Propetech (or #proptech) stands for property technology. It refers to innovative technological advances that have developed to help the property market thrive, offering relevant and useful solutions for people involved in it at all levels. Examples of proptech include online estate agents, apps that can source a removals van in your area and fully integrated landlord management solutions. My startup, No Agent falls into the latter category. It’s about time that the tired and old fashioned housing rental and buying market was catapulted into the modern world. Proptech is doing just that.

Now we’re clear with what proptech is, let me show you some of the most exciting businesses that are operating in this fast-moving sector…

Buzzmove

Once you’ve signed a contract on a new home, physically making the move can often be the most stressful part of the process. Buzzmove makes it as simple as three easy steps, instantly connecting its customer’s removals companies in their area that are appropriate for their requirements, for the best possible rate. Buzzmove has proven to be so successful that it just secured £6m in seedfunding!

Splittable

The rental market continues to boom, with many people choosing to live in shared accommodation with friends, or sometimes with strangers. No matter how close you are to your roommates, the issue of who pays for what can often cause unnecessary dispute. However, bills must be paid and Splittable can help to put arguments at bay, clearly managing and allocating household expenses in an easy to use app.

Reposit

Paying a tenancy deposit is expensive, and stressful. Generation Rent need a better option. By developing trust, automation and financial innovation, Reposit provide a service that lowers this cost making moving and living easier and more affordable. A simple fee of one week’s rent waives the deposit taking proess. Tenants remain liable, but if they fail to pay Reposit cough up. You may ask why would tenants bother to look after the place if their liability is limited? Many people will rely on renting for extended periods for various reasons. Therefore, a CCJ, or bad landlord reference could hurt the tenant for years. It’s in the the tenants interest to look after your home and then they get to use Reposit all over again in their next rental.

No Agent

It would be rude of me to write a post about the most exciting proptech companies and not even include my own! Let me introduce you to No Agent, an easy to use rental platform for modern landlords. We take care of every step of the property management process, from advertising your property to administration and paperwork, even supporting our clients with our 24/7 support. We are aware of how frustrating it can be for landlords to deal with a property manager, which is why we created ‘No Agent’ to transform the way that landlords rent their properties, for good. Get started with full property management on your behalf for a maximum of £39 per month.

These four companies are just at the tip of the proptech iceberg, as this exciting industry continues to grow with more and more developments every day. Now you know what proptech is, do you use any of the apps and services to come out of this sector?

Do you know some even more incredible proptech companies that I should add to my list? I’d love to hear your thoughts on #proptech!

For me, I believe strongly it’s down to how you’re raised; the morals you’re plied with, the support you receive and the ethics you learn that stay with you for life. My parents were an inspiration to me, and below are some ideas you may want to take from the experiences I had in order to encourage your kids to be creative too….

Introduce the concept of work & reward: When I was a child, my Mum used to price up chores. Bringing in the milk earned me 10p, whilst doing the dishes was 30p, and it was up to me how much I earned and what I did with my money. Manageable chores for kids teach that money has to be earned and give a sense of achievement when they “get paid” for the work they’ve done. Some suggestions of manageable “pay-worthy” jobs for kids could include:

• Tidying their rooms
• Emptying the bins
• Walking the dog
• Sweeping the floor
• Washing the car

This will teach your kids that dedication reaps rewards, and they’ll look forward to earning their own money by working. Rewards are what we all aim for, whether we’re 8 or 28 and although those 30p goals rise in accordance with our age (if we’re lucky!) the core of them remains the same. There’s no point in giving an allowance to kids and thinking they’ll be able to creatively come up with concepts to earn money, when you’ve just given them some for existing….

Teach your kids to listen to and appreciate others: When I was 13, my family relocated to a home with more than 30 people. My Mums job was as a warden for people in advanced years that were in sheltered housing. This, I believe, was one of the major stepping-stones for the path my life took. I firmly believe that the most valuable knowledge doesn’t come from classrooms or textbooks but from the experiences of others. By simply listening to people who have much life experience, you learn to appreciate difference in people and much more about life than you ever could in other ways. This listening and learning can help your children in business, to know what a potential customer needs is as valuable as gold dust and by listening to them, (and I mean really listening) you have much more idea of how to give them what they want. This can only lead to good things!

Encourage openness & honesty: My Dad is one of my main inspirations as a business person and the man I am today. He has proven himself to be honest, understanding and tolerant. Children learn so much more from their parents themselves than the lessons they purposely try to teach; they learn who they are and they aspire to be the same. A parent is a child’s biggest role model – children won’t remember what you tried to teach, but who you were. Be creative, and you’ll inspire creativity. Be enterprising, and you may just inspire the next great entrepreneur.

