What Buyers Need to Avoid Doing! | RealtyGo_blog

What Buyers Need to Avoid Doing!  | RealtyGo_blog

I keep on saying it and I’ll say it again….  The Mortgage Industry has gone back to the future.  Underwriters are looking at loan applications the old way.  They are looking at everything.

A 780 FICO score, money in the bank and job . . . Not too long ago if a buyer had two out of three of these,  they were almost guaranteed a loan approval.  Not any more.

Underwriters are looking at the contents of that credit report, they are looking at the source of the money in those bank accounts, they are looking at the pay checks and tax returns even if the buyer is a salaried employee.

Make sure your clients are prepared and well counseled.  Preparation and proper expectations will cure 90 percent of the problems and delays buyers are having in today’s mortgage market.

Below is a list of “rules” all mortgage applicants should follow.  It will make their life easier and yours.  The only call we want to hear the week of closing is,  “Docs are at title and the wire has been ordered.”

Share this with all your clients regardless of who they are.

Things you should avoid before and after making application for your mortgage

Congratulations! You finally found the house of your dreams. Your offer has been accepted by the seller, you have been pre-approved for the mortgage. It looks like you’ll qualify. The closing is only weeks away, and you’re feeling pretty good. It’s smooth sailing from here, right? Probably….

… However, more than one buyer has had the wind knocked out of his sails at some point in a real estate transaction by the mis-steps described below. If at all possible, steer clear of the following until AFTER you have gone to settlement.

These suggestions are merely that—suggestions. No one is saying, flat out, that bad things will necessarily follow if you do any of the below.  They are offered as cautions. Many buyers seem to view the mortgage application procedure as a static action, a snap shot of their financial lives at a given moment in time. It’s not. It’s an on-going process that takes into account everything you do right up until the day of closing.

• Do not take on new debt. The temptation is strong. There are so many big purchases that people want to make in connection with a move: appliances, window treatments, furniture, etc. When you add to this the fact that, today, everyone offers easy terms and no money down—well, why not just do it? Answer: because you will change what the mortgage industry calls your “debt-to-income ratios” (the relationship of your income to your debt).
• Do not move money. In preparing for payment required at closing you may be tempted to consolidate accounts.  Contact  me before you move your money.  We may require additional documentation and verification of those accounts.  Trying to re-trace your steps can be confusing and delay the process.
• Do not make unusual deposits into your accounts.  Unusual or irregular deposits could indicate undisclosed debts.  The underwriter will need to know and document the source of those funds. If you do have an odd deposit, make copies of all the documents so that it is easily sourced.
• Do not change jobs. If at all possible, try not to make a career move during the time between your mortgage application and the closing on the home you are purchasing. But, you ask, “What if it’s a BETTER job, for MORE money, in the SAME field?” Still, try and wait until AFTER closing. One of the factors mortgage companies consider is length of present employment; they are partial to stability. At the very least, changing jobs initiates the need for more paperwork, and may delay your closing.
• Do not pack too soon. Well, go ahead and pack your clothes and dishes. But do not pack your bank statements, tax returns, or other important paperwork. Most especially, do not pack your checkbook! More than one buyer has had closing delayed while a friend or relative hurried over with additional funds because the checkbook was in the moving van.
• Do not lease a new car. This should go under the general heading of “no new debt.” It is highlighted here because, for some strange reason, many buyers do run right out and lease a new car during the time between mortgage application and closing! As with any debt, this will change your “debt-to-income ratios” and may cause you not to qualify for your mortgage.
• Do not sell something unless you have proof you owned it. This can go under odd deposits.  Discuss this with me before you sell.

In short, do nothing that negatively impacts your ability to qualify for your mortgage loan, or initiates a new round of paperwork. If you have any doubts about doing something that may affect your ability to qualify for your mortgage loan, please consult me  before you do it.

Special thanks to Nino Pascale for this email article!

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Adobe Is Watching Every Click | LinkedIn | RealtyGo blog

Adobe Systems ( ADBE - news - people ) Chief Executive Shantanu Narayen is counting big numbers: 4.9 trillion Web display ads will be shown this year, he says. In the last quarter of 2010, 100 million smartphones were sold worldwide. This year there’ll be 17.7 billion downloads of mobile applications, creating a paid-apps market worth $15.1 billion.

