Online Real Estate Technology

Despite a general drop in home prices during the recession, home affordability problems persist for many Americans, according to recent data from The Urban Institute’s MetroTrends.

Home Affordability Problems Began During Boom
MetroTrends research indicates that during the boom years (roughly 2003-2007), unemployment was low in most of metropolitan America, but average earnings remained essentially flat. In the top 100 metros nationwide, average earnings grew only 1.2% from 2005 to 2007, after accounting for inflation.

And because real rents and house prices rose significantly during this period, housing hardship worsened. The share of households spending 30% or more of every month’s income on rent or mortgage costs climbed from 30% in 2000 to 40% in 2008.

Lower Prices Don’t Ease Problems
Since the recession started, unemployment has spiked, jumping from 4.6% among the top 100 metros in 2007 to 9.6% in October 2009. In addition, MetroTrends analysis indicates average earnings have declined, although 2009 data aren’t yet available, and house prices have plummeted.

However, average home prices remained 26% higher in 2009 than in 2000. And most families’ monthly rent or mortgage payments haven’t fallen because they haven’t yet moved or refinanced. At least for now, housing affordability problems are more prevalent, not less.

MetroTrends says one indication of deepening hardship in the downturn is the recent rise in food insecurity. Until 2007, about 11% of metropolitan households experienced food insecurity. But in 2008, this share climbed to almost 15%.

Coastal Metros Hardest Hit
Residents of coastal metropolitan areas have been especially affected by housing hardship. In metro Los Angeles, for example, the share of households with unaffordable housing cost burdens topped 50% in 2007. And in the Miami region, 53% of households lived in unaffordable housing.

Coastal areas of California, Florida and the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic have been especially hard hit. Twelve metropolitan areas in central and southern California have 43% or more of their population spending 30% or more of their income on housing costs. Florida has three metropolitan areas with 43% or more of their population spending this much on housing costs, as well as four areas with 37-42.9% of residents spending this amount.

The Northeast and Mid-Atlantic only have two metropolitan areas with have 43% or more of their population spending 30% or more of their income on housing costs, but have at least 10 metro areas with 37-42.9% of residents spending this amount. The only other state with a metropolitan area where 43% or more of residents spend 30% or more of their income on housing is Nevada (Las Vegas).

Hope for Improvement Exists
MetroTrends predicts that during the next five to 10 years, as the economy recovers and housing values stabilize, there’s a reasonable chance for better alignment of housing costs and incomes, because housing markets will likely recover without immediately forming another bubble. If house values increase moderately as employment and earnings gradually return to normal, more families will find their housing costs affordable. The lowest-wage workers still won’t find much housing that they can reasonably afford, however.

Short-term Unemployment Hits Mortgages Hard
While the long-term unemployed have suffered the most during the Great Recession, a recent survey from the Pew Research Center found that shorter spells of unemployment also have been painful for many Americans and their families.

For example, one-third of all long-term unemployed (33%) say they have had problems paying their rent or mortgage, identical to the proportion of those unemployed less than three months who experienced difficulty paying for housing.

However, this proportion is more than double the share of Americans who have not been jobless at any point during the recession but who have had difficulty paying for housing during the recession (16%).

Daily users comment and upload content at least twice as much as average

eMarketer estimates there are 26 million monthly users of Twitter in 2010. That makes users of the microblogging service a relatively small minority of internet users, at 14.6%, and daily users are naturally even fewer in number. But their voice is disproportionately loud.

According to ExactTarget, daily Twitter users are highly active across the social web. They are about three times as likely as internet users on average to upload photos, four times as likely to blog, three times as likely to post ratings and reviews, and nearly six times as likely to upload articles.

They create, share and comment on content at high rates, making them valuable to marketers for much more than their potential influence on Twitter alone.

“Consumers active on Twitter are clearly the most influential online,” said Morgan Stewart, principal at ExactTarget’s research and education group, in a statement. “What happens on Twitter doesn’t stay on Twitter. While the number of active Twitter users is less than Facebook or email, the concentration of highly engaged and influential content creators is unrivaled—it’s become the gathering place for content creators whose influence spills over into every other corner of the internet.”

ExactTarget also explored Twitter users’ motivations for following companies and brands on the service. In a deeper drilldown into consumer sentiment than previous research has conducted, the April 2010 study supported the general findings that microbloggers have many reasons to follow brands they like. While discounts and sales are toward the top of the list, finding out news and information about the company and its products come out ahead.

