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Too much focus on the Armageddon Economy
2008-02-04 02:06:00
The US Economy faces the Guillotine - when Newsweek predicts Armageddon to the masses, and the masses all believe in the upcoming Armageddon, then we're in a state of mass hysteria. In such an absolute state,  only a contrarian can provide counterpoint and potentially profit from the unexpected. Let's counter some of the accepted wisdom the mainstream media and the financial pundits have been spouting with some legitimate contrarian perspective. The accepted wisdom: As the Fed drops interest rates, the dollar will crash The contrarian view: According to Bloomberg, the dollar is primed to rise this year versus the Euro as the Fed's bold rate cuts will boost the US economy just as the European economy slows: For the first time since 2003, investors are focused on relative growth prospects rather than absolute borrowing costs, according to Geoffrey Yu, a London-based strategist with UBS AG, the No. 2 trader. The steepest cuts by a Federal Reserve chairman in seven years w...
More About: Focus

Free wifi networks
2008-02-03 12:24:00
In San Francisco, a city wide free internet initiative proposed by Google and Earthlink was met with fanfare last year and then notoriously dumped by a dysfunctional Board of Supervisors who made extra demands on the wifi providers that toppled the deal. A private company, Meraki started a "Free the Net!" campaign that uses wifi repeaters to spread the wifi signal free. Consumer participants need to capture the "Free the Net" signal before they can qualify for a Meraki repeater to boost the signal further onward across San Francisco (unfortunately the signal hasn't reached my neighborhood yet or I would qualify for a free repeater).Meraki started its network in the center of San Francisco and its currently in build out towards the edges. Yesterday, Meraki announced a $20 million VC funding to provide free wireless internet access for the city of San Francisco. After proving the repeater proliferation model in San Francisco, the company will expand nationally. There are many homegr...
More About: Technology , Networks , Wifi , San Francisco Bay Area

Free the Net!
2008-01-31 22:47:00
This is a pet peeve story.Up to early 2007, free wifi signals dotted the urban landscape of San Francisco and one could just park the car, open the laptop and voila! be on. Now, people have figured out how to set up WEP passwords due to the imagined threat of "drive-by" spammers who, as urban myth has it, find a free wifi signal to unleash their spam distribution. We had grown accustomed to wifi being like electricity... open and free. I (and I'm sure countless others) mentally note every free wifi coffee shop in the neighborhoods where we have meetings so we can refer to them immediately. These shops always get my business. Coffee shop owners complain of wifi-loungers, so they should do what this brilliant bakery chain Panera Bread does - they offer free wifi except between the lunch hours of 11:00 - 2:00 when wifi use is restricted and clocked to 30 minutes. Panera is my meeting spot of choice whenever I'm in SoCal. Every restaurant chain should do this. Booking a conference a...
More About: Free , Disintermediation , The Future

A rash of property search engines
2008-01-31 01:31:00
To the untrained eye of the consumer, the functionality of real estate search and listings sites all seem similar. The first glance differentiating factors are ease of use, attractive design and special features. Many of the newer search sites take their cue from Google's simple query box: The initial feedback on newly launched US version of European based DotHomes is its ease of use and speedy search results. What's under the hood of these new search engines? DotHomes is a data aggregation search play. Its technology extracts specific fields off listings websites - # bedrooms, # bath, sq ft, price per sq ft - and displays the data on site. It also catalogs tag words - neighborhood name, probate, backyard - from the listings description to refine more detailed queries, like "san francisco pacific heights with backyard". The differential technological advantage is DotHomes' ability to "wrap" any listings website quickly and extract data deep down to the individual listing. I be...
More About: Technology , Search Engines , Property , Search , Engines

The new Investment Banking paradigm
2008-01-28 03:22:00
If one subscribes to the idea that a real estate transaction is basically matching capital with opportunity, and that the transactional process has become more transparent due to internet data, then it's logical to see that any intermediary based transaction is also fair game. Investment banking and venture capital is a relationship based business that matches investor bases, often institutional investors, with opportunities - stocks, bonds, M&A, start ups, etc. Like any other lucrative business model, maintaining the mystique of "high finance" and managing deals behind the scenes keeps power contained within the select few who live on Park Avenue or in Woodside. TheFunded.com, a website where entrepreneurs post data and feedback on the venture capital community, begins to level the playing field for entrepreneurs who pilgrimaged to so many VC meetings in order to figure out where their investment opportunities stood. Techcrunch notes TheFunded is now creating a database of V...
More About: Banking , Disintermediation , The Future , Transparency

