From left to right: Dori Wick, Realtor, Jenna Wright, Dustin Wright and Tracy Thompson, designated broker with Coldwell Banker Tomlinson Group.

ORIGINAL NEWS RELEASE:

Boise, Idaho – The financial burden of buying a home, starting a small business and starting a family – all in one year – can take a heavy toll on even the most fiscally-savvy couples.

Fortunately for Dustin and Jenna Wright, that burden will be a little lighter this Christmas, thanks to a gift from Coldwell Banker Tomlinson Group.

The Wrights were recently selected, at random, as the recipients of the 21^st annual House Payment Giveaway, a program designed to thank past clients, as well as boost the spirits of families in the community heading into the holiday season.

“I couldn’t believe it. I never really win things,” Jenna Wright said. “I just filled it out because she gave it to me. It couldn’t be any better timing – we are expecting our first child at the beginning of next month.”

The Wrights said they considered a few options when choosing how to spend the money, but settled on something that would be the most beneficial to their new baby.

“We know exactly what we’re going to do with it,” she said. “We’re going to use it to open a life insurance policy, now that a baby is on the way.”

Dori Wick, the Coldwell Banker Tomlinson Group sales associate who sold the Wrights their home, said she was ecstatic to find out her clients won the prize.

“It couldn’t happen to nicer people at a better time,” she said. “With the baby coming, plus Christmas … plus they just bought their house in March. Though I wish every one of my clients could have won, it’s nice to know they’ll have some extra padding going through Christmas and with their first child on the way.”

Tracy Thompson, designated broker at Coldwell Banker Tomlinson Group, said the program serves two purposes for the community.

“It’s a terrific way for our agents to thank their past clients at such an important time of year, plus it’s a pleasure to be able to help enhance someone’s Christmas cheer,” she said.

The annual House Payment Giveaway began in 1990 with owner Larry Laraway and Aspen Realty, which has since merged with Coldwell Banker Tomlinson of Spokane and Holland Realty of Boise. The winner receives a check from Coldwell Banker Tomlinson Group for up to $1,000 toward the principle and interest of their mortgage bill. It is coupled with the Vacation Cash Giveaway program, which takes place each May, as two ways the company gives back to its clients.

As you well know, the last six years of the Internet could well be defined by one word: Facebook.

Facebook has gotten fairly popular.

Founded in early 2004, the site saw strong, steady growth for years, first spreading like a virus through university towns across America, followed by a pandemic-like explosion amongst the general populace only a few years later. Facebook now boasts more than 800 million active users and even logged more than 500 million individual logins in a single day within the past few months.

But we all know the story of Facebook and don’t need to beat that into the ground any further.

What you might not know, though, is how feature creep – a known and loathed but somehow irresistible force in the tech world – could be poised to strike the Achilles heel of Facebook and bring the social media titan to a collapse that would certainly be of epic proportions.

As any entrepreneur/inventor/CEO knows, scaling a business is a very difficult and critical process; a road full of potholes and landmines (Netflix, anyone?). In fact, one might say the worst thing about growing a business is … growing a business. Nonetheless, Facebook has done a fabulous job in maintaining their relatively minimalist approach, while others have gone horribly astray (see: Myspace). But now Facebook is approaching (or has recently passed) another hurdle that is difficult to deal with because no company in the history of the Internet has ever gotten big enough to have to deal with it.

The $10 billion question: How do you keep 50 million super users (the early adopters from 2004-05), 300 million dedicated veteran users, 300 million casual users and 150 million newer users happy and content with just ONE website?

Allow the scope of this task to stew in your brain for a minute. Most people find it difficult to order pizza for a group of 5 kids and keep everyone happy, and that’s with the knowledge that most kids aren’t going to abandon their parents if the wrong pizza is ordered for dinner. Now scale that up to 800 million users and consider that if even 100 million of those users become furious for (x) reason and leave – or worse, they become bored and just stop coming to FB every day – it would be painted by major news outlets as the beginning of the fall of the digital Roman Empire. Then you get other social forces like the bandwagon and dogpile effects and in a matter of six months Facebook could be in a world of pain and on the brink of ruin financially.

