Well what a year it has been, with just about every major company in the real estate and classifieds market vying for entry into this years awards.

So how do you make our dumb and dumber awards? Well quite simply, you make a schoolboy mistake, try to cover something up or worse still knowingly do something that is so obviously dumb to everyone else aside from your inner sanctum.

So here is our list for this year, enjoy!

1. WINNER – REA Group – Realestate.com.au

What do you do when one of your email servers have hundred’s of thousands’s of property email enquiries stuck and not delivered for months and months on end to real estate agents battling through tough times? Well for starters some bright spark decided we will just deliver them to agents who had no clue of the age of the emails! Once the story broke here on business2.com.au REA then went into damage control and placed a note in agent admin and then later sent out an email explaining the situation to unsuspecting agents. This left agents embarrassed – their reputations tarnished and having to apologise to ten’s of thousand’s of enquirers.

REA offered a heartfelt apology, discussed compensation, but decided to just weather the storm and continue business as usual. REA’s reputation for care has never been worse and will take a hell of a lot of work to win back agents trust. More price rises to come will not help their cause. Fluffy promotional emails will not do anything either, hard work, improved customer service and some humility will help.

2. RUNNER UP – PBL & Microsoft

Get a photo op with a bunch of Steve Jobs wannabes on launch, spend ten’s of millions of dollars marketing a website with out-of-date and sold listings, less than 30% of your rivals listings (and the same data), do buddy deals with a handful of the major franchise groups along with the worst real estate interface to come out of the 21st century and what do you get? Well you get them running scared and selling it off in 12 months for less than 3% of what they put into it. Still it has to be one of his better deals since he took over from daddy. If you want to know how NOT to build and launch a real estate portal, note the myhome.com.au debacle. The new owners are trying their best and have really got back to basics. May be worth the try now!

3. Major Telcos

Put together pathetic customers service, disgraceful data plans, slow networks and you have yourself a major Telco. Telstra may have the best wireless Internet in Australia, but it has the most expensive – restrictive plans around and Optus is not much better. It pays big time to look around. Maybe Telstra should spend some time and money on the people that make them money rather than trying to protect their monopoly. Optus does not fare much better and you only have to look into the Whirpool forums to see how many people loath their Telcos.

4. The Financial Meltdown

Oh, how we were once impressed by our finance market friends driving their Maserati’s and Porsches, how we listened to their amazing insights into how the money markets worked, how impressed we were about how they speculate and how their models make everyone rich and successful. Turns out they were all pretty much clueless, having fancy degrees on a wall means nothing if you don’t have real world smarts. If making money is your only goal then you will eventually fail, problem is – this time around everyone suffered.

It is ok to strive for an open market economy, but should mum and dads around the world have to bail them out when it all goes pear-shaped?

5. Get it ‘FREE’ Mobile Domain

SMS property alerts on your mobile, great idea and absolutely free – well free as in 0.55 cents an SMS. Ooops sorry forgot to mention that! ACCC noted this and slapped Fairfax over the knuckles.

6. REA’s Peak Industry Body

Way way back in March 2007 (nearly 2 years ago, REA setup ‘The Peak Industry Body’, this was no doubt an effort to ‘connect’ with you, ‘Joe the Plumber’, meeting ‘at least’ 6 times a year would equate to around 24 meetings so far. I think each meeting ended with a Hollowmen ‘steady as she goes approach’ because unless I am mistaken nothing has ever come out of this – except continual price rises

7. Internet Explorer

To every single software/website or so called IT expert that only works in Internet Explorer or in the latter case only only allows you to use IE6, hang your heads in shame. Every time I use Internet Explorer I am frustrated, whether it is testing sites in IE6 or 7 and now IE8.

The latest debacle for Internet Explorer came just a few days ago.

The vulnerability could allow remote code execution if a user views a specially crafted Web page using Internet Explorer. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights. This security update is rated Critical for Internet Explorer 5.01, Internet Explorer 6, Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 1, and Internet Explorer 7.

