By Thomas M. Mitchell
RISMEDIA, Dec. 21, 2007-Technology these days moves so fast; how do we keep up? How do we update our resources to ensure that consumers and industry practitioners alike are getting the most up-to-date data? How about a resource where anyone can log on and offer up the newest information? That’s where RealEstateWiki.com comes in.
RealEstateWiki.com
RealEstateWiki.com is the combined effort of more than 20 people who have worked on creating quality content over a very broad spectrum for almost 15 months.
The culmination of this effort has produced more than 3,000 definitions and terms, almost 1,000 answers to home buying, selling and financing questions, hundreds and hundreds of industry used acronyms, bios of prominent real estate leaders, authors, more than 1,000 brokers and top producing agents, details of real estate associations, institutes, councils, designations, courses, blogs, social networks, publications…the list just goes on and on.
So, What is a Wiki?
A wiki enables documents to be created and then changed and updated through collaboration by anyone using a Web browser. A defining characteristic of a wiki is the ease with which pages can be created and updated. Generally, there is no review before modifications are accepted and most wikis are open to the public.
One of the most well-known wikis is of course Wikipedia, the largest multilingual, free-content encyclopedia on the Internet. It already provides over 7 million articles in more than 200 languages, and it is growing daily.
What is Included?
Although information can be contributed, viewed, and changed by anyone, it requires a simple login process to acquire a “wiki-signature.” However, changes will be made in real time and appear almost instantaneously online. Contributions, on the other hand, will be constantly monitored and reviewed where necessary by a national review board to ensure that the quality of the content is maintained.
RealEstateWiki.com will initially carry thousands of articles, statistics and information on items such as:
– Glossary & General Information
– Frequently Asked Questions
– Types of Real Estate
– Homes & Lifestyles
– Marketing & Advertising
– Who’s Who in Real Estate
– Settlement & Other Service Providers
– Government and Local Authorities
– Associations, Institutes and Council
– History of Real Estate
– Real Estate Media
– Real Estate Research
– Real Estate Education
– Real Estate Brokerage Companies
– Technology & Internet
History of Wiki
WikiWikiWeb was the first site to be called a wiki. It was started by Ward Cunningham in 1994 and was based on the name of the Honolulu International Airport shuttle called “Wiki-Wiki,” which in Hawaiian means “fast.”
In the early 2000s, wikis were increasingly adopted in enterprise as collaborative software. Common uses included project communication, intranets and documentation; initially for technical users. In March 2007, the word wiki was even added to the Oxford English Dictionary.
Next Step
Next to your bookmark for Wikipedia.com, add RealEstate-Wiki.com. Use RealEstateWiki as much as you like-it’s free. Also, point your consumers to it so they can get clarification on real estate terms, get neutral third-party validation to standard everyday questions about the home-buying process.
But don’t just take-remember to also give back to the industry. Sign on and help build the largest, quality, free real estate encyclopedia on the Internet. Let’s for the first time stand on each others shoulders and not keep on reinventing the wheel.
For more information visit www.RealEstateWiki.com.