Almost every ad and app out there, along with most of the business and consumer-oriented content on the Web, is going to be tracked and responsive to some entity’s remote control. That entity, he hopes, will be Adobe.

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“Everything is changing!” says Narayen during an interview at his hotel suite in Salt Lake City during a break between meetings with some of the 700 companies here for the annual customer summit run by his subsidiary, Omniture (OMTR - news - people ). Adobe bought Omniture for $1.8 billion in 2009 because the Orem, Utah software firm makes the Web’s most successful tracking tools. Its annual conference gathers people who spend 30% of all Internet ad dollars.

Narayen got blasted for paying 24% over Omniture’s share price, but it looks like a good move. Omniture’s revenue is growing 20% a year while sales of Adobe’s better-known creativity programs like Photoshop and Illustrator were repeatedly hit in the recession. Adobe’s Flash software, the standard for rendering graphics and video online, is taking a p.r. beating by Apple ( AAPL - news - people ), which refuses to use it in its phones and tablets. Yet Adobe’s stock has kept pace with Apple so far this year. Earlier this year Narayen picked up another audience-tracking tech firm, called Demdex, to further entrench his position among companies that manage, analyze and act upon what people do on the Web, particularly around selling stuff.

Narayen is building into Adobe’s content-creation tools the planning, tagging and tracking software, plus newer technology that plumbs Twitter and Facebook for information about how people, ads and products are seen. With the right analytics built in, an ad can get automatically tweaked to improve response, or maybe a new app is created because someone raved on Twitter. “It’s a huge opportunity for us, if we can step up to it.”

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Adobe does not break it out, but about $1 billion of its $3.8 billion in revenue last year came from big corporate sales, the kind that would combine creative tools with some analytics. The rest of its revenue is from sales of individual software. In the near term Narayen thinks this new market is worth more than $10 billion. He envisions, further out, selling services around these insights. “We can be the mission-critical company for digital experiences and not just a products company,” he says.

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Virgin America, which gets 70% of its revenue from its website, uses Adobe software to track where its passengers click to offsite so it can craft the right mix of search and display ads. Hearst uses Omniture to test how its readers click on Web stories. It tested “royal” stories and “celebrity weddings” stories, and found people were obsessing on so-called storybook weddings more than on storybook royalty. The editors ordered up more celebrity wedding stories.

Narayen could get bought or beaten along the way. IBM ( IBM- news - people ) just announced it will deploy 1,000 consultants and 1,200 salesmen into its “smarter commerce” initiative, dedicated to helping advertisers figure out the real costs and effectiveness of their online marketing. Hewlett-Packard ( HPQ - news - people )’s new CEO, Leo Apotheker, used his first public appearance to talk about the growing importance of data-analysis software to HP.

Google ( GOOG - news - people ) gives away a somewhat more primitive service than Omniture’s called Google Analytics, but Google retains its own file of the data people plug into it. If Google Analytics is taking business from Omniture, there is no evidence of it from the outside. The market is still growing fast.

Adobe Is Watching Every Click | LinkedIn.

10 important documents you need to prepare, when buying or selling a home | RealtyGo_blog

Home buyers and -sellers alike often burst with anticipatory irritation at the mere thought of  paperwork their expected to complete in order to satisfy a transaction, above and beyond the basic loan application, contract, disclosures and closing docs. These little nuisances start way in advance; it’s as though, before they even start visiting open houses, buyers begin to visualize – and dread – spending hours upon hours searching through records and old files, seeking forgotten and/or boxed up documents.

The experience of obtaining a home loan is usually dreaded by most, – there are oodles of hoops through which to jump and, occasionally, the loan underwriter requests something sort of bizarre. But more commonly, there’s a pretty finite universe of documents you’ll really need to scrounge up to get your home bought – or sold. however their is a lighter side, since half the home buyers in the nation last year were first time home buyers they haven’t yet experienced such document digging or hustle and bustle of getting all their proper paper work together. So here is a few things to keep you, as their Agent/Broker on your feet, and your clients prepared for getting their desired real estate transaction closed.