Basically anyone could access your PC and take anything they liked. Microsoft stated that it is always looking at ways to improve their product, no, they are always looking at ways to get it to at least work. One friend of mine lost $4,800 just yesterday and is scrambling to get it back because someone hacked their PC.

So free yourself from the train wreck of a browser which is Internet Explorer and jump with Firefox, Opera, Safari or Google Chrome and leave, buggy, slow, insecure software behind. If your software provider can’t cut it, then leave them behind as well.

Note: Also read some reviews on anti virus software and get it installed on all pc’s.

8. Why are we waiting?

Google needs to get its act together and release a solution that the whole market is waiting for. Every day I am asked the question and each day I have no answer. I know they are working on it – but come on guys and girls. Worldwide the advertisers market for a stand-alone real estate website from Google would be worth billions and billions of dollars of new advertising revenue.

9. Yellow Pages

Time to get a new advertising campaign, no one really cares about you any more and the campaigns warning us of impending financial gloom if we do not advertise with you just don’t cut it any more. Rising costs, hundreds of thousands of books dumped in rubbish bins or left rotting in the rain – and a business model that just plain sucks. And don’t get me started on Yellow Pages Online.

10. Newspapers

I love newspapers, I really do, they serve a great part of discussion in our community, but if you think articles about Nicole Kidman’s lips or Brad and Angelina are going to lift your readership think again. Newspapers need to rebuild their classifieds to suit a new market. Once upon a time agents pushed newspaper advertising for them, only a few do now and the market is getting smaller by the day. Keep this up and classified newspapers are finished. Simple test, get two people, one in a newspaper and one online to find a 3 bedroom 2 bathroom property in Wagga Wagga.

Solution?
1. Rebuild your classifieds for ease of use.
2. Offer annual subscriptions at a loss to build base readership – $10.
3. Get into real property journalism that gets people talking. (not paid for fluff promos)

11. New Real Estate Portals

So you want to help agents get away from REA and Domain? No you don’t, you want to make money and sell out to one or the other once you have some success. Oh and $10,000 you have committed does not build you a national portal – not even built off shore. So, stop telling me you care and how exciting your product is and do the hard yards, start local and build out, and your systems had better be good!

12. Kevin Rudd

Oh Kevin you had us all, you promised so much, you work long hours and impress us with grandiose words like ‘education revolution’. Here’s the thing, deep down inside you know you are boring, we do too, but we knew that already, we just want you to make a difference, we want some bold initiatives – not only for this industry but for Australia. In 2009 there is to be no more buck passing, no more ‘we are not immune’.

We didn’t know what cards you had, we thought it must have been good, 3 deuces in the hand? A straight? A full house? A flush? A straight flush? If we find out all you had was a piddly small pair – you will be out with the bathwater. So get down and dirty, make some bold reforms and get this country back on track.

13. Printed Local Property Guides

Every week about 24 local newspapers are dumped on our doorstep (we only have 12 apartments) and every week about 23 of them end up in the trash. You all thought it was a great idea to launch a property guide. How wrong it has all turned out to be. I will give you all less than 12 months. When vendors clearly say no to agents about advertising in local newspapers you know you are in trouble, my bet is that you will keep thinking you can turn it around.

14. Agent Websites

I spent a day trawling through agent websites randomly a few days ago. I looked at over 500 sites. Ouch, apart from seeing about 100 websites that are exactly the same (template sites), so many do not work in all major browsers. Here is a hint, if newspapers are no longer viable in this climate for marketing, where is your differentiator? Yes its your website! If you have a good one, then let every vendor know about it and ask them to compare. If you don’t – then you only have yourself to blame.

15. Vanity Blogging

Everyone is getting into blogging and you should be too. However steer clear of chest thumping and telling everyone how wonderful you and your company are – because no one is listening. Write about what you know and your opinions on the market, promote local businesses and get everyone involved. Welcome dissent, as long as it is not abusive or profane – promote it.