Now, forget all that. Because it’s not going to happen, and it’s not because of anything cooked up inside the genius brains in Facebook’s marketing or development departments. No, Facebook is going to be saved by a phenomenon that is going to permanently alter the digital landscape within only the next few years. Call it the tipping point phenomenon. Or, call it the 50+1 phenomenon. Or, just call it mobile.

If a graph says it, it must be true...right?

While at a social media and technology conference a few weeks ago, the speaker – Chris Smith of Inman Next – gave a convincing presentation on the trend toward mobile and what the world could look like if the majority of Internet users used a mobile device (smartphone or tablet device) for their Internet needs more often than they used any other type of device. Without dipping into the perennial joke that is to say (x) year is the “year of mobile,” most projections safely predict mobile Internet usage overtaking desktop usage at some point in 2014. Of course, the adoption of the best technologies tends to follow an exponential growth curve (see: Facebook), so that date might wind up being sometime in 2012-13, meaning the digital world as we know it could be about to change in monstrous ways and most tech-oblivious companies could be caught with their virtual pants down.

All it takes is for that scale to tip just the slightest bit in the mobile direction and almost overnight, we’ll see a 180 flip in the priorities of web developers and designers around the world. Because when you move from an upgradeable, powerful desktop computer with a mouse, keyboard and screen size of 17-50+ inches to an iPad or smartphone with a screen ranging from 3-10″, extremely limited browser capabilities and no peripherals, you might as well be talking about a complete overhaul of the Internet as we know it. Everything you do online with a mobile phone is different from how you might use a desktop. Emails appear as a sender with a few words of the subject and email body underneath with no flashy reading panes or lengthy previews. Websites appear as 4-inch rectangles with the ability to provide only a handful of logos, links and options on the mobile homepage. Consider that a basic pop-up window is a mere nuisance on a desktop PC, whereas a pop-up ad on a mobile device could be both infuriating and disastrous for both the user and the company whose page they’re trying to use. Essentially, all of the conventional wisdom has to be flipped on its head to prepare for the oncoming mobile storm.

So you might say a company would be wise to prepare in advance for the (I can’t believe I’m using this phrase) “mobile revolution,” right? And in that regard, the future of mobile must like in the much-touted Android and iPhone app libraries, right? Since, after all, iPhones offer more than 500,000 apps, one can only assume apps are the future, right?

Wrong. In fact, it’s difficult to believe apps have lived as long as they have thus far. When you really consider it, isn’t it a bit absurd that you have to download an app just to use your phone for what usually ends up being a pretty simple function? Apps like Angry Birds and other addictive mobile games have to be downloaded on a phone, while even a typical outdated browser on a desktop PC can run virtually all of these apps with simple browser plugins. Indeed, it would be ridiculous to ask a website visitor to login and download something every time they want to do anything online with their PC, yet it has become default in the mobile world to look to apps as the solution to all of your mobile woes.

Well, I’m glad to say the app revolution might as well give up now, because it’s not going to last very long. Sure, we’ll have apps for as long as we have mobile devices. But as phones become smarter and mobile browsers are developed further, our dependency on apps for mobile survival will take a backseat to a new era of highly capable devices that can handle much of our mobile needs more like a browser does today; simply download the latest Flash and Java upgrades and you’re probably good to go.

And I think Facebook knows this.

Why? Well, while people have been both complaining and fawning about the latest Facebook changes (Timeline, Ticker, etc.) and iPhone/iPad fanatics have ridiculed the fashionably late Facebook iPad app, Facebook has been quietly but diligently building their mobile site with nary a word leaking out through tech forums like  Mashable and Techcrunch. In fact, when Facebook unveiled their total news feed and user profile overhaul in October, they also unveiled a sparkly new mobile site that mirrored much of the changes, but from a minimalist approach to best optimize the mobile experience.

