I spent an hour meeting with a friend and colleague today, and heard him use a new term that made me laugh:
“Web three-point-oh.”

My friend was talking about his new company and its commitment to a “virtual workspace” where avatars replace everyone’s live presence at a meeting, where everything is decided on in committee fashion (in the virtual meeting), and where retirement occurs as fast as one recruits a big and productive enough downline.

No, this is not a video gaming business or a fantasy football league. It’s a real estate brokerage. And as I understood it, the founder of this e-reality-realty-endeavor made the “three-point-oh” comment in conjunction with the statement that:
“The rest of the agents out there are going to get stuck in web two-point-oh!”

By way of a refresher, the “web 2.0″ lable was coined back in ’03 or ’04 — depending on who you’re asking — and refers to web applications “which facilitate interactive information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design and collaboration on the world wide web.” (I copied that sentence from one of the epicenters of web 2.0, Wikipedia.com).

Social media is part of web 2.0. So is blogging, and YouTube — two of my favorite things about the web. I use them to enhance my participation in  the NW way of life and the real estate market, to stay engaged, to engage you and other readers, and to let my clients and prospective clients know that, as my friend Bill put it, “The Store is Open!”

In my humble opinion, web 2.0 is really just catching on. Has real estate sales and service REALLY already blown by it, and I’m “stuck” in the old times?

As far as I know, I’m one of the only agents in my office at RE/MAX Whatcom County who’s blogging regularly, and certainly one of the only ones making and posting real estate videos. Many of my colleagues who’ve never blogged a word in their lives, or even logged onto YouTube much less posted something there, are every bit as busy and successful at this business as I am and ever hope to be.

The web, whatever version you claim to use, is a useful tool in real estate shopping, selling, marketing, and communicating. But let’s not overlook the important truth that at the foundation of it all are real, warm-blooded, sometimes scared, sometimes confident, happy and sad, vulnerable and invincible PEOPLE. Real estate the world over is about people. Sales is about people. Service is about people. People 1.0 — only one version – Period.

I don’t know what version of the web we’ll be on when my now-20-month-old boy Hayden is ready to buy his first home — maybe a duplex like the 20-year-old landlord! (A father can dream!) But heaven help him if all he can find at that time is an avatar-agent to e-hold his hand through the very real-life process. Heaven help ME if I forget between now and then the difference between tools like the web, and good old-fashioned human relationships.