Is it a Property or a Parcel?
Consumers refer to properties using an address but when buying and selling, what changes hands is called a parcel. Counties record parcel transfers to protect owners’ real property rights. Parcels pre-date the postal system. Record keeping is performed at the parcel level because it is possible to sell real estate that does not have a…
The Square Deal and Fair Compensation
At the turn of the century, Theodore Roosevelt introduced a domestic policy known as the Square Deal, which emphasized “substantial equality of opportunity and of reward for equally good service.” Theodore Roosevelt, “The New Nationalism,” in The New Nationalism (New York: The Outlook Company, 1910), 3-34. Over the past decade, service providers in most industries, including real…
Labeling AI-generated Content
The proliferation of AI has the potential to confuse real estate buyers because it is hard to tell real from imaginary images. I have a simple suggestion that although not perfect, begins to address the situation. I stumbled upon an article written in the spring that reminded me of some tagging work I investigated over…
Replication as a Natural Act
“Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.” Dr. Ian Malcolm, Spielberg, Steven. Jurassic Park. Universal Pictures, 1993. This famous line from Jurassic Park questions the ethical bounds of scientific experimentation. It should be no surprise that the phrase also applies to technical recommendations. When there are multiple…
Using a Wallet for Identity
I have been working on making blockchain more approachable to consumers and have developed a model using common shopping practices found in bricks-and-mortar stores: I can repeat the process down an entire block of shops. When online, I can use a payment service (or credit card, yikes!) and only have to supply an address for…
Blockchain and Sanity
First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. And then they attack you and want to burn you. Nicholas Klein (1914) David Gerard, the author of Attack of the Fifty Foot Blockchain (2017), declares that if “you were silly enough to put personal data into an append-only ledger which is a proof-of-work blockchain — that’d…
Blockchain-as-a-Channel
I chuckle when another “software-as-a-service” is announced because I remember when dashes in the name conveyed mystery. Since I like nostalgia, I thought I would introduce my handle, “Blockchain-as-a-Channel” which represents a new advertising channel for real estate that complements print and web advertising. Economic Service Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and cloud computing have become accepted in…
Project Planning Notes
I am often asked for tips regarding project planning with blockchains. Translating from my safe zone, relational databases, to blockchain helped me immensely because there are differences in terminology and cost structures. The rest of this post presents some top-of-mind suggestions. Estimating Costs An important element of project planning is estimating the cost to operate…
Vendor of the (blockchain) Future
The National Association of REALTORS® produced a “REALTOR® of the future” video in 1990 and thought it would be an excellent time to discuss the “Vendor of the Future” in the blockchain space. To vendors and service providers, adopting blockchains looks expensive and painful. Customer demand for these changes is not there and margins are…
Usage-based Revenue Model
Smart Contracts that “surround” your data with a controllable privacy layer can also track requests. With tracking, you know what information is requested and who is requesting the information. The Smart Contract that controls this interaction could ask for a modest fee from the user to cover publishing costs. Here is how a fee-required request works.…