The new mobile search aims to take into account differences in search habits between average Google users at a computer and Google users on a cell phone. Ars Technica does a pretty good review of the product. Take a look.
Some interesting tips from Microsoft on improving your wireless network, including trying multiple wireless channels to find the clearest one and picking equipment from a single vendor.
In a comment letter dated January 17, 2007, the Appraisal Institute, American Society of Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers, and National Association of Independent Fee Appraisers raised several points of concern, as well as of support, to the Internal Revenue Service in response to its transitional guidance on appraisal requirements of noncash charitable contributions. The guidance, released in October 2006, attempts to implement the appraisal provisions enacted by Congress last year in the Pension Protection Act (H.R. 4).(for the full article from the Appraisal Institute, click here)
In an effort to target market to its customers, MINI has come up with a unique way to advertise…Billboards with your name on them.
“Each day, it seems, marketers go further in their quest to deliver messages so engaging and personalized that one cannot help feeling special. The latest step will be seen today in four cities when Mini USA begins delivering custom messages to Mini Cooper owners on digital signs the company calls “talking†billboards.
The boards, which usually carry typical advertising, are programmed to identify approaching Mini drivers through a coded signal from a radio chip embedded in their key fob. The messages are personal, based on questionnaires that owners filled out: “Mary, moving at the speed of justice,†if Mary is a lawyer, or “Mike, the special of the day is speed,†if Mike is a chef.”
For more on what is sure to become more widespread, follow this New York Times link.
Appraisal Institute CEO, John Ross, Joins Zaio: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance
Zaio Corporation announced today that John W. Ross of Chicago, Illinois is joining its senior management team. Mr. Ross most recently served as CEO of the Appraisal Institute, a position he held for the past nine years. Founded in 1932, the Appraisal Institute is the largest appraisal organization in the USA, and is known for its “MAI” and “SRA” professional appraisal designations. It is the leading appraisal educator, serving more than 30,000 appraisal students each year, and the world’s leading publisher of books on real estate appraisal. Previously, Mr. Ross served as Executive Vice President of the American Society of Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers, the premiere agricultural and rural property appraisal organization, a position he held for 7 years.
Appraisal Institute Announces 2007 National Officers
The Appraisal Institute, the leading organization for professional real estate appraisers, has announced its national officers for 2007: President Terry Dunkin, MAI, SRA; President-Elect R. Wayne Pugh, MAI; Vice President Jim Amorin, MAI, SRA, and Immediate Past President Richard Powers, MAI, SRA. The officers were sworn in during the fall meeting of the Appraisal Institute’s Board of Directors, held in Chicago on December 4-5. As the Appraisal Institute celebrates its 75th anniversary during 2007, this new leadership team will be instrumental in guiding various programs and projects throughout the year, including the planning of anniversary events as well as the continuation of a national visibility campaign to increase awareness of Appraisal Institute designated members. (more)Â
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Home prices down 1.2% in third quarter - Nov. 20, 2006
Once-hot housing markets cooled considerably this summer: The National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported Monday that the median price of a single-family house in the third quarter dropped 1.2 percent from a year earlier, continuing a reversal of fortune for sellers that started last winter.
Prices in the Northeast, down 4.8 percent, fell the most. Prices dropped 2.6 percent in the Midwest, 0.9 percent in the West and 0.1 percent in the South.
Fed may have tightened too much: SunTrust’s Miller | Reuters Recommends | Reuters.com
The Federal Reserve may already have raised interest rates too far and must cut them early next year to keep the 
economy from falling into recession, says the top economist at the seventh largest bank in the United States.
Gregory Miller, of SunTrust Banks Inc. (STI.N: Quote, Profile , Research), has seen the fruits of the Fed’s handiwork manifest in a rapidly souring housing market across the southeast.
“There’s a risk that the Fed may have already overshot, that if they simply do nothing for an extended period time, that the price of credit, coupled with the deterioration in housing, could be sufficient to push us into recession,” Miller said in an interview.
That said, Miller remains confident that the Fed would recognize the risk soon enough to avoid recession. “I’m thinking a soft landing is still the smart money call.”
Atlanta-based SunTrust’s markets, which extends from the mid-Atlantic through Florida, are “struggling,” Miller said. “We’re clearly reflecting the overall slowdown in the economy and the easiest place to see it is in housing,” he said. “High-end condos are struggling greatly with a housing correction and there’s a good deal of risk that seeps into other sectors of the economy.”
Housing starts in the southern United States plunged 26.4 percent in October, the Commerce Department recently reported.
Two monitors are better than one
Microsoft has a nice article espousing the virtues of a dual monitor set-up. I have used this before I switched to a 24″ widescreen format LCD which serves the same 
purposes. Take a look and see what you think. Productivity gains make it worth the investment.