Teach good humour: My parents and having loads of aunties & uncles always taught me how to joke and laugh, this has set within me the boundaries of humour as I’ve grown as well as equipping me with confidence and understanding – vital elements to success. When applying this to your work, you’ll find you can build business relationships more easily, and be that person everyone wants to talk to- ideal when networking!

Support crazy ventures: I look back and cringe at many business ventures, such as running an online club for my pet hamster (seriously, it did happen!), a hotline where I charged 50p for game cheat codes (and my mum was confused to why loads of local kids were calling our spare room phone) but I also look back with appreciation and thanks to my parents for never letting me know just how crazy my ideas were. Of course i’m sure Mum and Dad will have known the some of the ideas were set to fail, but none the less they supported me throughout and this taught me the risk, diversity and discovery which is what entrepreneurship is all about.

Encourage the talents you may not understand: I don’t come from parents who are technologically savvy. However, once they noticed my passion and desire for all things technical they nurtured and encouraged this in all the ways they could. They even took out credit to buy me my own PC and were massively excited at all the things I learnt on my PC, even though they probably didn’t have a clue what I’d achieved with HTML and PHP. Support your child’s excitement with something they’ve achieved, and validate it by doing so. You’re giving them permission to think big, and they’ll thank you for it.

So next time your son or daughter wants to set up a shop selling very bitter lemonade outside your house, then give them a hand. This business venture may well not work out, but you never know, it could pave the way for the next Alan Sugar!

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Calum Brannan is a 25 year old entrepreneur. The founder of one online social media course SO ME Academy and other ventures. Photo Credit: jDevaun

The video features key attributes that make a successful viral. It begins with very emotive scenes of child-birth and unconditional happiness, it even features humor with film maker Jason Russell’s son bringing a smile to the viewer’s face. But very quickly this video takes a turn the dark-side gripping its viewers with a scene of a child and soldier sending shivers down your spine.

Most successful virals tend to be short, few are less than 30 seconds long. Nine out of Ten of the all time most popular Youtube hits are also music videos.

So what made this video such a hit?

• Viewers are shown ‘Share’ buttons in the first few seconds almost subliminally, now i’m not a psychologist, but one could hazard a guess this helps plant that seed.
• This video is emotive, its a roller-coaster of happy to sad to shock
• Film maker Russell invites the viewer to participate in an experiment, and the use of the word ‘We’ and ‘Us’ instantly builds a sense of community and is very personal
• Another point to note is a younger Russell from a clip a few years ago makes a ‘promise’ to a child, and I personally was amazed he could make such a promise, you feel that you almost want to help
• The end of the video provides clear instructions on how you can help, leading with financial ones first, then powerfully suggests that the least you can do is ‘Share’ the video
• There has also been critics who are shouting that the facts are wrong, this sort of debate and emotive reactions are simply more fuel to the fire for this social media blaze.

This is my verdict live on the 10pm news for Al Jezeera TV

Below I’ve prepared a glossary of terms, enjoy.

The Pinterest Glossary

Pins – Pins are images from around the web or those uploaded from your PC that are then added to Pinterest.

Boards – Boards are collections of pins. Just like a noticeboard in your office, it can have lots of Pins attached to them. Boards are sorted into subjects like architecture, cars, weddings, interiors or brands.

Repin – To repin on Pinterest is to copy a Pin to a different board, such as one you have created yourself, you could move a lovely plant from a board called ‘Green things’ to your own board called ‘For my garden’.

Like – You also have the option to “like” a pin. When you “like” an image it is added to the Likes section of your profile, but is not added to one of your boards or shared with your followers.

Pinner – A pinner is a user of Pinterest.

Follow a pinner – On a user’s profile you can either follow just one of that Pinner’s boards by clicking the “follow” button at the bottom of the board. Or if you’d like to follow everything a user pins, click the “follow all” button under their profile picture.

Mention a pinner – Just like Twitter, you can mention fellow Pinterest users in the comments of your pins by using the @ symbol and the username of the pinner you want to mention.

And of course, follow me on Pinterest here.

Some of the metrics have been removed, and some new ones were introduced. On the 15th of February 2012, the data for the removed metrics was permanently deleted. Here’s a roundup:

Demographics

While the ‘active users’ were all the users who viewed or clicked on any content on your brand’s page, the new metrics introduced the ‘storytellers’. Storytellers are those people who engaged with the page and as a result a ‘story’ about their engagement appeared on someone’s news feed. Engagement that generates stories includes any of the following actions: posting on the brand’s timeline, commenting on a post on the brand’s page wall, liking content on the brand’s wall, mentioning the brand page or checking on the Facebook place set up for your brand.

