Dave Platter
As you know Dave has not penned an article for a while on business2.com.au after being one of the earliest contributors and since he left REA has been busy taking care of his young family. Dave has decided to discontinue his involvement with business2.com.au. I wish Dave and his family all of the best in life’s pursuits and thank him for all his efforts in making business2 what it is today.

Time 50 Websites of 2009
The list is out again this year and from what I can see only two real estate websites made it onto the list. Craigslist is also there and there are some other pretty cool sites as well. View it here. There are some pretty cool new sites on the list and a few I had never heard about, so grab a coffee and sit back and enjoy the read.

Google Voice
I received my Google Voice Account (USA only) and had it all setup in a matter of minutes. For those of you that do not know (click for Wikipedia expanded explanation), Google is basically creating a web based phone platform (view business2.com.au article here)where calls and messages are routed and also translated to text and sent as an SMS. Pretty cool I must say!

One small step for Google: So I was excited to try this out. My friend Luke called my Google Voice number and left this message (you get both voice and voice translated text message)

Hi Peter, this is Luke, I am sitting in my apartment watching ‘Arrested Development’ with Ganesh just calling to confirm that we are having some beers at Charlies later.

Now, I waited only a matter of minutes for the text message to come through as an SMS, confirming this was being translated. Then finally this text message arrived.

Hi Peter, This is Luke I’m sitting in my apartment what you’re doing something wrong with the cash just calling to confirm, we’re having the ranch early winter. I don’t really.

Hardly a glorious beginning. However I will give it some time and see how it pans out. To get a message translated to text is fine (remember you do also get original voice message), and all it has to do for the most part is give me an idea of what the caller requires. I can understand being confused with Ganesh, but the rest was pretty clear.

The lawsuit is between the US Department of Justice and the National Association of Realtors (NAR).

The low down is that traditional real estate agents in the US can no longer withhold their property listings from virtual agents. This gives a big opening to businesses like Redfin, which calls itself “the industry’s first online brokerage for residential real estate.”

The fact that all this is happening in the US means there won’t be an immediate impact on Australian agents. But, if a powerful new web-based agent business model emerges in the US as a result, it could be just a matter of time before Aussie agents start to see a threat from such businesses.

Glenn Roberts of Inman News wrote an excellent piece on this. (subscription required)

Read the settlement (PDF) (thanks to agentgenius.com)

Read the official line from the National Association of Realtors