According to 360i, 75% of marketers’ tweets are informational, suggesting brands are responding to what consumers want—though they largely neglect to participate in conversations. Such deeper engagement might help them harness the power of frequent Twitter users across their other social activities as well.

Word-of-mouth may not translate to loyalty

Social media is a hot topic in marketing circles, but many consumers are also discussing the trend, which accounts for nearly 23% of time spent online in the US, according to Nielsen.

An April 2010 survey conducted by Harris Interactive for the Online Publishers Association (OPA) found that social media sites were the most talked-about on the web, ahead of portals and top media sites that are members of the OPA in discussions on a wide variety of channels.

All those conversations, whether in person, via email, on the phone or elsewhere on the web, however, don’t make social site visitors loyal—internet users expressed the least loyalty for such properties, compared with portals or OPA member sites. They were also most likely to say social sites were not a very good fit for their information and entertainment needs.

The OPA’s findings are in line with the annual customer satisfaction report from ForeSee Results that found Facebook among the most disliked sites on the web after its many disagreements with its own user community and several privacy debacles.

According to the OPA, negative feelings about social sites may also apply to the brands that advertise there. Only 8% of internet users felt social media site advertisers were reputable, compared with a 21% average for content sites. They also felt advertising on social sites was less relevant and the companies that did so were less respected.

The answer for brands is to continue a greater focus on non-advertising marketing activities, engaging on the social media user’s terms. And marketers should remember that while loyalty to individual social properties may be low and site users dissatisfied, the activities that have come to define social media— connecting with friends and family and sharing information and content with a trusted group—will remain important in the lives of millions of internet users and continue to provide avenues for brand engagement.

Twitter followers are most interested in receiving information about a brand or extra value, according to a new study from digital marketing firms ExactTarget and CoTweet.

Followers Want Return for Following
“Subscribers, Fans and Followers: Twitter X-Factors” indicates the largest single percentage of Twitter users who follow a company, brand or association on Twitter are motivated to do so by a desire to get updates on future products (38%). Another 32% want to get more information about the activities of a company.

Following these two informational reasons, the next-highest percentage of Twitter users follows a company to receive discounts and promotions (31%). Thirty percent want to get information on upcoming sales, and 28% want to receive “freebies” such as coupons and samples.

Most of the other reasons for following a company on Twitter have some type of informational aspect (such as learning more about a company, 25%, and learning about company topics, 14%). Viral marketers have some work to do, as only 23% want to show support of a company to others and only 20% want to interact with a company.

The most popular reason to follow a company on Twitter with no direct informational or financial benefit is for fun and entertainment (26%).

Daily Twitter Users Contribute Socially
While a relatively low percentage of Twitter users follow a company to spread its praises, daily Twitter users are highly social in terms of general online information-sharing. For example, 80% of daily Twitter users comment on photos and videos, compared to 38% of other consumers.

Similar wide disparities exist across a range of online social activities, with notably high percentages of daily Twitter users engaging in activities such as uploading photos (76%), posting to forums (75%), blogging (70%), and posting ratings and reviews (61%).

Engage Daily Twitter Users
ExactTarget says the key to successfully integrating Twitter into overall marketing strategy is to not approach this channel as a way to maintain direct relationships with the majority of customers. Instead, ExactTarget advises companies commit to serving customers who do use Twitter on a daily basis. They control and influence the content that others are reading about a brand—which can directly impact the bottom line. And if marketers use Twitter appropriately with this important audience, they can add depth and character to customer relationships.

Twitter Has Higher Global Reach for Women
Twitter has a marginally higher reach among women than men globally, according to a new study from comScore. “How Women Are Shaping the Internet” indicates that despite Twitter’s status as a new technology, which is typically tried earlier by men, on a global level, more women are using Twitter. Among all women age 15 and older, Twitter had a reach of about 7% in April 2010, compared to a reach of roughly 6.5% among men age 15 and older.

In the US, Twitter’s reach has followed a less consistent pattern, with Twitter’s reach among men slightly less than 12% in April 2010, fractionally higher than its reach among women.

Twitter has a marginally higher reach among women than men globally, according to a new study from comScore.

Twitter Reaches More Women 15-plus
“How Women Are Shaping the Internet” indicates that despite Twitter’s status as a new technology, which is typically tried earlier by men, on a global level, more women are using Twitter. Among all women age 15 and older, Twitter had a reach of about 7% in April 2010, compared to a reach of roughly 6.5% among men age 15 and older.