16. Vanity Boards

If agents need a pointer as to why some people think sign boards at the front of homes for sale and rent are more about the promoting real estate agents than the properties they are promoting then look no further than those ‘look at me boards’ promoting massive pictures of agents and in most cases nothing about the property. Ok, we get it, you absolutely love yourselves and it is cheaper than billboards but just let it go, the will to want to do it, should be enough of a sign that you have lost the plot.

17. Channels 7, 9,10

So you have your own little ratings system which bears no semblance to actual figures (good to keep that ad revenue coming in) however you are all finished unless you adapt. Showing old series just doesn’t cut it (a lot of people download the new series anyway), blatant chest thumping is so 1980′s and no innovation means a slow grinding death. Think about digital, get together, innovate with set top boxes supported by all and create a new market for direct localisation of ad serving.

18. Advertising Agencies

If you want to know who NOT to listen to when it comes to marketing your products or services just look at advertising agencies. I had a taste of them in the late 90′s and thought I would go through the process again, hoping they had learnt something about the Internet since then. I am not going to name the agencies, but if the group I met are any indication, stay well away, save your money and do it yourself!

19. James Packer

James oh James, what a business you inherited, tv networks, magazines, prime Internet locations, casinos and the list goes on. Here’s an idea, lets build a business our family empire will be proud of, lets dump just about everything we have built over the years and just get into gambling. What a noble business to be in and what a time to do it? We never cared to much about how rich you were, we liked Kerry, he was like one of us, we loved his stories (even if they were myths) and we liked you. If all you want to do is make money – then good luck to you – but you only have a few billion left buddy!

20. Mobile Agents Angst

So you have a local competitor that does not have an office (road warrior) – get over it. This is the 21st century and mobile agents working from home or on the road are going to be a lot more common over the coming years. If you use your office as a springboard to connect with vendors and buyers then you have nothing to worry about.

21. Real Estate Institutes

Can someone tell me what these organisations actually do?

A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all of our readers, see you all again in 2009!

Rumours of a Google Browser have been around as long as a Google Phone and a Google Operating System.Recently the Google Phone rumours got some substance with the announcement of Android which is a mobile phone operating system that will part of a new generation of phones.

Now overnight Google Chrome was launched which is Google’s new web browser to take on Internet Explorer, Firefox and Opera.Chrome is a very fast, very simple and very powerful web browser. It is very powerful in the new technology under the skin.

With no legacy code to hold it back the designers could write it for today’s applications for instance, its processing of JavaScript is lightening fast and JavaScript is the foundation of Ajax….. more commonly known as Web 2.In typical google style the browser is simple and functional to use and the features it does have it does very very well.

For instance their tab browsing is brilliant. Tabs are now run in unique processes which means when a page breaks it does not take down your whole browser.Drag and drop tabs between windows, duplicate a tab, all is done by the browser not by add-ons. Open a new and it fills it with information like your 9 most visited pages, recent bookmarks and recently closed tabs. Very nice.

Chrome has not got every feature known to man like like Firefox and probably never will have. Firefox is the browser of choice amongst power users because its seemingly endless customisation ability with so many themes and add-ons available. Chrome does not have this, at least at the moment and probably wont have.

Google just re-signed there agreement to 2011 with Firefox which seems at odds with releasing their own browser but it is in typical google style and they seem to be putting their eggs in two baskets, not just one . Google makes money from ads… which are displayed when people use their search and other products. Chrome is just another way for them to segment the market and to decrease the market share of Internet Explorer with its default installation of “Live” search.It is an interesting move by them to leverage an audience no matter what IE does in the future.

There are plenty of Google Chrome reviews out there already so I wont try and join them but if you are looking for a fast and efficient browser it is well worth checking out. I will continue to use it for a while at least, but I am already missing some of my Firefox add-ons…

A quick check of all the major portals and real estate sites and everything looks as though it is working without issues and it will be interesting to watch the web stats to see the sort of traction it can get.Google has come up with an interesting concept to explain the many technical advances and features behind Chrome and that is through a comic book.