You can never have enough screen space, especially when organizing and working on your digital pictures. Instead of buying a larger monitor, if you’re using Windows XP, you can buy an inexpensive second monitor and connect it to your computer—instantly doubling your desktop space. Flat panel LCD monitors look great and will save room on your desk; CRT monitors also work well and can be less expensive.
The New York Times sings the praises of expanding your screen real estate across two monitors, using two video cards or an upgraded card with two outputs:
“Survey after survey shows that whether you measure your productivity in facts researched, alien spaceships vaporized, or articles written, adding an extra monitor will give your output a considerable boost — 20 percent to 30 percent, according to a survey by Jon Peddie Research”Â
Others have reported simialr findings such as:
“Recently many businesses have started using a dual-monitor setup for their employees in order to increase productivity. Many studies claim that having a dual monitor setup can increase productivity in the workplace by 20%-50%. By using two monitors the available screen area for running applications is effectively doubled which creates all kinds of benefits.”
Which ever route you decide to go, I suggest the dual monitor or very large format monitor. You will find the experience worthwhile.
I usually get off-track on Wired’s website and find a new gadget I must have. But in this case there was a great article related to a new phenomenon called “crowdsourcingâ€. Kind of a take off on the Wisdom of Crowds.
From Wikipedia, crowdsourcing is defined as … “Crowdsourcing†is a term coined by Wired magazine writer Jeff Howe and editor Mark Robinson in June 2006. It describes a business model akin to outsourcing, but relying upon unpaid or low-paid amateurs who use their spare time to create content, solve problems, or even do corporate R&D. Crowds targeted for crowdsourcing include garage scientists, amateur videographers, freelancers, photo enthusiasts, data companies, writers, smart mobs and the electronic herd.â€
Crowdsourcing attempts to replace selectively hired, trained and managed workforces with mass volunteer participation and self-organization. While not a new idea, it is becoming mainstream.
Types of crowdsourced work
All of this got me thinking..how does this impact appraisers? Take a look at the first portion of the full article and see what lies behind Door Number 3 for us.
Wired 14.06: The Rise of Crowdsourcing
Remember outsourcing? Sending jobs to India and China is so 2003. The new pool of cheap labor: everyday people using their spare cycles to create content, solve problems, even do corporate R & D.
“Claudia Menashe needed pictures of sick people. A project director at the National Health Museum in Washington, DC, Menashe was putting together a series of interactive kiosks devoted to potential pandemics like the avian flu. An exhibition designer had created a plan for the kiosk itself, but now Menashe was looking for images to accompany the text. Rather than hire a photographer to take shots of people suffering from the flu, Menashe decided to use preexisting images – stock photography, as it’s known in the publishing industry.
In October 2004, she ran across a stock photo collection by Mark Harmel, a freelance photographer living in Manhattan Beach, California. Harmel, whose wife is a doctor, specializes in images related to the health care industry. “Claudia wanted people sneezing, getting immunized, that sort of thing,†recalls Harmel, a slight, soft-spoken 52-year-old.
The National Health Museum has grand plans to occupy a spot on the National Mall in Washington by 2012, but for now it’s a fledgling institution with little money. “They were on a tight budget, so I charged them my nonprofit rate,†says Harmel, who works out of a cozy but crowded office in the back of the house he shares with his wife and stepson. He offered the museum a generous discount: $100 to $150 per photograph. “That’s about half of what a corporate client would pay,†he says. Menashe was interested in about four shots, so for Harmel, this could be a sale worth $600.
After several weeks of back-and-forth, Menashe emailed Harmel to say that, regretfully, the deal was off. “I discovered a stock photo site called iStockphoto,†she wrote, “which has images at very affordable prices.†That was an understatement. The same day, Menashe licensed 56 pictures through iStockphoto – for about $1 each.
iStockphoto, which grew out of a free image-sharing exchange used by a group of graphic designers, had undercut Harmel by more than 99 percent. How? By creating a marketplace for the work of amateur photographers – homemakers, students, engineers, dancers. There are now about 22,000 contributors to the site, which charges between $1 and $5 per basic image. (Very large, high-resolution pictures can cost up to $40.) Unlike professionals, iStockers don’t need to clear $130,000 a year from their photos just to break even; an extra $130 does just fine. “I negotiate my rate all the time,†Harmel says. “But how can I compete with a dollar?â€
He can’t, of course. For Harmel, the harsh economics lesson was clear: The product Harmel offers is no longer scarce. Professional-grade cameras now cost less than $1,000. With a computer and a copy of Photoshop, even entry-level enthusiasts can create photographs rivaling those by professionals like Harmel. Add the Internet and powerful search technology, and sharing these images with the world becomes simple.