Some have argued that Facebook is getting too complicated for new users, as the constant introduction of new, nuanced tweaks designed to keep existing users engaged are now turning the social media site into such a nebulous, intertwine social spiderweb that is almost unnavigable for new users. But this isn’t a balancing act with any easy solution for Facebook, as there aren’t any other companies in history who have operated with such an immense user base that can provide a roadmap for easy navigation. In fact, considering only the difficulty of keeping 800 million users happy, just look at the difficulty Congress has keeping Americans happy…and the United States is barely 1/3 the size of Facebook.

So, on one hand we’ve got Facebook battling feature creep and fighting daily to keep veteran users engaged and new users signing up, and on the other hand we’ve got a massive worldwide trend toward mandatory minimalism as the Internet moves to adopt mobile-friendly design and interface principles. The outcome is starting to reveal itself by now, I hope.

If not, I’ll just say it. Facebook – at least in terms of feature creep and a confusing interface – is going to be saved by mobile. Because what we’ll have eventually is two almost totally separate Facebooks. Yes that’s right, if you thought one Facebook was already overwhelming, get ready for it’s faster, sleeker and easier-to-use younger brother…Facebook Mobile.

For everyone using smartphones and iPads, Facebook Mobile will give them the fast, easy minimalist interface they’re looking for. For those who like the Ticker, browsing extensively through their friends’ Timelines and flipping through hundreds of photos in one sitting, good ol’ Facebook will always be there on their desktop or laptop computer. It’s the best of both worlds – simple when you need it, elaborate when you want it.

Using Facebook will only get faster, easier and more fluent than it already is, once the various mobile technologies finish shaking out (RIM will continue to die and we’ll have Coke and Pepsi – I mean iOS and AndroidOS – for the next 10+ years) and once Facebook finishes its covert mission to create the most insanely awesome mobile website they can, right under the collective noses of the developers, writers and designers who for the past year have been myopically fixated on the little  picture and the short term. All Zuckerberg & Co. need to do is stay the course and when the much-anticipated mobile revolution finally comes, casually remind users that the mobile site is simple, fast and fun to use and let the people do the rest, as they’ve always done.

This dollar sign signifies the money you can win.

Time to give away some money!

Coldwell Banker Tomlinson Group is excited to announce we’re now mailing signup forms to our current and former clients, providing an opportunity for them to win our annual House Payment Giveaway contest! Of course, the winner of the contest will receive a huge check (physically, that is) equal to the amount of their principle and interest of their monthly mortgage payment, up to $1,000 total. The contest ends in December, so if you’re a current or former client of a Coldwell Banker Tomlinson Group real estate agent, be sure to contact them today so you have a chance to win some extra cash just before the (expensive) all-important Christmas season!

More info to come soon…

Are you ready for this? The 321st annual CBTG Celebrity Golf Tournament is coming on August 11 — of course that’s still more than a week away, but among the golf geeks in the office(s), anticipation is already humming at an alarming rate!

The tournament will be similar to last year, and will take place at the Boise Ranch Golf Course. $50 gets you 18 holes (including a golf cart), a magnificent lunch, two drink tickets, and all the digital photos you can take of the administrative staff driving golf carts like they’re attempting to create some sort of NASCAR version of the tv show “COPS.”  Needless to say, it’s well worth your money!

Not to mention mingling with dozens and dozens of your friends from CBTG, plus vendor representatives and any guests brought along for the fun and games!

Get in touch with Blair Allison if you’d like to sign up. We’re stacking up four-person teams for this 18-hole scramble, so if you can put together a team in advance that would help us out with the planning. But if you’re a single, double or triple, fear not! Everyone who wants to golf will find a home in this tournament.

See you next week!

We’re thrilled to announce the winner of the first annual CBTG Gives Back video contest!