Sources

Facebook will not provide sources for comments or likes anymore, but instead has introduced a detailed breakdown of how your fans are distributed:

– Page suggestion: People who liked your page through an invite from an admin
– Timeline: People who liked your page from the likes section of their own timeline or someone else’s
– Ads: People who clicked “Like” in an Ad or Sponsored Story pointing to your Page
– Registration: People you added to your page as admins will be a separate category
– Mobile: People who liked your page from a mobile device
– Wizard suggestion: People who liked your page in the New User Wizard when registering for Facebook
– Profile connect: People who liked your page on the page itself or in a News Feed or ticker story
– External connect: People who liked your page from an external site using a Facebook social plugin
– Recommended pages: People who liked your page from a Recommended Pages unit on the right column of Facebook
– Favorites: Other brand pages that have liked your page
– API: People who liked your page through an app developed by a third party
– Page browser: People who liked your page using Facebook’s Page Browser
– Hovercard: People who liked your page from the pop-up window they get when they hover over a link that leads to your page
– Search: People who liked your page from their search results
– Page profile: People who liked your page on the page itself
– Ticker: People who liked your page from a story they saw about it in Ticker
– Like story: People who liked your Page from a story they saw about a friend liking it
– Video flyout: People who liked your Page from a video flyout
– Page creation: People who liked automatically by creating your Page
– From coupon: People who liked your Page from a coupon

Engagement

Facebook insights will not explicitly provide the number of posts, comments, likes, link clicks, photo views, video plays anymore. Instead the link clicks, photo views and video plays and other clicks can be found under the number of consumptions which represent engagements that did not generate a story in a news feed. The exact number of posts, comments or likes as well as the number of people that did these actions will not be available directly, but under an aggregated form: the number of stories that were generated by each of these actions.

Negative Feedback

Perhaps the most important change to Facebook’s insights is the introduction of the concept of negative feedback as a result of an engagement. Negative feedback includes the following types of actions:

– People that hide all stories related to a brand page
– People that hide a certain story
– People that unlike a brand page
– People that report an object as a spam

Our software will reflect these changes in the way it collects Analytics for your social media activity. We will also continue to provide the number of both incoming and outgoing posts, comments, post likes or comment likes, which won’t be visible directly from the Facebook Insights anymore.

Google; the site that gives us what we want when we want it.

Search for pizza, you get pizza. 545 million lots of pizza to be almost exact. Starting from what Google thinks is relevant moving to the not so hot.
Search for a plumber in London, hey presto, you got plumbers.

And now Facebook wants to do exactly that – give us what we want, or at least what it thinks we want- but, its an educated guess, taught by you.

The difference is- Facebook is doing it socially, with your friends and the apps you interact with.

But is ‘educated guessing’ what Google has actually been doing for years? The answer is yes. Today Facebook announced that it is implementing a ‘content algorithm’ to deliver us content based on the people and things* we interact with, like and want to see. We can refine this by staring and hiding stuff we do and don’t want.

Google has gotten good at doing this by analysing data by the masses, who clicked what; did you come back for more search results, or was it content you found what you wanted? And they’re getting publically more personal – +1 etc.

Facebook is doing this for your friends.

It’s now tuning into our exact needs through the same data mining and clever insight that Google has used to deliver its search results, except it just got a whole load more personal.

Now as you’d expect, everything today is social.

– We arrange events (on Facebook)
– We post photos to Flickr, Instagram (and Facebook)
– We download voucher codes on VoucherCloud (and Facebook)
– We connect with brands (on Facebook)

So of course Google wants a bit of the action, and so it should, it’s simply where the world is going. Hello Google+.

Is Facebook rushing to react to Google+ by releasing lots of ideas?

My answer is probably not. Zuckerberg has had that look on his face that tells me this has been his vision from day dot- think back to the beacon days- data mining of your online habbits to deliver you ads and content.

You’ve seen the chaos Facebook has faced when they release tiny amendments, so in essence it looks like they’ve been drip feeding their massive user base (half a billion active daily users) where as Google has the joy of just simply dropping in and saying ‘hey’ look at us.

Who will win the community insight race? It’s too early to tell.

It’s the king of search (what you want when you want it) vs the king of social– and the boundaries are bluring.