Oh Google...what were you thinking?

The folks at Google must have known I was about to send the revised ToolKit CMA presentation to the printer, that is why they went ahead and announced late last week that they were making big changes that impact real estate syndication.

Thanks, I guess, for saving me the embarrassment of having an outdated presentation before it ever was used.

I try not to get too techy in these posts; I know most of you are looking for the real estate implications of the tech changes, not real detail on the changes themselves. So I'll just say that last week Google announced that it is no longer going to accept real estate data feeds into its GoogleBase service, and it is also no longer going to present real estate listings on GoogleMaps.

All together now......Boo.

Google's answer for getting out of real estate is pretty simple; there are other players in the space who are doing it better. You can read their full post here (note that Coldwell Banker got a great shout out too). The truth of the matter is that they are right. Plenty of firms are doing a better job presenting real estate for sale than Google and plenty of firms have better, more accurate data than the GoogleBase engine has. The real estate data landscape has changed quite a bit from when they introduced the service way back in 2009.

I'm bummed for selfish reasons. Saying the word "Google" on a listing presentation was always a good starting point to talk about listing syndication. Even the most tech-resistant seller knows what Google is, so when you told them their listings were going to be delivered to GoogleBase and GoogleMaps it got their attention. Now that opportunity doesn't exist.

Certainly I believe that is justification for Google to continue the business, don't you?

So for all my CBHearthside colleagues I wanted to give my two cents on what the change means - feel free to offer other comments as you see fit.

1. It increases the value of Realtor.com - Google's move into real estate scared the number one player in the space...and they reacted. We have lots of great new tools as a result, and of course Google's disappearance only makes the site more relevant. Play up the fact that you have the Realtor.com Enhancement package when you start the conversation about listing syndication.

2. It makes single-property web sites even more important - Since Google will not be showcasing results on their map, and many sites that relied on their GoogleBase feed will have to find a new way to exist, the single-property web site may take a whole new prominence. Add to that a way-too-techy-to-post discussion of Google's latest algorithm changes and we may find those single-sites are very very important. Make sure you use them, promote them to your clients and sell the value they present. If we need to do a refresher, comment below.

3. It reinforces the value we deliver with our CBHearthside data feed strategy - You may not know this, but how the data gets to the sites is an important part of our business. Many of our competitors utilized tools that sent the data to GoogleBase, knowing that it would then get to many of the other sites by osmosis. We took a different approach, implementing site-specific feeds that brought data in from our web site and then farmed it out to the key players in the industry. While this is not a conversation you probably are going to have with your seller prospects, you can take comfort in knowing that the GoogleBase/GoogleMaps change doesn't have as big an impact on us as it may have on our competition.

4. It opens the door even wider for ColdwellBanker.com - You may not know this, but there was a big decision made about listing data at the National Association of REALTORS(R) meetings in Washington last May. NAR decided that franchise organizations (like Coldwell Banker) can now have IDX access to listing data, even though they are not a real estate broker. This paved the way for sites like ColdwellBanker.com to start sharing "all the listings, all the time" with consumers. Century21 just launched the first of the national sites to incorporate the IDX data, and ColdwellBanker.com is about to do the same through its iPhone and Android app. This is only my opinion, but knowing the amount of national media the big real estate brands use to push consumers to their sites the decision by NAR may have helped Google decide to get out of the business. Why would people go to Google Maps to get bad (often outdated) data when they can go to ColdwellBanker.com and get up-to-the-minute MLS data (and have it displayed on a map)? Could be an interesting few months watching this develop.

So it does mean the ToolKit revisions were delayed a bit...but no worry, when they come out they'll be up-to-date (or at least until something else happens).

Stay tuned....