Can the new refi boom usher in new lending models to keep the industry ethi
2008-01-24 23:40:00
(from Bankrate.com 1/24/08)Mortgage broker friends have been telling me there is a refinancing boom happening with mortgage rates sliding.  With the new boom, I'm hoping the shady mortgage lending practices of the pre-credit crunch days have been scrutinized by and made more visible to the consumer. However, I hear once again those ubiquitous, vainglorious mortgage broker radio ads with that call to action - "mortgage rates have again hit all time lows and won't stay there, so call now". We're ready to see the Charles Schwab-ization of mortgage lending - with rates visible to the consumer without hidden backends / yield spread premiums, or prepayment penalties that can indirectly compensate brokers. With product simplification, all the Schwab-like mortgage broker would add is his/her fee. I'm sure mortgage brokers will cry "it just isn't that simple", and that's likely true now, but we're heading in that direction because mortgage lending will, like airplane tickets an...
More About: Models , Industry , Usher , Disintermediation , The Industry

Now the European Central Bank waffles on rate cut recovery measures
2008-01-23 13:35:00
ECB President Jean Claude Trichet replaces Bernanke as not "getting" the magnitude of the global recessionary threatSurprisingly, the UK and European Central Bank s did not see fit to drop their interest rates in tandem with yesterdays's 75bp Fed rate cut, citing inflationary pressures. Coordinated action by the world's Central Banks in lowering rates to head off a global recession was expected here. After all, Bernanke made the first move yesterday.... now the ball is in Europe's court. Jon Ogg at 24/7 Wall St. explains the implications of the ECB's stubborn, but fallible position - "maybe the Central Bankers and their wives want to... come shopping in New York City before they lower rates". Notice though the dollar has remained remarkably resilient vs. the Euro today, perhaps in part with the expectation of future coordinated rate cut action. In any case, most pundits expect European markets to suffer from this short-sighted decision, it's the principle reason why Europe fel...
More About: Economy , Recovery

Global crash unnerves Fed - Interest rates will plunge
2008-01-22 08:54:00
The global market meltdown unnerved the Fed and they made their first intermeeting Fed Funds rate cut of 75 bp since September 17, 2001. Investors are still massively selling off Tuesday because they are panicked. Even though the cut is positive, they are selling to catch up with the other markets with one extra day of losses due to the MLK holiday. The bear market  dominates and a "sell into the rally" mentality is the theme for today. The Fed finally looks like they will take a sledge hammer to avoiding the recession for the globe's sake, and it's quite likely that another 50pb cut is coming on January 31 for their formal meeting. The dollar is doing fine, reflecting the fact that Central Banks are all working in unison to solve the global selloff.  The European Central Bank is also considering rate cuts. If the dollar continues to hold up over the short term, it will engender confidence that the US can lead the global markets away from today's panic. In fact, the t...
More About: Economy , Interest Rates , Global , Interest , Crash

Global market crash update
2008-01-21 15:39:00
Updating from yesterday's article on Bernanke and the Fed's credibility as they dawdle from decisive action to avoid recession, it's becoming clear that a US market crash is pulling down all global markets. US markets are closed today for Martin Luther King Day, but the rest of the world is melting down while Nero fiddles. Tomorrow's futures markets imply a 3-4% drop in the major indices when markets open. The Fed is now further burdened with staving off a global market crash with its actions in the US. Fortunately, the world's economic leaders will be attending the World Economic Forum in Davos this week to control the effects of "irrational depression" that everybody is feeling. Hopefully, the Forum will stimulate the global Central Banks to work together in unison to lower interest rates and consider anti-inflation policy. Bold assumption, but it's perfect timing for a special Fed rate cut tomorrow to reassure the markets that the Fed now "gets it". Update : Matt Carter ...
More About: Economy , Market , Global , Crash