1. ID (e.g., driver’s license, state-issued ID, passport).  Who must produce it?  Buyers and sellers.  Why?  Lender wants to know that you are who you say you are, buyers, and the title insurance company wants to make sure, sellers, that you actually have the right to sell the home.  Funny enough, this commonly goes unrequested until you get to the closing table, when the notary requests to see it before signing, but some mortgage brokers and even some real estate brokers and agents may ask to see it earlier on.
2. Paycheck Stubs.  Who must produce them?  Any buyer financing their purchase with a mortgage.  Sellers, usually only will need to in the case of a short sale.  Why? Buyers’ purchase price ranges are determined, in part, by their income. And short sellers have to prove an economic hardship.
3. Two months’ bank account statements. Who must produce them?  Buyers getting financing; sellers selling short. Why? Buyers’ lenders now require proof of regular income and proof that the down payment money is your own.  Short sellers?  It’s all about the hardship.
4. Two years’ W-2 forms or tax returns. Who must produce them?  Mortgage-seeking buyers and short selling sellers. Why? Banks want to see a stable, long-term income. They also limit you to claiming as income the amount of which you pay taxes (attn: all business owners!). And in short sales, again, they want documentation of every single facet of your finances.
5. Updated everything! Who must produce it? Buyer/mortgage applicants. Why? Because things change, and because the time period between the first loan application and closing can be many months – even years! – in today’s market. During the time between contract and closing it’s not at all unusual for underwriters to demand buyers produce updated mortgage statements, checks stubs, and such – and its quite common for them to call your office the day before closing to request a last minute verification of employment! So advise your constituents not to go out and apply for that furniture loan new line of credit, in celebration of their new home, until after all the papers have been signed, sealed and delivered and title has handed over the keys.
6. Quitclaim deed. Who must produce it?  Married buyers purchasing homes they plan to own as separate property.  Married sellers selling homes that they own separately, or joint owners selling their interests separately.  Why? With the Quitclaim Deed, the other spouse or owner signs any and all interests they even might have had in the property over to the selling owner, making it possible for the title insurer to guarantee clean, undisputed title will be transferred at the time of sale.
7. Divorce decree.  Who must produce it? Buyers and sellers who need to document their solo status or the property-splitting terms of their divorce. Why? Again, to ensure that the seller has the right to sell.  Recently single buyers might need to prove that they shouldn’t be held accountable for their ex’s separate debts or credit report dings.
8. Gift letters.  Who must produce them? Buyers using gift money toward their down payment. Why? The bank wants to be sure the gift came from a relative, and is their own money to give.  They also want the relative to confirm in writing that it’s a gift, not a loan – a loan would need to be factored into your debt to income ratio, which generally affects your interest rate.
9. Compliance certificates. Who must produce them? Usually sellers, but sometimes buyers, by contract. Why? Some local governments require various condition requirements be met before the property is transferred, like some cities which require a sewer line be video scoped and repaired, cities which require a checklist of items to be met before a certificate of occupancy will be issued (usually relevant to brand new and  older homes, the latter of which are often subject to lead paint concerns) and energy conservation ordinances which require low-flow toilets and shower heads to be installed. Ask a real estate professional for advice about which, if any, such ordinances apply in your area.
10. Mortgage statements. Who must produce them?  Any seller with a mortgage. Why? the escrow holder or title company will need to use them to order payoff demands from any mortgage holder who has to get paid before the property’s title can be transferred.

By no means is this an exhaustive list.  Agents: what documents do you see buyers and sellers struggle to produce during their home buying transactions? If we have left out some common documents that you have been seeing lately, please jot down a few words below to let others know. Thanks for Reading.

RealtyGo – Your Real Estate Listings Best Friend!

 

QR Code – YouTube Video Contest. Send us your favorite video, showing off your RealtyGo QR code/TAG being used in your real estate business..

Free QR Code_MobileURL_Micro-Mobile-Website for life from RealtyGo. We are giving away 100 free QR Codes and all the services to 100 lucky winners!

