| Winning the World Wide Web War |
 Welcome to Autumn! (what happened to summer?)
Yesterday, aussiehome.com Director Charlie Gunningham addressed the 270+ throng that attended the quarterly REIWA ILS Awards breakfast, on "how to win the www war".
It is all good news for those with their own agency web sites, which need to be built in certain ways.
A summary follows:
1. Promoting web sites is easy and inexpensive
2. Sites must load within 8 seconds
3. Sites don't come with manuals - navigation must be intuitive
4. Info must be up to date (or don't have a site at all)
5. People come to the web for info - so give it to them
6. Show people who you are - staff photos & descriptions
7. You can (& should) use your site to gain listings
8. Build an online community (collect emails, get them coming back)
9. Use the web to save time (admin, printing lists)
10. Be proactive; lead - the web is here to stay, so use it.
CLICK here to download the full presentation (pdf version, 1.6MB). And do contact us if there's anything you need for your own web site. |
| WA Economy continues to fire... |
 The house price index in Perth rose 6.6% in the December quarter, the greatest percentage change out of the eight capital cities (source: ABS).
Over the full year, prices were up 22.5% in Perth, compared to 2.9% in Melbourne while Sydney fell 3.9%. The Weekend Australian reported this week that "the real estate recession is over", to which many West Australians might wonder "what recession?"
WA dwelling approvals also lead the nation, with 1.8% rise compared to a national fall of 1.1%. WA's export boom has led to a record $28bn surplus, and WA leads the nation (again) in low unemployment and economic growth.
It is a boom, but many people are thinking "how much longer?". Knowing when the cycle turns is the key question, but the NAB recently reported that all the economic signs look sustainable into the next 2 to 3 year timeframe. As the saying goes, "make hay while the sun shines"... |
| It's a small world... (but I wouldn't want to paint it) |
 Have you discovered Google Earth?!
If you haven't experienced 'Google Earth' you are really missing out on one of the best free products available from Google. Google Earth is a free application which you can download at http://earth.google.com. To use it, download the software once (takes maybe 5 minutes but is well worth it; you also need a decent 'graphics card' on your computer). Give it a go!
Click here to see some groovy images of the aussiehome.com offices' location as seen on Google Earth.
Google Earth is the whole world virtually displayed using aerial photos. As Google is a US company, you will find the greatest detail in the United States. You can zoom in to Manhattan or Chicago and fly among the buildings, or visit the Grand Canyon. You can activate 'layers' like coffee shops or restaurants and find them as you fly over the streets. Perth is well covered as is the whole of WA and Australia. You can see the cars in the car parks, and sand banks at Point Walter. Incredible detail.
We at aussiehome.com have already plotted all the Perth properties on Google Earth and it is a fantastic advantage to be able to see exactly where properties are located on an aerial photo. Due to copyright issues we cannot publish these plots on our web site. But if you are interested to learn more about Google Earth and how you or your office can use this product feel free to contact Nick from aussiehome.com. |
| Hi! - the story of the first email |
 In the 2nd article in the series about the birth of the Internet, we find out about the inventor of email ...
Email is by far and away the most popular application on the internet. Just about everyone uses email, and generally people use it all of the time.
It all began in 1968 with the ARPANET, which later became the internet. Its purpose was to create a method that military institutions could communicate with each other (in the event of nuclear war).
In 1971, an engineer named Ray Tomlinson was assigned to a project called SNDMSG. This program was not new, in fact was more than primitive. All it did was allow users on the same machine to send messages to each other.
Ray was assigned to make this simple application do a little bit more, such as attach files. Ray also made a decision which changed history. He created the format of the email address. He defined it as a mailbox name, the @ sign, and the machine's node name. He used the @ sign because "it seemed to make sense. I used the @ sign to indicate that the user was 'at' some other host rather than being local."
He sent himself a message, apparently the first email was no more than "hi!". This first email message was unceremoniously sent between two nodes of the ARPANET network. History had been made. (For more on this story click here.
Part 3 of the Internet story will appear next month: with the inventor of Domain Name Server (... can't wait can you?) |
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Be the ninth lucky person to email aussiehome.com the answer to the question below and win a fine bottle of wine. Why did Ray Tomlinson decide to use the @ sign when he created the format of the email address? The answer is in this enewsletter.
EMAIL answer here |
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aussiehome.com have deleveloped a "Property Alert" feature that sends out property information to subscribers the second a property is entered on our web site. You may have noticed that when you enter a new listing it tells you how many subscribers this has been sent to.
If you already have the homehunt technology on your web site, we can add this "Property Alert" feature for $200. Contact us this month and we'll do it for $100. A great new service for your clients, considering the very competitive property market we are experiencing
CLICK here to contact us about this new feature. |
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The top 5 most visited properties for sale on aussiehome.com for February were:
1. 24 Queenslea Dr, Claremont. (Abel McGrath)
2. 103 Eric St, Cottesloe. (Albrecht Fear)
3. 4 Tadori Pl, City Beach. (Christopher Dee)
4. 6 Enfield Turn, Carramar. (Pam Gray)
5. 37 Mitchell St, Ardross. (Acton Applecross) |
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With the Dockers soundly beating the Eagles last weekend perhaps this is finally the Freo Team's year. What do you think...?
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