Bernanke's credibility on the ropes
2008-01-20 14:50:00
As the spectre of economic meltdown has media, Wall Street and George Bush crying for a solution in unison, Ben Bernanke's counterpoint message that the economy is just growing slowly and not yet headed into a recession seems surreal. Wall Street's market crash seem to be a ploy to force Bernanke and the Fed to drastic rate cuts... and Bernanke is starting to look like the problem - "all talk and no action". Bernanke and the FOMC, knowing that each time they meet over the first half of 2008 will likely require one more rate cut, seems to be setting a target low Fed Funds rate (such as Goldman Sachs year end 2008 rate target of 2.5%), and then backing into a "schedule" for an orderly rate drop. Economist View has a good reference article on this rate cut control strategy by Fed watcher Tim Duy, who believes that the Fed will continue to act conservatively with a 50bp rate cut on January 31, and not the 75bp the masses are clamoring for, so they have room for further future cuts if...
More About: Economy

Drastic rate cuts by the Fed should ease mortgage rates even more
2008-01-17 21:31:00
With the stock market crashing daily, Wall Street and Main Street look to the Fed for a series of interest rate cuts this winter (although most acknowledge it's too little, too late). According to HSH, the financial data publisher, changes in the Fed Funds rate correlate poorly with changes in mortgage rates: Indeed, according to Dan Green, Bankrate's Mortgage Rate Trend survey states 62% believe mortgage rates will increase even though the Fed is expected to cut rates, even a dramatic 75 point cut on January 29. Last week, Inman News' Lou Barnes also states: Dramatic Fed cuts would hike mortgage rates. However, history says that when the Fed cuts rates drastically, mortgage rates also inevitably drop (an eyeball perusal shows this). And mortgage rates are plunging now (50 bp in a month!) - , today's 30-year fixed rate is at the same level as it was in July 2005. Simple facts: the housing market needs the boost from lower mortgage rates, lenders need to lend... ...
More About: Economy , Rates , Ease

Property search engines' marketing conundrum
2008-01-16 02:04:00
AltSearch Engines discusses property search engines with Europe-based Yannick Laclau of Properazzi and Victor Aloi of Migoa/Nuroa. Here are the takeaways, all pretty obvious to anyone who has studied listings search engines: Marketing - getting noticed and capturing market share from the incumbents - is the key challenge. In the US, Realtor.com by virtue of its older brand name is still the gorilla that Trulia and Zillow are trying to catch. ComscoreThere are a lot of property search sites, and the consumer generally can't tell the difference until they use Properazzi or Nuroa and realize their advanced functionality.Business model is... advertising.Vertical search sites all borrow features from each other, so sites tend to evolve along the same paths.With so many sites, all with the same business model and similar features, property search engines become indistinguishable... which leads to >>>Marketing is the key challenge. In particular, viral marketing is a most effici...
More About: Technology , Search Engines , Property

Peer-to-Peer Lending - Credit crunch meets social networking
2008-01-15 02:43:00
Combine the credit crunch with the inherent trust factor being cultivated within social networks, and you get peer-to-peer lending. Today, the Digerati Life gives a comprehensive overview of the major P2P lending players : Prosper.com, Lending Club, Zopa.com, Kiva.org And USA Today sports a research analyst's prediction on the growth of P2P lending: We know there's a surfeit of borrowers today... why is lending on a P2P network so worthwhile and who would take the chances of unsecured lending to strangers? From USA Today: Default rates are lower for peer-to-peer loans than for other consumer loans. Cory Moore became a lender on Prosper.com this year. To hedge against defaults, he spreads his risk by lending small sums to different borrowers. So far, he's made 170 loans, for $50 apiece. "If one defaults, I've lost (money for) a dinner for two," says Moore, who says he's collected about $4,000 in interest from the loans. "Each loan is only $50, so I'm ...
More About: Social , Social Networking , Credit , Networking , Peer-to-peer

OpenHouse.com
2008-01-14 01:48:00
While at the Inman conference last week, I met up with Ben Phillips, Managing Director of OpenHouse.com, a new site focused on supplying open house listings data, glaringly missing from most MLS systems. Although developed and managed by Realogy, OpenHouse.com is positioned as non-denominational and is encouraging any brokerage or agent to participate by submitting listings feeds. It's significant that one of the largest brokerages is developing an "open data" product for the benefit of the industry. The impetus behind OpenHouse was to develop a user generated content site of open house listings and do away with all Realogy companies' print ads that were populating weekend newspapers. Ben says it saves the company several million per year. With the real mission of saving brokerages money (and of course, further disintermediating print media), advertising will be limited or non-existent. Realogy may benefit from owning a valuable online asset if OpenHouse.com does become a destina...

