain intend a price increase (after approximately 6 years at the current rate) [...]

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REIA not alone in running out of ideas

Domain.com.au’s recent blog entry highlighted a trend amongst an industry and governments that have run out of ideas on how to make housing more affordable. REIA thinking goes that allowing first home buyers to dip into their super savings to purchase their first home will allow them to purchase their first home and relive some [...]

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Fairfax buys in to “The Weekly Review”

Fairfax Media yesterday announced they have entered into an agreement to merge Fairfax Community Newspapers in Victoria with Metro Media Publishing (owner of the The Weekly Review). Under the agreement Fairfax will contribute assets along with 35 million, in return obtaining 50% interest and voting rights in MMP. The Weekly Review is a free weekly [...]

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Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all our readers, contributors and people who have never heard of us before. If you are lucky enough to spend this time with your family and friends then all the better. From both Ryan O’Grady and myself I wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays and we [...]

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Is the Business Portal Industry Consolidating?

Further to discussions about Seek Commercial making their way into the business for sale field, i thought it was time to write about a few observations I’ve made in the last 18 months as a budding internet marketer and entrepreneur. Whilst there are major competitors in each field in the business portal industry we are [...]

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New China Real Estate Portal

Listen. I’m not really sure how to say this. There’s something I think you need to know, but it involves a marketing client of mine — and I don’t want to seem like I am just spruiking my clients. So, if you don’t want to hear about a new portal that helps Australian agents and developers reach [...]

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Another successful niche portal – Farmbuy.com

I firmly believe that niche real estate portals can be successful and fill a gap which the major players Domain.com.au and Realestate.com.au don’t cater for. There is no better example than Farmbuy.com which targets a niche very relevant in Australia…rural properties. Farmbuy.com launched in October 2009, it has grown from approx 4,000 unique browsers in [...]

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Minor updates to Realestate.com.au

I believe this afternoon around 5.00pm Realestate.com.au deployed some minor updates to their portal. It did not run smoothly though as ads across the site, homepage news, info and other widgets including “what the locals think” all could not be connected. And at one stage the portal went down for a few minutes and was [...]

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A new way to count traffic, but No. 1 still means No. 1

If realestate.com.au were to report having more than 6,500 users per month, and then started reporting that –actually– they only had about 2,700 users, you might think they had been lying the first time around. Well, realestate.com.au is in just that position right now. But, they weren’t lying. The old, larger number refers to “unique browsers”, [...]

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New look Realestateview.com.au

Late last month Realestateview undertook a small makeover to the residential section of their portal. What they’ve done is enhanced the usability of the site, provided extra content, improved the styling and overall, offer site browsers a better experience. The key homepage improvements include: Search – is now the main priority on the homepage allowing [...]

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