FIRST PLACE and a $1,500 donation – Rebecca Compton and her video for the Assistance League of Boise!

SECOND PLACE and a $1,000 donation – Lisa Hockersmith, Molly Henrie and their video for Camp Rainbow Gold!

THIRD PLACE and a $500 donation – Kristine Haws and her video for the Idaho Humane Society!

Congratulations to all of those who participated and thanks so much for your incredibly hard work and dedication to supporting all of these valuable nonprofits in the Boise area!

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Nampa homeowner wins Vacation Cash Giveaway

Boise, Idaho — One Nampa resident will find taking a vacation will be a little easier for her this summer.

Nicanora Mendoza was selected as the winner of this year’s annual Vacation Cash Giveaway, a program designed by Coldwell Banker Tomlinson Group to show appreciation for its clients with a $500 cash donation, ideally toward a summer vacation.

Mendoza purchased a home in Nampa with the help of Realtor Lee Didericksen, a member of the Coldwell Banker Tomlinson Group – Emerald office.

“I didn’t expect this,” Mendoza said. “I knew nothing about this contest. Lee is very thoughtful and sympathetic. This is just one way she takes care of her clients.”

Didericksen said she’s delighted her client’s name was drawn from the hat.

“I was really tickled to death,” Didericksen said. “You always want it to go someone who can really use it, and I believe this will really help them.”

Tracy Thompson, designated broker at Coldwell Banker Tomlinson Group, said the program serves two purposes for the community.

“It’s a terrific way for our agents to stay in touch with their past clients through the busy summer months, plus it’s a pleasure to be able to help someone take a vacation they otherwise might not have been able to afford,” she said.

The annual Vacation Cash Giveaway began in 1990 with owner Larry Laraway and Aspen Realty, which has since merged with Coldwell Banker Tomlinson of Spokane and Holland Realty of Boise. The winner receives a check from Coldwell Banker Tomlinson Group for $500 toward their vacation plans. It is coupled with the Mortgage Payment Giveaway program, which takes place each December, as two ways CBTG gives back to its clients.

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Congratulations Nicanora!

And for the rest of you, don’t forget to head over to www.cbtghomes.com/contest and vote in our video contest…only a few days left to vote, then we announce the winner! Stay tuned…

Today we’re excited to announce the launch of the CBTG Gives Back Video Contest!

Just go to www.cbtghomes.com/contest to vote on your three favorite videos, once per day, through June 30. The top three videos will receive cash donations to the charity in each video, with prize money totaling $3,000.

Share the contest far and wide – anyone can vote and these charities need as much help and support as they can get.

Thanks and get voting!

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“CBTG Gives Back” Video Contest to benefit local charities

Local nonprofit organizations will have a shot at winning their share of $3,000 in cash prizes as part of the first annual “CBTG Gives Back” video contest.

Created by Coldwell Banker Tomlinson Group, the contest pairs local real estate agents with the registered nonprofit organization of their choice, with the task of completing a one-minute, fifteen-second video to showcase to the public what each NPO does for the community.

“The purpose of this video contest is to show the outpouring of support for charitable causes from our team of agents,” said Larry Laraway, general manager at Coldwell Banker Tomlinson Group. “We hope this contest can help draw awareness and financial support for the amazing work nonprofits are doing across the Treasure Valley.”

Videos will be posted on the Coldwell Banker Tomlinson Group website at www.cbtghomes.com. Voting will take place between 12:01 a.m., June 1 through 11:59 p.m., June 30. The top three vote-receiving videos will be awarded cash prizes.

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Check in here, at our Facebook fan page or on our website at www.cbtghomes.com for updates!

Will QR codes replace Facebook? No, that's ridiculous.

First, we’ll start by saying that our official opinion is that QR codes are potentially useful for agents, and potentially a giant time (and possibly money) sinkhole for brokerages. The reason why QR codes, if implemented poorly, can spell a management disaster for a brokerage is because each and every QR code is unique and can only be pointed at one website at a time, obviously. This means using a different QR code for every active listing in your brokerage would be like having a single unique yard sign for each and every active listing that can’t be easily reassigned (without paying for QR code management software) to other listings in the future – not exactly cost effective.