QR Code_YouTube Video contest from RealtyGo. Send us your favorite YouYube video/link URL showing how you or your company uses QR Codes for your real estate listings/business. Win a Free QR Code_MobileURL_Micro-Mobile-Website for LIfe. RealtyGo is giving away 100 Free QR Codes including all the services, SEO, technology, micro website, auto scheduler and more to each winner.  Send us your YouTube Video and we will post it on our RealtyGo YouTube page, asking others to vote for the top 100 videos. The top 100 videos with the most votes at the end of the contest will receive one free QR Code for life.

Please be creative and have fun with the videos. Your Videos will run on our YouTube Channel offering free advertising for your and your real estate business. Please have some type of real estate related business video in order to be considered for the contest. Please also use a RealtyGo QR Code / MobileURL in your video. There is no purchase necessary, visit at Twitter and choose ‘ follow’ us for your free 45 day trial using RealtyGo and the most unique and dynamic QR Code system available. Once you follow us on Twitter you will receive an Auto direct message thanking you for following, with a link and the free 45 day trial. Please remember there is no purchase necessary and you will not be charged. Good luck and we look forward to seeing your QR Real Estate Videos.

Please email your questions and/or Video link to info@realtygo.co

RealtyGo – Your Real Estate Listings Best Friend!

QR Code Voting | Celebrity | Big Head Competition for the most tech savvy fans..

 

QR Codes_Celebrities_Voting.. 

 

Interesting type of creative marketing, so we thought we would share!

With a snap of a camera, smart phone users can now give their favorite celebrity a big head, thanks to JumpScan, an all-in-one, custom QR code generator. The Big Head Project, an effort to showcase QR technology, features the top Twitter celebrities based on the number of followers, including Ellen DeGeneres, Oprah, Justin Bieber, Ashton Kutcher, Lady Gaga, President Obama, Katy Perry, and Taylor Swift.

Any web-enabled smart phone with a QR reader can scan the QR code under their favorite celebrity to cast a vote. Each vote inflates the head and scores a point. The celebrity with the most votes will have the most tech-savvy fans and win the coveted “Big Head” award.

They should consider putting howard stern in the mix, im sure he would receive a lot of votes..?

The idea behind the contest is demonstrate the physical-to-virtual capability of QR codes. “They work great for creating interaction between the offline and online worlds,” according to JumpScan co-founder Mike McKearin. “We’re seeing them used for everything from instant mobile purchasing, movie information and streaming video to real estate signage and scavenger hunts.” Get your free QR Code Contact at Scantac.com and start promoting your Scantac

QR (quick response) codes originated in Japan in the mid 90s and surged in popularity in the U.S. with the recent increase in smart phones, such as the Apple iPhone and Google’s Droid, as well as the move to high speed 3G and 4G networks on AT&T, Verizon and Sprint.

“We’re seeing a tremendous interest from brands and marketers looking to capture, connect and interact with consumers on the go,” states Phil Davis, fellow JumpScan co-founder. QR codes have shown up in Best Buy, Target and other large retailers beginning last year, familiarizing a growing number of shoppers to the curious looking black and white boxes. “Once more people are using smart phones with QR scanners, the ease of scanning codes will simplify the process, making it more intuitive,” Davis predicts.

“We’ll be making an announcement in the next couple of weeks about which celeb has the most smart phone fans,” Davis continues. “I know the President is a big Blackberry fan, but I wouldn’t count out Ellen’s base.” If she wins, we’ll even have her do a victory dance.”

 

QR Codes Give Twitter Celebrities a Big Head.

QR Codes in the big city. How New York may start offering QR Codes for Public Transit… Smart!

QR Codes on Public Transit routes, Schedules updated internally, with a qr code delivering current and up to date information, scheduling, even detours or problems with a route or pickup. Very smart and a sense of security for the end user. If an end user saves the contact info to their phone they can check the information even when the qr code is not present.

Here is an interesting image of a sign in New York City!

The emergence of QR codes on city building permits Wednesday — and, before that, garbage trucks — raises a question: Where else might New York place these odd digital ciphers?

Fortunately, the city’s new chief digital officer, Rachel Sterne,  posed just that question on Twitter. The responses, some of which are collected below, are enlightening.

