Every year since 2004 I have been adding my own dumb and dumber awards. Usually is it a hard slog getting so many out the door, but why was 2007 different? Anyway sit back and have a giggle at some of the dumbest moments in real estate and technology for 2007.

PBL & MICROSOFT
1. It was without doubt the most anticipated launch of 2007 and is without doubt the worst major real estate website in Australasian history. I still cringe when looking at it. How could two major companies, Ninemsn and Microsoft get something so drastically wrong? Agents found themselves subscribed to a site they had never subscribed to, with listings sold years earlier. Agents also found that agents who no longer worked at their agency were listed alongside listings no longer under their agencies control.

2. MyHome struck a cord with only themselves and thus will fade further into oblivion in 2008 unless someone steps in and makes some radical changes. MyHome incorrectly perceived themselves as pretty cool. The standout memory for me was Senior Management in the Applesque (Steve Jobs) photo pose splashed in newspapers across the land. Soon, after all senior management had gone, the site tried in vain to claw back some respectability.

3. What do you do when you have a website with only 30% of your competitors’ listings and exactly the same data within that small percentage? What do you do when statistical data tells you that people stay on your website for less time than it takes to boil a kettle? It seems MyHome’s idea was to spend millions of dollars just telling everyone about it. When will it run out? Well, as soon as the people paying the bills ask one very simple question “What are we getting in return for our money?”

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There is one major player in the online space that has been pretty much silent over the past three years and that is Sensis with their Justlisted.com.au portal. Just Listed currently only plays in New South Wales but this time 3 years ago the then CEO heralded a national play within months and since then we have seen nothing. This was around the time that Just Listed launched a failed newspaper property guide. The Just Listed site is a dud by anyone’s calculations but they are backed by a company who has deep pockets and surely they cannot sit back and lose the most valuable online classifieds asset in (being real estate) for too much longer.

So what could they do? First thing they would need to do is make a purchase and this is what PBL should have done. The best purchase around Australia at the moment is Portplus which is rumoured to have around 1300 agents on their books. This would put Port Plus in the 10-15 million dollar mark if history is to judge on past purchases (property.com.au, hub online, commercialrealestate).

Remember Just Listed is a free site so any purchase would not include a jump in fees for agents in fact they would reap the benefits of a system for exporting (annual fees) and also the knowledge behind these systems. This company could then easily build a national portal (please start again) as they have done so in the past. There are other purchases out there such as Rockend or ReNet (which is pretty big) in which both have excellent technologies but I would think that like my company they would not be big enough (although Rockend is bigger than my little company and ReNet bigger still).

So I wonder what Sensis is up to as they have been terribly quiet of late in the online classifieds space.

The Telco giants advertising campaign kicked off on the weekend with its sights aimed directly at the ACCC. In my humble opinion this is a pathetic campaign aimed at keeping its monopoly as Australia pay amazingly high fees for its fixed line services and on the whole have a terrible broadband infrastructure and the customer service from my standpoint has been terrible.

If the Federal Government brings out its plan for broadband in Australia and it solely involves Telstra and not an open network it will be a disgrace for the businesses and consumers of this country. Telstra can tell us all they like about wanting to do this for Australia, but on the other hand tell us if they do not get what they want then they will invest elsewhere - that’s the spirit!

They also call the ACCC a rogue body. Well here is my message. The Australian people have had to put up with ridiculous charges, low download caps, slow broadand speeds and their competitors in the past have had to pay more for access than Bigpond charges and the ONLY organisation that has kept some of these things in line has been the ACCC.

Telstra think that because so many Australians are investors that they will want the Telco to make more money. I can tell you that if Telstra actually had competition the majority of shareholders would have more money in their pockets through savings in their phone and broadband bills than they would ever make in dividends from being shareholders.

Example (Me): I pay around $8,000 per annum in fixed line telephone and broadband. If you look at the US market and we added 20% to the bill after exchange rates, I would be able to have ADSL2+ broadband and all of my local and national calls for around $1,500 per annum. In the US you get all local, national and calls to Canada for USD $25 per month, you can also get unlimited ADSL2+ broadband in most capital cities for $50 USD per month.

Telephone charges here in Australia are a joke and the only thing that will break this is an open fibre to the node network. Because Telstra own the last mile (from the exchange to the homes) it will then try to increase these fees. But with WiMAx just around the corner and wireless to become ubiquitous over the next ten years we will see the end of this monopoly and they can just play like the rest of businesses in Australia.

I for one would like to see how Telstra fare once they really have to compete, because since being privatised they have had it mostly their own way. The only reason Telstra are doing all of this is because they know they cannot continue making money from fixed line (although they will string it out as long as they possibly can) and they know that owning broadband networks will allow them to continually sail into the sunset with massive profits.

I will be watching just what this government does in relation to their plan to be released soon. They have two problems, one Labor’s plan which is what we need and two backlash from shareholders if they make it hard for Telstra.

My bet? The government will cave in to Telstra and then try to make it look like a brilliant plan for Australians. Unfortunately for them they are dealing with a far more intelligent consumer than even 4 years ago and the Labor party and the G9 will pool together resources (their own ad campaign) and make things even tougher, but it will be fun to see who can lie the best!

This past 4 weeks it has been increasingly obvious that the US led team at Telstra is not happy with regulations forced upon them by the Federal Liberal Government.

Telstra’s argument is that regulation imposed on the giant is unfair and it stifles innovation and therefore is not good for consumers. (cough cough, splutter, splutter)

Innovation? Hmmm, heard of VOIP? Wireless Internet? Seems to me you are the last company on earth that wants to delve into innovative products and services. You are being dragged, kicking and screaming into the VOIP age, how about releasing this now for all of your broadband subscribers? No, Telstra will only offer this ‘innovative’ technology when you have to, and not a moment before!
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Do you think Telstra would have called a few meetings over the past few days regarding VOIP? You bet your life they did! For the first time in history we had all major TV news, newspapers, radio all covering the news that Google has entered into FREE telephone calls through their Google Talk software. I have tested this software and it is just so simple to use and the voice quality is superb.

This is just the beginning for Google as they ramp up the software for the mainstream community. Google are famous for releasing products in beta mode and this is no exception. The one thing that will have Telstra nervous is the fact Google has such a massive reach. Telstra users pale into comparison to the Google user base.

Telstra has to make a decision on VOIP - they will of course keep rolling out statements such as “we are currently testing VOIP but the technology is not mainstream”, but this is just another way of saying, “we are making so much money with the status quo, why should be coct ourselves billions of dollars in revenue, when we don’t have any serious competition”.
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