At first, the stock industry aligned itself against iStockphoto and other so-called microstock agencies like ShutterStock and Dreamstime. Then, in February, Getty Images, the largest agency by far with more than 30 percent of the global market, purchased iStockphoto for $50 million. “If someone’s going to cannibalize your business, better it be one of your other businesses,†says Getty CEO Jonathan Klein. iStockphoto’s revenue is growing by about 14 percent a month and the service is on track to license about 10 million images in 2006 – several times what Getty’s more expensive stock agencies will sell. iStockphoto’s clients now include bulk photo purchasers like IBM and United Way, as well as the small design firms once forced to go to big stock houses. “I was using Corbis and Getty, and the image fees came out of my design fees, which kept my margin low,†notes one UK designer in an email to the company. “iStockphoto’s micro-payment system has allowed me to increase my profit margin.†Welcome to the age of the crowd. Just as distributed computing projects like UC Berkeley’s SETI@home have tapped the unused processing power of millions of individual computers, so distributed labor networks are using the Internet to exploit the spare processing power of millions of human brains. The open source software movement proved that a network of passionate, geeky volunteers could write code just as well as the highly paid developers at Microsoft or Sun Microsystems. Wikipedia showed that the model could be used to create a sprawling and surprisingly comprehensive online encyclopedia. And companies like eBay and MySpace have built profitable businesses that couldn’t exist without the contributions of users.
All these companies grew up in the Internet age and were designed to take advantage of the networked world. But now the productive potential of millions of plugged-in enthusiasts is attracting the attention of old-line businesses, too. For the last decade or so, companies have been looking overseas, to India or China, for cheap labor. But now it doesn’t matter where the laborers are – they might be down the block, they might be in Indonesia – as long as they are connected to the network.
Technological advances in everything from product design software to digital video cameras are breaking down the cost barriers that once separated amateurs from professionals. Hobbyists, part-timers, and dabblers suddenly have a market for their efforts, as smart companies in industries as disparate as pharmaceuticals and television discover ways to tap the latent talent of the crowd. The labor isn’t always free, but it costs a lot less than paying traditional employees. It’s not outsourcing; it’s crowdsourcing.
It took a while for Harmel to recognize what was happening. “When the National Health Museum called, I’d never heard of iStockphoto,†he says. “But now, I see it as the first hole in the dike.†In 2000, Harmel made roughly $69,000 from a portfolio of 100 stock photographs, a tidy addition to what he earned from commissioned work. Last year his stock business generated less money – $59,000 – from more than 1,000 photos. That’s quite a bit more work for less money.
Harmel isn’t the only photographer feeling the pinch. Last summer, there was a flurry of complaints on the Stock Artists Alliance online forum. “People were noticing a significant decline in returns on their stock portfolios,†Harmel says. “I can’t point to iStockphoto and say it’s the culprit, but it has definitely put downward pressure on prices.†As a result, he has decided to shift the focus of his business to assignment work. “I just don’t see much of a future for professional stock photography,†he says.”
How does this example play into the appraisal world? Zillow and the many other free “appraisal†sites come to mind. Are we far off? Is there a moral in here about specialization leaving the cookie cutter assignments to the AVM’s?
From another article linked on the Wired site. Far-flung laborers do everything from grunt work to lab work, but some common principles apply to all of them:
1. The crowd is dispersed
People spread around the world can perform a range of tasks – from the most rote to the highly specialized – but this would-be workforce needs to be able to complete the job remotely.
2. The crowd has a short attention span
These new workers find time after dinner and on weekends. So jobs need to be broken into “micro-chunks.†Most tasks on Amazon Mechanical Turk, for example, take less than 30 minutes to complete.
3. The crowd is full of specialists
For Procter & Gamble, the crowd is the world’s scientific community; for VH1 it’s any ham with a camcorder; for iConclude it’s the handful of professionals with experience troubleshooting Microsoft’s server software.
4. The crowd produces mostly crap
Networks like InnoCentive, Mechanical Turk, and iStockphoto don’t increase the amount of talent – they make it possible to find and leverage that talent. Any open call for submissions – whether for scientific solutions, new product designs, or funny home videos – will elicit mostly junk. Smart companies install cheap, effective filters to separate the wheat from the chaff.
5. The crowd finds the best stuff
Even as a networked community produces tons of crap, it ferrets out the best material and corrects errors. Wikipedia enthusiasts quickly fix inaccuracies in the online encyclopedia. Viewers of Web site YouTube find the one tastelessly funny amateur video from the 10 that are merely tasteless.