QR codes are square barcodes that resemble a scrambled cable channel and are meant to be scanned by your cellphone. In 2011, you’re likely to see more QR codes on billboards, print publications, museum placards — anywhere with limited space and lots of information to convey. On city building permits, scanning the QR code will direct you to a website with more information about the construction project, if you’re into that.

But the New Yorkers who responded to Sterne are more excited about the prospect of applying QR codes to the city’s public-transit system. One  common suggestion: place them at bus stops, where schedules aren’t always displayed and are often out of date. (See one vision of what that might look like in the photo illustration above.) The most obvious place however is your mean of communication, like a business card or social networking area.

Another frequent request: QR codes in parks and near public art projects, Large advertisement areas and almost anywhere an ad company can think to grab the consumers attention.

 

New York City

Your music, Scan a code receive a promotional offer for some type of download or playlist… interesting!

QR Codes on the sides of 2,200 New York City Department of Sanitation trucks. Scanning the codes will take users to a video from NYC Media’s show The Green Apple: Recycling. In 6 – 8 weeks the QR code will link to a Howcast recycling video an example of which can be seen here.

The main reason for our post, is to show you how technology behind the QR Codes is equally important as the method of extracting the message, QR code or Text messaging being those methods.  RealtyGo has created a very unique type of QR code Application, attaching a MobileURL or Unique “Name” to a QR Code for more relevant SEO and better organization of your important information for end users. Not to mention the fact that a Unique Name “mobileURL” is much easier to remember then the web address of some random QR Code you may have noticed, and forgot to save to address book after scanning, etc.. . Often consumers will remember a name as it relates to something important they saw or interacted with, hence the MobileURL. See a MobileURL in the image below, as the header of a QR Code. Thanks for reading, follow us on Twitter for some extra goodies and free stuff.

 

Time for Carriers to step up | Here comes fast apps | RealtyGo_blog

Fast App

Understanding the interplay between the wireline and wireless worlds is important as value shifts occur. You can’t have a blockbuster iPad2 launch without Wi-Fi. And 55% to 60% of the embedded home Wi-Fi base is coming through cable modems. Apple Inc.’s success eventually results in Comcast Corp.’s, Time Warner Cable Inc.’s, Verizon Communications Inc.’s FioS and even AT&T Inc.’s U-Verse’s success.

With the next generation of tablet and phone devices (Apple’s iPad2 and the HTC Corp. Thunderbolt, for example) comes the front facing camera. We wrote about this with the column “The iPhone without a contract” last Labor Day. Sprint Nextel Corp.’s HTC Evo 4G launched last year with a front-facing camera using the WiMAX network and QiK (now owned by Skype) as the pre-installed app. New hardware begets new software. And this new software is high BPS (bandwidth per second). The higher the BPS, the faster the app.

The next $100 billion of value in the telecommunications industry (inclusive of software) is going to be created by the fast app ecosystem. Combine secure cloud computing with gigabit Ethernet backhaul and dual-core processors and you have the makings of an entirely new industry. It’s not that Groupon brought millions of us daily deals – it’s that they now bring them to us in 1080p (or whatever form factor your device can support). I can now see next year’s holiday blockbuster toys in action at Amazon.com (or through their app), not still photos. And video communication, including a revamped Pandora + YouTube, is now connected to my television. Why do I have a V-Tech cordless phone (and a $40 per month bill)? Why do I have a premium digital video tier?

It’s an exciting world to dream about, and developments are coming very quickly, thanks to companies like Apple and Google Inc. The highest returns can only occur, however, when you expand the market from portable (Wi-Fi) to mobile devices. In car. On train. On bus. If you are moving, you need mobility, not portability. And mobility requires bandwidth that moves with you.

This is where the wireless carriers come in. They hold the keys to mobile fast apps. As much as the developer community wants to circumvent or ignore relationships with the wireless carriers, they cannot achieve a high common denominator (“fastest app”) without the ability to achieve consistent bandwidth speeds and consistently low latency. Said another way, those applications developers that invest in the network interfaces and carrier relationships will create differentiation (and value) faster than those who dumb performance down to the lowest levels. When technology moves quickly, value is created from those companies who can expand with the market, who can achieve the highest and best result instead of the lowest and least. The bandwidth disparity created by 2G/3G/4G and Wi-Fi networks operating simultaneously is too great.