Twitter’s reach growth among women and men globally has followed an even pattern, reaching less than 1% of both genders in November 2008 and growing at a steady pace among both genders, with women maintaining a slight lead the entire time.

Men Outpace Women in US
Globally, women slightly outpace men in adoption of Twitter, but this varies greatly by region and country. In the US, Twitter’s reach has followed a less consistent pattern, with women initially leading men in November 2008 (reach among both genders was approximately 1%), and the genders then trading the lead several times up to April 2010, when Twitter’s reach among men was slightly less than 12%, fractionally higher than its reach among women.

In contrast, Twitter has had a notably higher reach among Australian women since April 2009 (6% to 5%). In April 2010, Twitter reached more than 7% of Australian women, about one percentage point higher than its reach among Australian men.

The difference is even more pronounced in Singapore, where as of April 2010 Twitter reached 14% of women but only about 10% of men. Gender trends in Germany, Japan and the UK more closely resemble global trends.

Women Find Promotions
In the US, there are fairly significant differences in how men and women use Twitter. For example, 16% of women use Twitter to find sales, deals and special promotions, compared to 12% of men. Women are also more likely to use Twitter to follow celebrities (18%-14%) and converse with other users (18%-16%).

On the other hand, men lead in using Twitter for activities such as posting their own tweets (38%-29%), finding breaking news (23%-13%), and following favorite sports teams (15%-8%).

Women Do More Social Networking
Social networking sites generally reach a higher percentage of women than men globally, according to other results from this study. “How Women Are Shaping the Internet” indicates 75.8% of all women online visited a social networking site in May 2010, compared to 69.7% of men. Globally, women demonstrate higher levels of engagement with social networking sites than men.

Although women account for 47.9% of total unique visitors to the social networking category, they consume 57% of pages and account for nearly 57% of total minutes spent on these sites.

Two in five mobile owners use location-aware services

As some marketers wonder about the possible audience for check-in services like foursquare, which reached 2 million users and 100 million check-ins in July 2010, mobile owners are getting used to sharing their location in many ways regardless of their privacy worries.

According to a survey by security software company Webroot, 39% of social network users who own a mobile internet device use geolocation.

But there was widespread concern over the loss of privacy, the possibility of being hacked on an unsecured network and other safety issues. Women tended to be more worried than men, and younger users less concerned than their older peers.

Still, many smartphone owners are taking advantage of the features location-aware services can offer. The most popular activity was letting friends know where they were, done by 19.2% of respondents at least daily. More than 15% of respondents reported checking in at locations at least daily.

Among younger adults ages 18 to 29, those percentages were higher: 24.5% and 17%, respectively. In that age group, men were about twice as likely to participate in the activity daily than women.

The most popular geolocation apps included Google Latitude, used by about three in 10 respondents. Flickr, which geotags photos, and Google Buzz were each used by about two in 10. Twitter, which geolocates tweets, was popular with fewer than 15% of respondents, while about half as many used foursquare.

Forrester Research also found men and younger adults dominated the location-based landscape. That study, of the wider group of US internet users, found that only 4% had used check-in apps like foursquare, Gowalla and Loopt, and only 1% checked in at least weekly.

Smartphone users who are already interested in social activities are at the leading edge in geolocation, and despite concerns of their own may pave the way for a larger audience to feel comfortable sharing where they are.

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Women account for slightly fewer than half of global internet users but spend more time online than men, according to a new study from comScore.

Women Account for 46% of Global Web Users
“How Women Are Shaping the Internet” indicates that globally, women represent 46% of internet users age 18 and up. However, this percentage varies by region. For example, women represent 50.4% of North American internet users.

North America has the highest percentage of its adult internet-using population represented by women. In Asia Pacific (42.1%), Europe (47%) and Latin America (48.1%), women are still underrepresented.

Broken down by individual country, Singapore, the US, New Zealand, Russia and Canada have the highest proportion of adult female web users – all with 50% or more. Countries with the lowest proportion of female web users include two countries where internet penetration is still extremely low – India and Indonesia, with 28 and 35%, respectively.

Asia-Pacific Has Most Female Web Users
Asia is undoubtedly the largest regional online market, and is still growing rapidly. Women online in Asia outnumber women in North America by more than two to one. China alone accounts for more women online than all of North America and, together with Japan, South Korea and India, account for more women online than Europe, according to comScore figures.