Why good Real Estate Video is rare
2008-01-13 14:11:00
I saw Rachel Klein, real estate video producer/star... from far away... at one of the Inman Connect cocktail parties last week. It was tough to get a word in edgewise to say I was a fan... she was like a media celebrity in a crowd of real estate agents (well, I guess that explains it...) We're so accustomed to TV-quality video production, or even JibJab-simple quality production, that anything less seems amateurish. (Link) This is the way to make compelling real estate videos... and Rachel demonstrates exactly why it's hard for real estate agents to get their hands around video as a marketing tool. Thus, the need for quality production assistance from For Sale by Locals, Real Estate Shows, and Wellcome Mat to name a few.
More About: Video , Real Estate , Good

Inman Connect review
2008-01-11 10:44:00
Five quick observations about this week's Inman Connect NYC: The declining housing market, credit crunch and looming recession seemed to dominate the conversations. Reason? All panelists in four general sessions (here's the liveliest one ) revolving around the economy acknowledged how critical the problem is with varying degrees of doom. There was not too much room for optimism although John Vogel does propose a solution.Brian Boero provides 50 powerful tips to help your business (the powerpoint will be posted here once I receive it)... and he goes beyond the remedial. Twitter arrives with real time comment streams on speakers in session. The stream reminds me of a ticker tape, and future conferences might experimentally include Twitter in one of the presentation windows behind the speakers (although I see it could easily distract the audience). Andy Kaufman (working virtually from Berkeley) ingeniously set up a compendium of Twitter streams from the Inman participants' Twitter ...
More About: Events , Review

Trulia distributes listings to media free
2008-01-09 08:11:00
Today, Trulia announces their publishing platform that can essentially place Trulia's feature tools - the heat maps and listings/comps data - on any site. I'm particularly focused on their partnership with publishers Kiplinger.com, Village Voice Media and AmericanTowns to facilitate the creation of co-branded sites that display on the publishers' sites. And it's all for free.The offering takes one further step towards commoditizing listings data and making them free.  It takes dead aim at the third party vendors like Homescape that provision listings data for publishers and charges them for it.Since no monetization is involved, what are the benefits to each party?Benefits for publisher - free listings contentBenefits to brokerage partners and their listings agent - broader listings distributionBenefits to Trulia - Trulia further positions itself as a national listings distributor. In particular, these content distribution agreements get their consumers comfortable with Tr...
More About: Free , Listings

Year of the Blog Networks
2008-01-06 23:35:00
This is the first of a few "prediction" articles I'll be developing this month in tribute to 2008. "Blog networks" is not part of the lexicon yet, but it will be. They already exist on many online newspapers like the New York Times as "blog network gardens" that consist primarily of the blogs of their own journalists (essentially, blogs have become the online incarnation of the journalist's daily or weekly column). All types of publications, like Forbes.com, will be creating blog networks by selecting and aggregating blogs by business/financial topic. More thematically, real estate trade publications are also exploring the launch of blog networks (more later). Finally, although technically not blogs, companies like Circuit City are inviting their customers to register as users and participate in comment streams and forums revolving around the products that Circuit City sells... it's a concept for potential adoption by real estate companies - builders, title companies, lenders, e...
More About: Networks , Year

Counter intuitive lead generation ideas
2008-01-04 03:00:00
During today's discussion on how to make brokerage websites even better made me think about counter-intuitive lead generation ideas 1) Consumers want tools and free data for their home buying experience but are wary of submitting any personal contact information. Why not just explicitly state on the website - "REGISTER TO USE OUR TOOLS AND WE PROMISE NEVER TO SPAM OR CONTACT YOU, OR ABUSE YOUR PERSONAL DATA. IT'S COMPLETELY UP TO YOU WHEN YOU WANT TO INITIATE CONTACT". I would sign up to use good tools with this guarantee. 2) When the consumer wants to start contacting agents for conversation, provide tools like Meebo / Plugoo chat boxes and Jaxtr anonymizing phone callers that allow the consumer to contact agents anonymously and encourage them to make contact anonymously. Why? Interviewing and ultimately rejecting the hiring of an agent slightly tears the social fabric. Rejection causes disappointment and a me versus them / good guys/bad guys feeling. For example, I stopped get...
More About: Ideas , Counter , Generation , Lead