The only way Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile USA Inc. (combined or separate) can grow 10 to 20 million net adds in the next three years is to partner with the fast applications developers. Multi-player Angry Birds in 3D with optional voice chat does not happen without network integration – the connections are real-time, not “push” and servers need to be very close to the network. Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile USA may need more growth than 10 to 20 million net adds over the next 3 years to remain relevant. Dropped calls be damned – what about dropped apps?

So we have a willing development community, at least two willing carriers (on top of Verizon Wireless and AT&T Mobility who will definitely not take this lying down), and capital waiting to earn disproportionate returns. Where do we get started? Three ideas:

1. Multi-player Angry Birds in 3D with optional voice chat takes applications to a new level. Maybe an “all green” AB on March 17?

2. Facebook (or their replacement) could reinvent video communications singlehandedly (and take advertising to a new level).

3. Cloud-based communications directories with caller identificaton (app free version includes a mini-advertisement delivered on every incoming call).

One of the biggest reasons for any directory is discovery. In the old days of White Pages, we discovered a street address and a phone number associated with a name. With the advent of fast apps, I may want to know if you have FaceTime and if you are available for a quick chat, even if you are not in my contact list. Where’s the FaceTime (or Skype or Fring or ooVoo or YouTube or Facebook) listing on my BlackBerry? It doesn’t exist. Then how do I discover that you have FaceTime (meaning an Apple device that has a front facing camera on a participating carrier that has optimized FaceTime for their 4G network)? We need a better discovery engine to make FaceTime or their competitor a more relevant communications application.

The directory needs to protect privacy. I need to be able to turn off applications from being used by some and make an entirely different set of applications available to others. The directory needs to be connected to individuals, not Exchange (which, as explained in the last paragraph, doesn’t have room for these listings anyway). Privacy is easiest with an independent source – friendly to but free from wireless carriers, handset manufacturers, and operating systems.

Finally, the directory needs to be free. Listed or unlisted, private, user-controlled and free. This is not to say that there aren’t charges for “end caps” (featured fast apps), or that larger corporate or association directories don’t pay some fees, or that we show a mini-message on every incoming call in exchange for a free app, but this is not the calling name data storage margins of the past. And, if it can bring in 10 to 20 million customers for Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile USA (together or separate), it’s worth the carrier effort.

Fast apps are the next $100 billion opportunity in the communications industry. A well executed fast apps strategy by T-Mobile USA and Sprint Nextel (combined or separate) can break the current duopoly (or Verizon Wireless can execute it on its own with LTE and cripple their competition). To make fast apps a reality, the discovery process needs to be radically simpler, privacy needs to be protected, and it needs to be free to the end user. We need an independent directory.

Here come the fast apps. Are you ready?

Jim Patterson is CEO and co-founder of Mobile Symmetry, a start-up created for carriers to solve the problems of an increasingly mobile-only society. Patterson was most recently President – Wholesale Services for Sprint and has a career that spans over eighteen years in telecom and technology. Patterson welcomes your commentsatjim@mobilesymmetry.com.

Unilever Names Coke’s Marc Mathieu as No. 2 Global Marketing Executive | Global News – RealtyGo_blog

Marc Mathieu

Unilever has named former Coca-Cola Co. marketer Marc Mathieu as its No. 2 global marketing executive, reporting to Global Marketing and Communications Officer Keith Weed, rounding out a redesign of the global marketing team for the world’s second-biggest advertising spender.

Marc Mathieu is charged with helping Unilever double sales while reducing overall environmental impact. Green business practices are a necessity for the future. If your professional business is not currently participating in any Green technology in order to reduce and reinvent traditional business practices,  please take some time and discover how you can make a difference. Even listing, promoting, and using Mobile real estate services from RealtyGo will help cut back on excessive print and ink waste, while promoting the delivery of information via the digital channel.

Mr. Mathieu, 51, whom Mr. Weed credits with helping turn around Coca-Cola by developing the “Coke Side of Life” branding platform and launching Coke Zero last decade as VP-global branding, will join Unilever April 1. He will oversee Unilever’s global corporate branding effort; marketing training, including the Unilever Marketing Academy; marketing services; agency relations; and return on marketing investment. VPs over those areas will report to him.

