Social news sources like digg.com are great places to get the latest tidbits on technology news and feed a raging information addiction, but unfortunately, despite recently rolling out new topics in June that included one for business and finance, it still doesn’t cover real estate news in any great depth.
Inman News does a remarkably good job of covering the latest industry events and announcements, but I’m a big fan of the social news model where stories and links are introduced and promoted based on readers’ preferences rather than editorial dictation.
Despite the recent proliferation of great real estate blogs, widespread mainstream media attention and new innovation in the industry, there’s a glaring absence of a central information source for Real Estate related news right now.
Recently revamped Netscape.com has a real estate channel – which could be a winner, but is suffering from a general lack of community at the moment. It remains to be seen whether there will be a widespread acceptance of their site. I personally find the site a little confusing to navigate and it seems to require a couple of extra mouse clicks to get anywhere I want to go.
Fanpop is an interesting site that’s currently in Beta (isn’t everyone these days?). Users can create ‘Spots’ on any topic and people can submit interesting sites, and the result is combined with news feeds from other sources and a forum to discuss the subject matter. It’s a neat premise, but weakly executed in my opinion.
Rather than hoping that someone outside the industry to adjust to our needs, I think we should look from someone inside who can create a social news site for Realtors and real estate buffs. Heck, it worked for social networking. Anyone out there prepared to step up to the plate?