In Most Regions, Women Spend More Time Online
The average 15-plus female spends 8% more time online than her male counterpart. In April, the global average was 24.8 hours per month for women, compared to 22.9 hours for men.

Looking at time spent by women 18 and up compared to men of the same age by region, Asia-Pacific has the widest gap. Women spend an average of 17.9 hours per month online, 7.2% more than the 16.6 average hours spent online by men.

North America is the one region where men spend slightly more time online per month than women. Men average 38.6 monthly hours, 2.6% more than the average 37.6 monthly hours spent online by women.

Women spend more time online than men in Europe and Latin America, but the gap is narrower than in Asia-Pacific. European women spend an average of 26 hours a month online, 3.8% more than 25 hours spent by men. In Latin America, women average 27.1 monthly hours online, only 1.5% more than 26.7 monthly hours average by men.

Women Do More Social Networking
Social networking sites reach a higher percentage of women than men globally, according to other comScore study results.

“How Women Are Shaping the Internet” indicates 75.8% of all women online visited a social networking site in May 2010, compared to 69.7% of men. Globally, women demonstrate higher levels of engagement with social networking sites than men. Although women account for 47.9% of total unique visitors to the social networking category, they consume 57% of pages and account for nearly 57% of total minutes spent on these sites.

Women spend significantly more time on social networking sites than men, with women averaging 5.5 hours per month compared to men’s four hours, demonstrating the strong engagement that women across the globe share with social sites.

Online channels most effective—especially when rigorously measured

Lead generation budgets were slashed by many companies in 2009, but now that the economy is on the uptick again, dollars are flowing and acquiring new customers is a priority.

According to the “2010 Lead Generation Optimization Key Trends Analysis” from CSO Insights, more than 91% of companies worldwide reported increasing new customer acquisition was one of their top strategic marketing objectives for 2010.

Based on the quantity and quality of leads generated, companies said email was their best lead generation program, followed by live events, website registrations and webinars. The effectiveness of online channels, coupled with the fact that prospects indicate the web is the first place they look for more information, makes it natural for companies to be increasing their investments in web design, email marketing and search engine optimization.

Investments in new media are also on the rise, even if it remains less effective than more traditional channels.

At the same time, the web was the area companies were most likely to say needed improvement in its ability to execute lead campaigns. For many marketers, there has already been significant improvement: 51% said the web did not meet expectations in 2010, compared with 68% who said the same in 2009.

In addition, marketers’ ability to measure their own success affected whether they thought the web was an effective channel. Among those companies that had not adopted a lead generation management system, 65% were dissatisfied with the performance of web-based lead generation efforts. But among marketers that did have a system in place to track leads, only 37% agreed—putting the web on par in effectiveness with traditional media advertising and ahead of direct mail or telemarketing.

“As more lead generation efforts shift to the Internet, tools to help develop, execute, and track campaign effectiveness will become a ‘must have’ rather than a ‘nice to have,’” said the report.

For such a classical institution, the British Monarchy has tried surprisingly hard to be tech and social media savvy in recent years, but it has failed to embrace the “social” side of the term. The latest example of that is the royal family’s Flickr account, which just launched with hundreds of photos.
The Monarchy’s profile hosts images new and old, ranging from a wedding photo featuring Queen Victoria and Prince Albert to more recent photos from the Queen’s visits to New York City and Canada. There are even photos of the Queen as a baby. Each member of the family has his or her own set of photos, and there are a few more general sets such as “Latest News” and “Royal Events.” The categories match those found at the family’s website.

Buckingham Palace already maintains a Twitter profile, and it launched a YouTube account a couple of years ago. The Twitter account has a little bit more than 50,000 followers. It’s not used conversationally, of course; it’s merely a publishing platform for links to news stories and updates on the website.

The YouTube channel is a bit more interesting (though no more engaging) because it features interviews, speeches and documentary coverage of the activities and travels of the royal family. The videos are all promotional or informative in nature, and comments are disabled.

According to the AP, officials have said that bloggers are welcome to embed and share the photos from Flickr, however the images are watermarked “© Press Association” and no Creative Commons leeway is given. As is also the case with YouTube, you can’t comment at the royals’ Flickr account.

It’s interesting to see an institution so immersed in tradition embracing new and social media, but unsurprisingly, that embrace is a measured one. The propriety of distance is maintained even in the digital realm. Aren’t they missing the point?

Story by Samuel Axon Mashable