For the past three years has led Atlanta-based BeDo, a strategic marketing consultancy. BeDo focuses on sustainability issues and has had Johnson & Johnson, Danone, Coca-Cola, Levis and Club Med as clients. Among projects the firm has launched has been The Hoop, a micro-lending venture for fair-trade producers and brands.

That dovetails with Unilever’s own sustainability efforts and with Mr. Mathieu’s new charge in helping Unilever double sales while reducing overall environmental impact by 2020, said Mr. Weed, who also oversees the company’s sustainability efforts.

“I wanted to get some heavyweight marketers in my top team,” Mr. Weed said in an interview. “And the fact that we were able to get someone like him says a lot about the progress we’ve made and the momentum we’ve got and the progress we’re making in innovation in the marketing area.”

Mr. Mathieu is the last of five senior VPs Mr. Weed has appointed since taking his post last year. He joins Gavin Neath (sustainability), Sue Garrard (communications), Richard Davies (consumer and market insight) and Luis Di Como (global media), the latter having recently been named to succeed Laura Klauberg in that post. Three of the five came from within Unilever, but Ms. Garrard, previously with the U.K.’s Department for Work and Pensions, like Mr. Mathieu came from outside.

“I’ve got a balance between internal hires and external hires to bring diversity of thought,” Mr. Weed said, adding that he considered internal and external candidates for each of the posts.

Mr. Mathieu’s experience in branding and sustainability along with Unilever putting sustainability under the marketing organization is something Mr. Weed sees as part of a trend.

“Having sustainability led by an environmentalist in a small department by itself was never going to get the sort of traction we need in this world to get true innovation in the area,” he said.

Thanks for reading,

RealtyGo_blog

Mobile Pay | Mobile Commerce; Will greed in the space hinder the progress of mobile payments?

 

Scan your Qpon and Go....

Over the past six months there has been lots of buzz about mobile payments. High-profile companies such as Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) and Visa have all indicated they are exploring ways to make money from mobile payments. And at last month’s Mobile World Congress conference in Barcelona, Spain, the momentum around mobile commerce and Near Field Communications seemed to grow even stronger. In fact, several firms including Research in Motion (NASDAQ:RIMM), Deutsche Telekom and Orange all talked about how they were incorporating mobile commerce and/or Near Field Communications technology into their future plans.  Some companies even went so far as to designate 2011 as the year for NFC payments.

 

We are under the impression that cellphone manufactures will be offering a secure mobile payment method - Near Field Communication

(NFC) short-range wireless technology and includes real-time anti-fraud alerts and other features designed to protect consumers from fraud.

Fine-tuning the business model for this nascent service is challenging. Wireless carriers, platform providers, device makers and financial institutions all want a piece of the revenue pie. It’s not surprising, considering that many analysts estimate that the market potential for these services is enormous. According to Portio Research, mobile payments volumes worldwide were $68.7 billion in 2009 and are forecast to reach $633.4 billon by year-end 2014. The biggest potential markets for mobile payments are Asia-Pacific, Europe and North America, Portio says.

But for mobile payments to reach the potential predicted by Portio, a lot of diverse players will have to fit together to make a compelling and lucrative solution. How that will happen is unclear. All we know for sure is that there is a lot of experimentation in the market today.

To help spur the market, the GSMA is heading up a NFC-related initiative with several of the world’s biggest operators including America Móvil, Axiata Group Berhad, Bharti, China Unicom, Deutsche Telekom, KT Corp., MTS, Orange, Qtel Group, SK Telecom, Softbank Mobile, Telecom Italia, Telefónica, Telekom Austria Group, Telenor and Vodafone. The operators have said they intend to launch commercial NFC services in select markets by 2012.

In the U.S., mobile payments have made headlines lately because of the new initiative Isis, which is a joint venture from Verizon Wireless (NYSE:VZ), AT&T Mobility (NYSE:T) and T-Mobile USA. The carriers plan to leverage Discover Financial Services’ network to process payments; Barclaycard U.S. will be the first issuer. Isis has inked deals with merchants but so far has not revealed the names of those merchants or more details about when it will launch.

