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So I’m here at Inman Connect in NYC, and I have to say, I’m blown away by the speakers and content at this years event. Last year was good, but this year has been focused towards industry change, and that can only happen through leadership like Inman provides through education, events, and influence.

With that being said, I want to rethink an announcement that was made the other day. I’m talking about Facebook’s new Graph Search. At first I thought ok, great, another feature that I’m probably not going to utilize, but contains some merit. However, after today’s session, I want to go back and examine how this will (or could) impact the real estate industry.

First I want you to better grasp the concept. In my mind, this is an improved version of Siri. You ask, “What music do my friends like?” and it populates results based on your social stream. This is cool, but let’s take it a step further…

What if you asked, “What homes do my friends like?” Immediately you could see homes that your friends thought were cool. While homes are obviously quite different than a music preference, you still might find features of some homes that were “liked” or that you, yourself may discover are important to you. On the opposite end of the spectrum, this could become a feedback system for sellers and agents.

Going even deeper, what if you asked, “What Realtors have my friends used?” This is an instant testimonial and rating system that so many have tried to get right, but so many have failed to accomplish (correctly). What if it a service like Chris Smith & Jimmy Mackin’s new Curaytor (which is brilliant by the way) existed to aggregate data from Trulia & Zillow reviews,  Google +1′s, Facebook Likes, Angie’s List, and more?

The possibilities of social search and reviews are going to greatly change how we search, and how consumers decide to choose an agent.

My prediction is a rating and review system will emerge as a clear cut, trustworthy service, and the agents that skate by on a “one and done” mentality will slowly weed themselves out through poor reviews.

This leads me to my closing thoughts from Day 1 of Inman Connect. I believe it was Rich Barton (founder of Expedia & Zillow) today, who said, “Salesperson doesn’t have to give off a negative persona. My grandmother said if you tell the truth, you don’t have to worry about the story you told yesterday.” -This couldn’t be more true, and I hope this only encourages agents to Raise The Bar (RTB)!

Looking forward to another day of innovative thinking tomorrow!

-Tyler