Three Stories for You to Read: Amazon, Cybersecurity, App Dev

In the event of Inman Connect this week, these were three stories I found which piqued my interest this last week.

Will Amazon Uber-ize the Real Estate Industry?

Cisco and Juniper Networks stocks slipped last Friday on news from The Information that Amazon was entering the $14 billion data center equipment business. While searching for more news, I stumbled upon investment firm TwinRock Partners' article about Amazon and real estate.

It has been a year since the news was on fire with stories about Amazon entering the world of real estate. It was such a big deal, Zillow's stock lost over 4 percent.

As my curiosity was piqued with all this talk about Amazon, I decided to ask Alexa to find Realtors in my area.

Alexa calmly responded with the names of three real estate agents for my zip code. I didn't recognize the names or brokerages, so I quickly reached for my iPad to see who Alexa recommended.

First surprise.

All three agents do not service my zip code. As a matter of fact, they were located over 50 miles away from my zip code. So much for real estate being local.

Where did Alexa come up with these names? The answer may surprise you—Yelp.

I believe Amazon is eyeing more profitable lower hanging fruit than real estate. Until the business of selling and buying property becomes more streamlined and less complicated, Amazon will continue to support technology companies to build real estate services on its platform. Only when the process of buying and selling becomes more efficient will they become more entrenched into the real estate business. But...

Mr. Goldberg did make a big deal back in March about his discussions with three of the four 'FANG' companies. Find the video on the linked page and go to approximately 31 minutes of the interview. FANG is an acronym for Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google. It will be interesting to see how NAR and FANG will work together on behalf of Realtors.

How to Improve Your Cyber Security

When I read this article, it reminded me of a cybersecurity insurance policy I reviewed a few weeks ago. Last November, the WAV Group wrote an article about cyber insurance and the excellent reasons why real estate brokerages need cyber insurance coverage. The costs to remediate one incident of a phishing attack and compromised emails are staggering.

How important is cybersecurity to the world?

It is estimated that the world will spend $1 trillion on cybersecurity from now through 2020 to protect against damages of $6 trillion. Organizations are having to treat security as part of the overarching business with more focus to protect their customers and employees.

How to write a good software design doc

Please do not look at this as an article for techies. I am seeing more and more business leaders who have a great idea for an application. They hire someone to build the application, spend a lot of money in the process and do not have a product to showcase.

This article is about a 10-minute read and provides a glimpse of a process for a successful development of an application. Proper insight in project management and a correct design spec is a critical first step in ensuring the desired outcome.

I have been writing technology design specs for over 25 years, 14 of which have been in real estate. In my experience, the most successful projects have had a 'living' document that set desired results and governed the changes that occurred during development. When I have not used this process, it usually meant project delays caused by miscommunication which impacted the final result.

As there will be a need to modernize technology with good design specs and security practices, the WAV Group is a partner in aiding your implementation of new systems and processes. Contact Victor Lund, Marilyn Wilson, or David Gumpper to schedule some time. Firms may schedule a private WAV Group overview for their executive team or board by contacting Camilla Harvey at [email protected].

To view the original article, visit the WAV Group blog.