Meanwhile, Sprint has decided to go it alone with its mobile wallet initiative, called Sprint Mobile Wallet. Unlike the Isis project, Sprint’s wallet will let customers make purchases using their existing Visa, MasterCard and Amazon accounts. Sprint is going to eventually hit the big one, you have to admit they always have their hat in the rink, and sooner or later they are going to hit one out of the park.

Clearly for mobile payments to become a success, merchants, financial services, operators and device makers need to come together to make a viable solution. Perhaps all this experimentation in the market will result in less fragmentation and more cohesiveness. We are exploring those issues and more in ”Cashing in on Mobile Commerce,” a new eBook from FierceWireless. In this eBook, we take an in-depth look at the overall potential for the mobile commerce market, profile some successful mobile payment implementations and explore some of the latest initiatives in barcodes, mobile coupons and more.

 

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True Mobile Digital TV (MDTV) means watching live Digital TV (DTV) on mobile devices_RealtyGo_blog

What mobile DTV (MDTV) is?

Which networks can deliver true DTV experience to mobile devices?

True Mobile Digital TV (MDTV) means watching live Digital TV (DTV) on mobile devices,

with a user experience similar to the one the consumers are used to on their home TV. This

means having a big variety of shows to watch, with high quality high frame rate video and

quick response time for channel switching. While there are elements in the market that try to

confuse true MDTV with other forms of TV/media distribution that offer poor quality video

and a poor offering of channels, true MDTV is distributed through a dedicated broadcast

MDTV network.

Soon real estate professionals will be able to stream their live events and seminars through MDTV channel outlets, keeping consumers up to date on current events within their general areas. Imagine getting updates from destination places around the world, Vacation rentals for lease and a tour performed by the actual owner or representative. Choosing you vacation destination in the near future may become more real than ever before. Rest assure, RealtyGo will be looking into this futuristic type channeling to deliver real estate listings and information as efficiently as possible for everyone using Mobile devices.  Keep a look out for MDTV and a new technology boom; does Youtube ring a bell… .

The most common alternatives of DTV distribution to mobile devices are to get the DTV

content through the WiFi network or through the cellular network.

This article explains the different available methods, why the true MDTV experience can be

achieved only by a dedicated broadcast MDTV network and how the MDTV offering can be

broadened by wise usage of all the methods for distribution of DTV, which can provide the

best value and best user experience to the consumer.

1 Methods for Mobile DTV distribution

1.1 Distribution of Mobile DTV through the cellular network

The cellular network is conceptually a unicast network, meaning that the content is

transmitted to each receiver individually, even if several receivers are consuming the same

content simultaneously. Thus with the current deployed and used technologies, distribution

of mobile DTV content through the cellular network is no different than the distribution of any

other data through the cellular network.

There are some technologies for broadcasting content over cellular networks, including

Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service (MBMS), Integrated Mobile Broadcast (IMB), and

Evolved MBMS (e-MBMS) for LTE networks. These technologies are currently either not

mature yet or not widely used (i.e. deployed). Nevertheless, though currently cellular

networks use unicast transmission for distributing DTV content, this article refers also to

optional future usage of these broadcast technologies.

The main concern that is related to mobile DTV distribution is its relatively high bandwidth

requirement. Watching live DTV content at good quality on mobile devices requires

continuous reception of streaming audio/video (A/V) content at a rate of about 500Kbps.

This reception rate enables the display of good quality video at QVGA resolution and at a

frame rate of 30 frames-per-second (FPS).

In developed countries, current cellular networks are already congested with the increase of

video consumption (YouTube, etc.), live gaming, web surfing and other data-consuming

applications over mobile devices. These networks do not have the bandwidth to provide live

DTV services with a similar user experience to stationary DTV in terms of video quality and

content variety. Recent testimonials to this problem were made public by AT&T, which is

now setting a cap for its subscribers’ data usage, since they need to “ease the congestion”

(http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/theres-a-cap-for-that-att-will-limit-data-

consumption-for-new-smart-phone-users /).

For Full article and White Paper about (MDTV) follow this link

Technology at its best;

RealtyGo - Your Real Estate Listings Best Friend!