However, if you do your research, QR codes can have a beneficial impact on your real estate business.

Let’s start with the “what” since you really need to know what it is we’re talking about here before you’ll get any value from the rest of this blog (the WHO should be obvious…it’s you).

WHAT: A QR code is a “quick response” code that is basically a two-dimensional barcode for any item in the world. When these codes are scanned by a QR code scanner, it will direct the user’s phone to a URL that the user’s phone will (hopefully) load and display something valuable for the consumer. But for this to all work properly, a few things have to happen. The user must have a smartphone (not just a feature phone), that user must download one of hundreds of QR code scanner applications (apps), the user must get out their phone, launch the app, hold their phone in front of the QR code, wait for it to scan and then wait for the page/video/website to load with their phone’s browser. This lengthy and possibly clunky process may seem like a major inhibiting factor to using QR codes, and it can be if things don’t play out just right.

Currently, there are hundreds of websites that create free QR codes, but no one is dominating the market just yet, and smartphones aren’t coming shipped with QR code scanners pre-installed on them, which is a major dilemma for those pushing QR codes. This means every consumer you meet could have a different branded scanner on their phone, each with operating in its own way with different levels of success in scanning barcodes – just yesterday we compared a Blackberry Torch with QR Code Scanner Pro with to a Motorola Droid 2 with a different barcode scanner and the time it took to scan the same QR code was wildly different. So, because there are different sources for codes and different apps to scan them, that’s the first dilemma.

WHY: The big “why” with using QR codes centers around one question – do QR codes actually make anything easier, faster, better or more useful for the consumer? Or are they just another (possibly slower) way of doing the exact same thing you can do by typing a URL directly into your phone’s browser? After all, every phone that can handle a QR code scanner must have a data plan and application functionality, meaning it likely has a pretty slick web browser and a nice, big screen already. To go to a mobile site on a smartphone, you simply launch your browser – which already comes installed on every smartphone – and type in the URL in the address bar. Pretty simple.

However, to scan a QR code, you have to get out your phone, download a QR code scanning app if you haven’t installed one already (remember, they don’t come on phones when you buy them), launch the app, scan the code and wait for the site to launch. My guess is that if you’re familiar with your phone and are a pretty good typist with your thumbs, it’s probably going to be easier to type a URL directly into your browser than use the QR code functionality.

But there are a few instances when QR codes could be better/easier than printing a URL directly on the publication at hand.

WHERE: First, QR codes are square, making them much friendlier to square and rectangular form factors, such as business cards, flyers and the like. Second, QR codes can be virtually any size, and they don’t need to be read to use them. So on a business card, for example, you might be forced to print the URL in a very small font that is hard to read for many people. A QR code is instantly recognizable and can be scanned regardless of the vision of the consumer.

QR codes can be placed on business cards in real estate

Second, QR codes are scalable, meaning you can make them very small – say .5″ by .5″, or very large, like the one used in Madison Square Garden for a dinosaur promo.

However, this introduces another dilemma to using QR codes – distance. For a code to scan properly, it has to visually fit the screen of the phone that is scanning it.

Giant QR code in Madison Square Garden

That means that the farther away you get from a QR code, the bigger it has to be for you to be able to scan it. So QR codes are really only going to be cost effective if it’s a handheld marketing piece, such as a business card, flyer or magazine.  Or, if you’ve got a wild budget, you could buy a very large banner or billboard for your QR code, but given the harsh aesthetic of QR codes (remember, they’re giant black and white barcodes, not colorful logos or charming slogans), it’s hard to see this being a valuable use of large advertising spaces in most circumstances.

WHEN: So, when should you use QR codes?

