It seems these days that our home phone lines have gone the way of the dodo. Nearly everyone I know has a cell phone and most of them have used theirs to browse the Internet, watch some videos or download a ring tone or two.

The future of the Internet is undoubtedly mobile. According to the PEW Research Center, 62% of Americans have accessed the Internet away from home or work, 42% of those Americans specifically used their mobile phone. “People’s growing reliance on their cell phones, together with wireless internet access from laptops, suggests a shift in expectations about cyberspace,” said John B. Horrigan, Associate Director of the Pew Internet Project and author of the report. “For many people, access to digital information and resources is an ‘always present’ utility for answering questions and documenting what is going on around them through photos or video recording.”

This means convenient access to information whenever you want it wherever you are. With nearly every cell phone offered through any carrier being Internet capable, and with access to mobile friendly search engines like Yahoo and Google, it’s almost silly these days to claim, “I don’t know” anymore. Using your cell phone you can look up facts, movie showtimes, song lyrics, maps, books, and a plethora of other information.

The Internet Pioneer
A leader in online real estate and the first to give the general public free access to all the listings in the MLS, PMZ Real Estate is proud to announce our new online platform for mobile devices called PMZ Mobile.
PMZ Mobile is a simple suite of real estate tools that allows the on the go home-hunter or Realtor® to access information and photos on any home that is in the MLS right from their mobile device. It’s easy to get to and even easier to use.
Just visit m.pmz.com from any internet capable mobile device and you can immediately search by address or MLS number for any home for sale on the MLS.

Try it out anywhere!
Say you are out picking up the groceries or the kids from soccer practice and you see a home for sale, but there isn’t a flyer and you want to know more about it. Now you can visit m.pmz.com on your cell phone, type in the street name, choose the property you are searching for and immediately view a picture slide show, pricing information, square feet, beds, baths and even more details! You can contact the agent directly from there or even email the listing to a friend.

Image via Wikipedia

Now you can have the entire MLS at your fingertips, on your mobile phone. Realtors and homebuyers, now you can pull up information about any home on the market instantly. Browse photos and get all property details right on your mobile phone. No sign ups, just pure real estate search at your fingertips for on-the-go real estate.

Just visit: mobile.pmz.com in your mobile phone’s web browser. Bookmark it for later use and start searching immediately.

Here is a posting from the Future of Real Estate Technology blog that shows a GPS unit that a broker has started uploading listings to. Now when you drive around, you can check out the homes for sale and what homes are for sale around you.

Pretty cool huh?

One man thinks so, and a lot of other real estate professionals might agree. Especially tech savvy ones.

Galen Ward posted a blog entry regarding Trulia’s so-called “underhanded” SEO (search engine optimization practices). In most geographic areas a search for “san francisco real estate” for example will pull up Trulia’s website as the first result, burrying other relevant local real estate companies websites. Ward believes this to be unfair.

One of his very valid beefs is that Trulia makes links to your website on their website, no-follow links. This means that search engines like Google and Yahoo will ignore linking to your website, losing out on precious SEO ranking.

While it is more than likely not the case that Trulia wants to destroy your website ranking, they definitely do want to rank number one. Are you getting what you expected from your relationship with Trulia?

Also, take a look at how they optimize their website. Talk to your IT administrator to see if you can do the same. A couple things that I have noticed that would really make a difference in a real estate websites rankings is having a landing page for each city that you do business in. Also make the URL for that city search engine friendly, ie: http://www.pmz.com/modesto/ca/real-estate/ or http://www.pmz.com/stockton/ca/real-estate/. For each of those landing pages, in the title and metadescription, include something like, “Modesto Real Estate & Modesto Homes for Sale” to make it more relevant to your geographical area. That’s really just the beginning.

Real Estate professionals, want to know what clients really think about you? Want to hear what they really want or what they’re interested in?

You should check out Tweet Scan. Tweet Scan is a web application that allows you to type in any keyword you want, I did “Real Estate” and it shows you all the latest Twitters that contain the word real estate.

I’ve come accross some pretty neat marketing tricks from other Agents this way, give it a try.

By the way:  For those of you who are not familiar with Twitter.com, it is a web application that allows you to send out a short message to everyone updating them as to what you are doing, or whatever you want.  Think of it like a mini-blog.  People can subscribe to you and follow what you’re doing or “twittering” about. So far, Twitter is over 1 million users strong and growing every day.

A new agreement between RE InfoLink, Central Valley MLS,  San Francisco Association of Realtors, Bay Area Real Estate Information Services Inc., and MetroList Services Inc., will now allow registered members of participating MLSs to access all the features of all the participating MLSs without having to pay a membership fee for each.

Each organization will keep a localized database of all of the participating MLSs data so that agents won’t have to login to each MLS separately to find what they want.

According to Inman news, MLS organizations in Southern California are working to follow suit, while the California Association of Realtors is looking to create a statewide MLS.

Matt Keenan, recruiter here at PMZ, showed me an interesting website called Jott.com that allows you to send emails with your voice.

How it works, You set up an account online, add your contacts, call an 800 number, speak the name of the person you want to “jott” a message to, and speak your message.  Your message will then be transcribed and delivered to that persons email.

It’s a cool service if you are on the road checking your email, but don’t want to type a long message into your Blackberry or iPhone.

The only downfall is that when the person receieves your email, it has Jott.com branding everywhere on it, so be wary and send the email to yourself and forward it without the extra branding when you get home.

Zillow, the popular real estate search and home valuation tool, announced a new product called the Zillow Mortgage Marketplace.

Here, buyers can submit an anonymous application (no SSN or contact info) to lenders who will then respond with a quote through the Zillow Mortgage Marketplace. The consumer then chooses the best quote and contacts the winning mortgage broker directly to finish and finalize the application.

Buyers are still required to accurately report their credit, income and other important details in order to get a realistic bid from the lenders.

I know it’s kind of cheesy, ‘Get Smart,’ but if you’re interested in saving 40/45 MPG and would like a car you can park in practically any space, then this might be the solution for you.

Meet smart, the $11,000 car from Mercedes-Benz.

It features:

• 40 city 45 highway gas mileage
• air bags
• 3-cylinder engine, 5-speed automatic transmission
• 12cu. ft of trunk storage
• A/C optional
• Top speed 90MPH
• 0-60 in 12.8 sec.
• ABS

If you aren’t already feeling the crunch in gas prices, I’m sure by the middle of summer when gas prices have increased well over $4, this little car might start looking a little more attractive.

Thanks to Matt Keenan for submitting this one.

I subscribe to a lot of different news feeds so that I can stay on top of the latest marketing and advertising trends.  I received a research brief from the Center for Media Research today that discusses the increase of wealthy consumers joining social networks.

According to the Luxury Institute, from 2007 there was a 60% increase of wealthy consumers joining social networks such as MySpace, LinkedIn and Facebook.

To capture as much market share you can I suggest joining multiple social networks.  PMZ belongs to many including: MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, and ActiveRain.  It’s free advertising and in these groups you can keep your contact up to date on things you find important, deals on new listings, or anything else you’d like to broadcast to the world.  You might even gain referrals from unexpected sources.

Read more about it here.