It's 2010 (almost): Where's your mobile strategy?
If you're in real estate, you need be on the "Third Screen"
My first cellphone was a Motorola Classic II. It was a brick. It was clunky and it was heavy. Unholstering a cellphone at the time was a sign of influence; a mark of privilege. A status symbol.
How times have changed.
Today, there are now over 4.1 billion mobile phone users worldwide; there are now phones for tots, even phones for pets. So if you're running a real estate brokerage, formulating a mobile strategy in 2010 - or, at the very least, seriously considering it - is a must.
Here's why:
Phones have gotten smarter
Cellphones have morphed into smartphones. Sitting in our pockets, on our desks or silently plugged into the wall are devices whose computing prowess dwarf the mainframes of only a few years ago. High-speed data networks now blanket the country and as a result, these devices now have the ability to access the always-on, instant connectivity of the Internet.
According to a recent report from the research firm Nielsen, smartphones are on track to be the majority of phones in the U.S. by 2011 - at 50% of the market, this translates into roughly 150 million users.
This is a sea change in the way we consume media, interact with our friends and, yes, look for real estate. Marry a rapidly growing user base with a cannibalization of existing consumer products (cameras, GPS units, MP3 players etc.) and you've got a bona fide trend on your hands. The smartphone is rapidly becoming the "third-screen" in most people's lives; behind their televisions and computers -- and even that distinction is starting to blur!
In real estate, where the primary customer interface is the Web, this move towards smartphones is an important paradigm shift to understand.
The small screen means rethinking the way that you interact with your customers, and more importantly, how your customers interact with you. A desktop computer is an active, lean-forward experience. A mobile smartphone is a momentary, dive-in and dive-out experience.
There's an app for that
If nothing else, this move to smartphones has introduced a new word to our vocabulary... 2009 will surely go down in history as the year of the "app".
So what is an app? Simply put, an app is a single-use application, formatted for the small screen and in most cases, for touch screen interaction. Apple can almost single-handedly be credited for the popularization of this term, as the launch of its iPhone development platform in 2008 set off a tsunami of mobile innovation delivered in these tiny, tightly integrated software bundles. As of today, there are over 100,000 apps available in Apple's iTunes store. Everyone else is just playing catch up.
Apps can be a powerful way for consumers and customers to touch, to feel and interact with your brand. But building an app requires more than a "me-too" approach to development. In our experience at HomeFinder.com, developing an app required a fundamental, strip-it-down to basics approach. You must ask yourself, What is the core value to be delivered by this app? and how can it be accessed easily, intuitively and quickly.
For us, that value was in optimizing the on the go open house hunt for buyers and facilitating a sales process for our customers. This was the focus during development of our new “Open Houses” app, which we just launched last week.
Remember that dive-in and dive-out experience?
Rise of the Droid
The iPhone is a beautiful device. Hold one in your hands and you marvel at the industrial design. It's also been a runaway success. In Q3 of 2009 alone, AT&T said it activated a record-breaking 3.2 million iPhones on top of the more than 6 million iPhones already in service. That's a staggering market share.
But the iPhone doesn't stand alone.
This fall Verizon released the Droid - which runs Google's new Android 2.0 operating system - to much critical acclaim. Android is an open-source mobile operating system (unlike Apple's closed, proprietary iPhone OS). The Droid, while not the first, is certainly the most successful of all Android devices to date. And dozens more Android devices are slated to launch in the early half of 2010.
Bottom line: The promise behind Android is that it will take smartphones out of the premium and into the mundane. It'll move the smartphone experience into devices of all shapes, sizes, color and price points. Android may just bring smartphones to the masses.
An iPhone app in 2009 is a no-brainer. A Droid app in 2010 may just be the same.
Wonder comes in small packages
Mobile is not the be-all and end-all. It surely won't replace traditional real estate marketing efforts or presence on the Web anytime soon. But that "third screen" is increasingly important and requires a clear vision and the right strategy on which to execute.
And when it is done right, the right mobile experience can inspire wonder out of the simplest utility on a portable device. But more than anything, it makes me thankful I don't have to lug that brick around with me anymore.