Latest brokerage website trends
2008-01-04 02:51:00
I got the chance to participate, in part, in the planning session for a sophisticated new brokerage website today. Here are the objectives: 1) The cookie-cutter IDX site is dead... the new broker website should look, at least, like Trulia - with listings maps, Web 2.0 features like Q&A to facilitate consumer/agent interaction, and lots of useful data like heat maps and automated valuation models. 2) The brokerage's blog network will be integrated into the website so that every time a blogger posts an article, its excerpt gets uploaded onto a kind of "virtual" feedreader. The blogging agents will provide qualitative, real time data interpretation complementary to the quantitative listings, comparable and other data... and they will blog independently under their own domain names, not under the broker's blog. 3) Recruitment is more important to the broker than lead generation referral fees. The brokerage wants its agents to see tangible results from the leads its sophisticated ...
More About: Website , Trends , Brokerage

Active Rain Review
2008-01-01 10:50:00
Happy New Year!Some readers here don't know I also have a small presence on Active Rain ("AR"), a real estate professional community and blog network with a devoted core of participants. Here's a review I published on AR:I admit I'm not the most appropriate to do an Active Rain year in review because I didn't have enough time in my schedule to participate fully in the AR experience. I've always been very impressed with Active Rain's growth and spirit, and see it as the bellwether for the direction of real estate blogging. Pardons, I'm going to break the year end review rules because I couldn't think of how to write a retrospective . Instead, I'll go with my natural inclinations and try to scope out the future evolution of Active Rain in 2008.The Active Rain business modelActive Rain has become the definitive national social network for the real estate community. It will continue to thrive on just the loyalty and participation of its growing member body. But social networki...
More About: Review

Real estate bloggers - finally, a direct channel into the online consumer
2007-12-31 02:19:00
Now anyone can write a blog on SoCal's Orange County Register (here's mine). The local paper has contracted with Pluck, the company behind Blogburst that works with major media companies to add blogging functionality and content. Their third party platform makes it easy for the masses to write blogs on OCRegister.com. Simply put, the OC Register and soon, other major news media are finally enabling a "permanent" voice to their readership that goes beyond the news article comments now seen on most online press.Major media awaken to leveraging their brand names in Web 2.0Major media were caught unaware by social bookmarking sites like Digg, Reddit and Netscape that positioned themselves as populist news distribution sources. Of the news organizations, CNN.com and NY Times.com pop up at #111 and #224 in Alexa's top global 500 sites, relatively poor showings for premier media properties. Only recently have the NY Times and WSJ understood that they are no longer news gateways and are...
More About: Estate , Real Estate , Consumer , Direct , Bloggers

Rentomatic
2007-12-28 13:47:00
Investment Instruments, the company behind mapping mashup Rentometer, the renter's pricing guide, will be launching a new product - Rentomatic - targeted to small- and mid-sized landlords, property managers and investors that automate rent payments and communications with their tenants. You can beta test it at https://www.rentomatic.com/tenant_home.Re ntomatic and Rentometer are great coordinated brand names for a B2B application and consumer site by a company that is conquering an underserved business niche of rental properties.

Recession domino theories in abundance
2007-12-26 17:32:00
As 2008 appears on the horizon, the "recession domino theory" has reached consensus with many economy pundits, particularly over the past week: Commercial real estate dominoes collapse - Minyanville, Dec. 26 Once one key player backs out of a commercial development, they all do. As big anchors like Lowe's and Home Depot retrench, other retailers like Target follow suit and halt commercial development across the country, which in turn creates fewer jobs and more unemployment. Credit downturn hits the malls - WSJ, Dec. 26 Anchor chain stores dropping out of developments aren't the only deal killers. The inability to refinance short term and mezzanine debt (that looked like sure bets one year ago) also kill projects. "Credit was so plentiful when Mr. Macklowe purchased his Manhattan office buildings from Blackstone, he only needed to put in $50 million of equity to secure $7.1 billion in debt, which included a bridge loan and the senior mortgage, people familiar with the deal say....
More About: Economy , Abundance , Theories , Recession , Domino

A Preview of Internet 2008
2007-12-24 11:59:00
Mainstream media embraces Web 2.0 - Mashable reports on Reuters' new partnership with SocialPicks, a newly funded stock picking social network, to develop their own branded social network community called StockBuzz. This new product has interesting implications for real estate community networks like Active Rain, Realivent or Zolve, who might consider launching branded community networks for real estate brokerages. -------------The Economist projects Internet developments for 2008 : Bandwidth will slow down as the Internet reaches limits. Until recently, most Internet users were consumers of content and only downloaded stuff into their PCs. User generated content has spawned an explosion of uploaded content, which of course just increases more consumption by an expanded user base that includes new mobile users. Internet access stops being taken for granted.Google's initiative to develop Android, its mobile phone platform, has effectively opened up the mobile phone application bus...
More About: Preview