Real Estate Agents across Australia are dumping the Internet Explorer browser for the newest browser in the markplace Mozilla Firefox.

For a while now I have been telling my agents to use Firefox instead of Internet Explorer, mainly because of the security aspect but also because it is a much simpler feature rich browser and suits the tasks that agents need to perform each day.

No Internet user in your workplace should be allowed to use Internet Explorer, why?

Because there are just so many security holes on the software and couple this with an an experienced user….well….you are only asking for trouble. Firefox generally speaking is not the most secure browser but Internet Explorer has such a big user base most malicious code writers prefer to find holes in that software compared to the Firefox brand.

Why use Firefox then? This is best explained by the feature list on Mozilla Firefox website.

Get Firefox!

Popup Blocking
Stop annoying popup ads in their tracks with Firefox’s built in popup blocker.

Tabbed Browsing
View more than one web page in a single window with this time saving feature. Open links in the background so that they’re ready for viewing when you’re ready to read them. Find out more…

Privacy and Security
Built with your security in mind, Firefox keeps your computer safe from malicious spyware by not loading harmful ActiveX controls. A comprehensive set of privacy tools keep your online activity your business.

Smarter Search
Google Search is built right into the toolbar, and there is a plethora of other search tools including Smart Keywords (type “dict ” in the Location bar), and the new Find bar (which finds text as you type without covering up anything).

Live Bookmarks
RSS integration lets you read the latest news headlines and read updates to your favorite sites that are syndicated. Find out more…
Hassle-Free Downloading
Files you download are automatically saved to your Desktop so they’re easy to find. Fewer prompts mean files download quicker.

Fits Like a Glove
Simple and intuitive, yet fully featured, Firefox has all the functions you’re used to – Bookmarks, History, Full Screen, Text Zooming to make pages with small text easier to read, etc.

S, M, L or XL—It’s Your Choice
Firefox is the most customizable browser on the planet. Customize your toolbars to add additional buttons, install new Extensions that add new features, add new Themes to browse with style, and use the adaptive search system to allow you to search an infinite number of engines. Firefox is as big or small as you want.

Setup’s a Snap
At only 4.7MB (Windows), Firefox takes just a few minutes to download over a slow connection and seconds over a fast connection. The installer gets you set up quickly, and the new Easy Transition system imports all of your settings – Favorites, passwords and other data from Internet Explorer and other browsers – so you can start surfing right away.

Download it today!

Ok it is time you understood one thing. Using Internet Explorer as your default browser is just plumb dumb.

After Microsoft killed off al rivals by tying it in with the Windows Operating System it has done little to enhance the user experience since then, in fact the whole thing has gone backwards!

Microsoft’s ActiveX program has to be one of the dumbest innovations in the history of IT. This allowed unscrupulous websites to directly access site users computers and has led to so many undesirables being installed on peoples computers all over the world.

Not until service pack 2 released in August has there been any major change to the way Internet explorer works.

This week we saw a new browser on the market and it is taking the world by storm. Firefox is FREE, twice as fast, simple and compatible and most importantly has features that make browsing web sites so much safer.

Its code dates to Netscape and its open-source successor, Mozilla, but in the two years since Firefox debuted as a tiny, browser-only offshoot it has become the standout product of the Internet age.

Download it today!

Tabbed Browsing
If you have not heard of tabbed browsing then I am sorry because once you browse the Internet this way you will wonder why you never had this feature before.

Google Rumours
There are rumours circulating that Google is going to support Firefox with its own derivative and if this happens goodbye Microsoft Internet Explorer. Google just has so much power with Internet users it could take this product into the stratosphere. My bet is that it will.

Firefox Features
Tabbed Browsing – Open Multiple sites in one window
Pop Up Blocker – Automatically blocks those annoying pop ups.
No Active X Support – Stops undesirables taking over your PC
Automatic Updates – Keeps your browser secure.
Google Search – Automatically includes this feature.

So there it is get Firefox today and install it across your companies PC’s.

Download it today!