Spencer's Blog

I was on Fox Business yesterday discussing the latest housing data, Fannie & Freddie, and other real estate topics.  

Very interesting documentary about why software patents are a threat to innovation. 30 minutes long, but worth watching if you're interested in this sort of thing.   Hat tip to @fredwilson.   Video: Patent Absurdity - Dokumentarfilm (28:54)

The new OS for iphones (and soon ipads), iOS4 is now out. If you have an iphone and you haven't updated your OS, it's time to synch your phone to itunes on your computer. Beware -- it took me over an hour for the synch to be complete. Plenty of technology reviewers have written about the benefits...

Whenever I blog about foreclosures or loan mods or negative equity, commenters on this blog usually point out that the only way out of this mess is through principal reductions of underwater mortgages. Well here's the academic research (courtesy of the Federal Reserve) to prove it. Second Chances...

I love Netflix, as a customer and as a business observer. They've built an incredible brand and an incredible company by pioneering a new category (DVD delivery by mail). But they've also managed to pivot their business dramatically to stay in front of the trend towards digital delivery of conten...

Zillow was very proud to win a Webby Award for Best Real Estate site this week, and Justin Scott picked up the award with style. The Webbys has a very strict 5-word max acceptance speech policy, which Justin adhered to quite well. In addition to enjoying Justin's 5 word speech, I liked the intro ...

How Did a Domestic Housing Slump Turn into a Global Financial Crisis?

Zillow data shows that about 1 in 5 homeowners with a mortgage is now upside down on their loan based on our latest home value data. But here's the really scary stat: that huge negative equity number means that the homeownership rate in the US is actually much lower than we think. The homeownersh...

There is a lot on Zillow that you can do to market your listings and yourself, for free.  But what if you really want to stand out?  What if you want to grow the number of leads generated on the site?  What if you want to maximize your exposure to the nearly 11 million people that visit Zillow ea...

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