How to Market your House on the Internet - the definitive presentation
2007-12-22 13:49:00
Friend John Harper has really outdone himself with a great client slide presentation that sells the Harper Team's Internet and Web 2.0 expertise. Real estate blogs generally have been acknowledged as informational by nature, hooking lead generation opportunities by providing real time insight and data for their local or regional client base. Hard sell is seen as no-no. What John has done is to "sell" how the Harper Team and its blog differentiates itself from competition that has not established any web presence. The slide presentation is a call to action that I believe every blogger should develop... the tone and style of John's presentation fits naturally within the parameters of blog marketing - educational, factual, and easy to understand. Bravo!
More About: House , Market , Blogging , San Francisco Bay Area

Chinese investment in the US to increase
2007-12-21 01:06:00
It's logical to think the credit crunch has shut down liquidity and cash has become scarce, but in reality there is still a lot of global cash looking for investments. The Chinese in particular are flush with cash derived in part from booming asset markets (check the Shanghai Composite Index above), and this week made a significant investment for 10% of Morgan Stanley. And the Chinese yuan keeps on getting stronger vis-a-vis the US dollar. And today, China increased their interest rate to curb its inflation rate led by 12% economic growth, making the yuan even stronger. Chinese invest in and push up their own stock market simply because they don't know where else to put their money. What happens when the Chinese investors diversify and move their cash from their stock market to US assets? Here are the latest articles: "It's a good time for investment (in the US)," said Yin Zhongli, a researcher with the Financial Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. ...
More About: Economy , Investment

Reading the mood on Wall Street
2007-12-19 00:59:00
Main Street looks to investor psychology for the signals that portend recession, relief from the credit crunch, etc. But the earliest indications of a market turnaround arise from psychology shifts on the trading floor. The general public can glimpse the mood from watching real time market news and interviews on CNBC. The major media financial newspapers generally don't report on that mood, but Financial Times notes today that there's an atmospheric change: But down on the trading floors and in the treasury departments of financial services groups, a subtle psychological shift is under way: as the shock of the summer?s events starts to fade, traders, investors and issuers are starting to adapt to the idea that the cost of borrowing has changed. As a result, activity in debt markets is picking up again. Or as Ben Bennett, an analyst at Lehman Brothers, says: ?The credit machine is slowly restarting.? Although encouraging, the article continues to say that three factors could st...
More About: Economy , Reading , Wall Street , Wall

Meeting your Social Graph at Conferences
2007-12-18 01:25:00
Social networking and the transparency of the social graph profoundly changes how people meet and interact. Yesterday, I discussed Chris Anderson's premise that the marginal cost of online information exchange is essentially free. 99% of the interaction within online social networks is the free exchange of information and insights that do not translate to commercial value - a transaction, a lead, a gift. Instead, the interactions create value by establishing reputation and credibility that eventually facilitate the prize of the business relationship. The social media speeds up the process of forming business relationships by exposing each parties' experiences, knowledge and social graphs, and each find their commonalities. But what really catalyzes a business relationship after an online relationship is established is the face-to-face meeting. The visceral physical introduction binds the relationship like the meeting of pen pals. Conferences become far more important as physical...
More About: Social , Transparency , Graph , Meeting

The Emerging World of Free
2007-12-17 08:48:00
Chris Anderson, author of the Long Tail, talks about the premises underlying his new book "The Emerging World of Free " in this must-see video (h/t to Guy Kawasaki). Real estate professionals collectively fret over the erosion of their income as they realize how much closer to "free" their services are becoming. Anderson explains that this is simply the manifestation from a business model paradigm based on gatekeepers using scarcity of knowledge as a value proposition to one where knowledge becomes free on the internet. Examples Scarcity paradigm - knowledge, content are controlled by a scarce few Abundance paradigm - knowledge and content are distributed by the masses Manifestation Gatekeepers uphold scarcity and charge their "arm and leg" for it Knowledge becomes free because there is little marginal cost to posting said knowledge on the internet Example - Mass media 20th Century model - broadcast media - infinite reach but limited channe...
More About: Disintermediation