PropertyQube Comes out of the Box
PropertyQube, the formerly stealth real estate site, launched into Beta this week - and with the wrap finally lifted, it looks like the site is in fact a social network play similar to Trulia Voices, where people can ask real estate related questions of the community and (hopefully) find the help they are looking for.
As with many new sites there are a few kinks (mainly browser formatting issues in Mac OS X) for them to work out but overall the site seems functional enough. I added my profile and started to grow my ‘Trust Network’ (i.e. adding friends… ok, one friend) - this is tough going early on though, when a network is sparse.
As you build out your network you can write recommendations for your contacts and vice versa, so just like LinkedIn, PropertyQube has the potential to grow as a peer-based review service.
Conversations seem to be the heart of the site and current categories include home buying and selling, home improvement and green living. Conversations are hard to find but the few that are active seem to have pretty good threads running (check here and here).
Beyond that though, there doesn’t seem to be much else to do on the site right now.
Overall, I was left with a big feeling of “OK, so what exactly am I supposed to do with this?” from PropertyQube. The value proposition and how it hopes to differentiate itself from the multitude of other RE social networks that are springing up is not clear.
Real estate Q&A by itself won’t cut it I’m afraid. If they’re looking for agents to provide the content, there are too many other well-established alternatives for agents to focus on; Trulia Voices, ActiveRain/Localism, Yahoo! Answers, Zillow Q&A, just to name just a few. Networking around community is a dead end as well - YourStreet has already come and gone from the space.
Ultimately, success for any social network depends on it achieving a critical mass of users. In order to do this however, PropertyQube is staring at a certain amount of social network inertia and faces a big migration challenge of moving people to yet another platform.
Not to suggest that it can’t happen - there just has to be a clearly defined reason for a user to make the leap, create yet another account and participate in one more online community.
My advice to PropertyQube is to focus on the ROTI (Return on Time Invested). Tell me why I should participate - beyond the fluffy feelgood factor - and what I can get out of it. Is it leads? If so how? Is it profile? What does that mean?
Now that they’ve got the platform out there, it’s time to figure that out.
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6 Comment(s)
2 Trackback(s)
- From Snap Shot | Aug 31, 2007
- From DIY News | Aug 31, 2007
David Bethoney | Aug 30, 2007 | Reply
Hi Joel, This is Dave from Propertyqube. You raise some great questions in your post and they are exactly what we are addressing now, post launch. Our launch a day ago was really about laying the base foundation to build on top of. We have a ton of ideas on how we can truly inject value into the industry and we are building away. We decided to hold back on incorporating a lot of these ideas because first we need to understand what our users find valuable, rather than incorporating functionality for the sake of it or as a short-term play.
We will also be tweaking the platform on an almost daily basis based on the great feedback we have been getting from people all over. We will be taking the wrapper off of several new features in the weeks to come and hope to get another heavy round of feedback from everyone!
Thanks for joining Propertyqube and we look forward to seeing all of you around the community!
Andrew | Aug 30, 2007 | Reply
I just don’t know about this site. It seems like these people have never been involved in real estate personally or professionally. I do not see the need for another Q&A site.
Agent Scoreboard | Aug 30, 2007 | Reply
when I was a connect I was sitting next to a hyper-famous real estate blogger in the session that the Property Qube guy was giving. He bet me $5 that they would be a question and answer forum… so i’m paying up…
I’m not quite sure I understand the logic of all these sites… they have no real business model, if their hoping to sell stuff to realtors…. good luck and good night. There are higher traffiked sites out there that still don’t know how there going to make a buck, ala active rain.
I just don’t see the value in a Q&A site… seems kinda silly to ask a question and wait, god knows how long for the answer, when you can call your local agent. If you want to add value, have 24/7 live chat with an agent, and get agents to man the chat lines, make them pay for it… could generate good leads…
Chris C. | Aug 31, 2007 | Reply
Business 101 = supply and demand. You need demand to supply. No demand = no supply.
Business 2.101 = Disneyland theory. Build it and they will come…. haha, yeah right. Good luck, clearly no WIFM’s here.
MannyMo | Sep 4, 2007 | Reply
I agree with you thesis Joel.
I’m an internet bubble survivor (in Latin America)and I can’t help to think of the 90’s when I read about all these sites building conversations around real estate. In fact, this is not looking like web2.0 anymore if you ask me:
1) Value proposition.- A few RE sites do add value with some of these interactive tools, but there’s so many of them now and differentiation is so small that it looks like a commodity these days (remember the portal and search engine boom back then? where are those portals now?)
2) Business model.- building intangible value for investors (back then pageviews, unique visitors, email accounts) like registered RE professionals and potential buyers-sellers to turn traffic into advertising dollars (at lest for now) isn’t very healthy, specially now that RE advertising dollars are not that available (and won’t be for a while). Where are the transaction based business models? Aren’t WEB2.0 initiatives supposed to leverage social media tools to build relationships, and turn those relationships into immediate tangible value for customers and investors?
Where are the settlement and title companies anyways? I don’t see those guys in the WEB2.0 map. Those guys control the transaction process and could benefit from:
1) Online settlements for a transaction fee. Buyer, seller, escrow and everyone else on board with digital signature… Meaning nobody leaves home or the office, almost hands free.
2) Cross selling not only title insurance but homeowner’s insurance and property mgmt services
3) Syndicating the solution to RE saech tools like trulia and zillow
4) Oh!, and maybe advertising, if the real business is going well!
Just a thought.
GoGlobe | Jul 22, 2008 | Reply
I think the main problem with the majority of the new RE social networks is that their only tie to real estate is adding a listing and throwing it in the title.
Without a focus on homeowners, even a reason for homeowners to visit the website (aside from the Q&A noted above) then what’s the point?
Having a real estate portfolio to display my experience or verifiable references would prove more valuable, and they are both doable in an online community.