We suggest using QR codes for unique, specific promotional purposes, and not for widespread, general use. For example, create a QR code for a personal video introducing yourself, or for a custom landing page within your website that features some kind of special content. Do not create a QR code that simply goes to the home page of your website! Especially if you have an easy URL in the first place, such as www.cbtghomes.com/ — consumers will just be irritated that they went to the trouble of scanning a code to go to a site that they could have gone to more quickly with their browser.

Another time when it’s relevant to use a QR code is when you have a long, clunky URL. Coldwell Banker Tomlinson Group is launching a QR code project that will feature a code on the front of our weekly tabloid, and that code will link to our YouTube channel so consumers can view the featured video tour for the listing on the cover of the tabloid. This is a beneficial use for us, because our YouTube channel URL is relatively long – http://www.youtube.com/coldwellbankertg – so we either choose to print it in a large enough font that it’s legible (and we hope our customers don’t typo the URL in their browser) or we provide a single QR code for easy scanning. This is also a good use for us because a single QR code is easy to maintain, and the code can be swapped out for a different code/URL any time we choose, should we decide to feature other content on our site.

HOW: Lastly, how do you use QR codes? Simple. Google “QR code generator” and pick one of the first 500 sites that comes up – they probably all generate easy, free QR codes. Going with the first Google result, we find http://qrcode.kaywa.com/. I have no idea who this company is, but one visit to the site and you’ll see it’s ridiculously easy to create a QR code there. Type in the URL, choose a size for the code and click “generate.” Then take that jpeg/png/image file and print it on whatever marketing piece you choose. QR codes have a tremendous tolerance for error (I’ve read it’s up to 30 percent), meaning even low print quality, odd coloration or other distortions won’t typically affect the performance of the QR code.

As far as scanning codes is concerned, QR Code Scanner Pro is a good app, though virtually all QR code scanners will do the same thing and do a pretty good job at it. The key is to get a free app that isn’t going to ask you for some kind of contract or subscription to another service.

BONUS ROUND!

WHY NOT:

1. You don’t have any unique or creative content to which you can point the QR code. Don’t use them if they aren’t going to deliver something special to the consumer, unless you’re limited to a very small advertising space and a QR code fits better than a URL.

2. QR codes are currently used by a minority within a minority. Explained: Most cell phone owners don’t own a smartphone, most smartphone owners don’t use (or even recognize, in many cases) QR codes. This could very well change, but as of late 2010, only 28 percent of cell phone owners had a smartphone, and of that 28 percent, it’s estimated that only 10-20 percent of those people have ever scanned a QR code. It’s impossible to measure precisely, since it’s difficult to accurately track how many scanners have been downloaded nationwide due to the sheer number of apps.

3. QR codes are not standardized. This simple little fact could spell an absolute disaster for a brokerage that invests a large amount of time and money adopting QR codes company-wide. It’s not the most probable scenario, but Google, Apple, Microsoft or another major tech player could come out with a rival scanning technology that is not compatible with QR codes. If Android phones all began shipping with a unique scanner that was not compatible with QR codes, then QR codes would essentially become obsolete overnight. After all, Android is projected to own nearly half of the U.S. smartphone market in the next few years, and people will always opt for the standard app that comes with a phone rather than downloading a third-party app to replace it.

This standardization problem also means that there’s no guarantee that every scanner will work with every phone will work with every QR code. Phones without auto-focus cameras can have a difficult or impossible time scanning a code because at close range, it’s just too blurry. As auto-focus cameras are only now becoming common, that means older phones (including many Blackberry models) won’t be able to detect the code properly.

As you can see, the waters surrounding QR codes are still murky, to say the least. If you can find a specific and easy way to implement these codes in a valuable way (without gobbling up tons of time and money), then sure, go ahead and use them, and be sure to document your successes and failures along the way. But realize that until a few major things happen in the world of QR codes, the jury is still very much out on whether they’re valuable and here to stay or they’re just another flash in the marketing and technology pan.