The top brass of the real estate industry, striving start-ups, and cutting-edge techies are set to converge at the sixth annual Inman News Real Estate Connect event in New York City in two weeks.
The real estate conference is scheduled Jan. 13-15, 2010, at the New York Marriott Marquis hotel on Times Square. About 1,300 leaders in the real estate industry from around the world are expected to attend the event to network with their peers and learn how to improve and reinvent their businesses.
The conference will feature about 150 speakers, including David Karp, founder of Tumblr, Mark Josephson, CEO of Outside.in, and frequent Connect speaker Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist.
Among the new features this year is a start-up competition, "Start-Up Shoot-Out," in which five startups get three to five minutes each to pitch their venture to attending high-profile investors, technologists and executives. The audience votes through text messaging and, at the end of the conference, the winning team gets $25,000.
Also new this year are Live Labs, 90-minute collaboration and discussion sessions on such topics as "SEO (Search-Engine Optimization) Smackdown," "Advanced WordPress Techniques," and "Video Production and Distribution."
In a session called "Broker Reboot," industry luminaries Sherry Chris, president and CEO of Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate; Pat Lashinsky, CEO of ZipRealty; Charles Moore, CEO of McGuire Real Estate; and Thaddeus Wong, CEO of @properties, will put their heads together to come up with a blueprint for a new real estate company model. They’ll present their model at the end of the conference.
Pre-conference workshops include Internet marketing, where search expert Vanessa Fox will give the keynote address, "Prospective Home Buyers are Turning to Google First. Make Sure They Find You There"; the Broker Summit, which will provide tips for coping with upcoming changes in the industry in the new year; and ConnectTech, which allows geeks in the business to catch up with the latest real estate tech trends.
Inman News founder and publisher Bradley Inman will kick off the event Wednesday with a welcome address, "Living in the Now: How Instant and Live is Changing Your World." Dennis Crowley, founder and CEO of Foursquare, a location-based mobile social networking tool, will give the keynote address for that day on "Capturing the Mobile, Local, Social Phenomenon."
The address will be followed by a discussion among brokerage executives Michael Montsko, president of Weichert Lead Network; John Reinhardt, president of Fillmore Real Estate; and online real estate execs Pete Flint, CEO of Trulia; and Spencer Rascoff, chief operating officer of Zillow.com. The four will talk about who and what matters most in online real estate.
Thursday’s conference schedule includes sessions focusing on the latest tech trends. Keynote speakers will talk about "Building Real Estate Web Apps That Rock" and "Consumer Empowerment." Afternoon innovation tracks will include sessions on distressed properties, agent technology, the latest on multiple listing services, and technology and the media.
Friday’s events include discussions about barriers to innovation and the National Association of Realtors’ Realtors Property Resource (RPR) database. Scott Heiferman, CEO of MeetUp, will send attendees off with a final keynote address, "Using the Web to Drive Real World Action."
Real Estate Connect NYC 2010 runs from Jan. 13-15, 2010. Click here for details.
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