Online Data Services

People like to buy stuff online.

The assumption is that the Internet contains a lot of data.

More price and product data means better purchasing decisions.

The tragedy is that the Internet data is often very unusual, representing only the thin slice of the job, housing, goods or labor market having marketers who choose to engage online marketing vehicles.

Zillow real estate data is old stuff coming off the MLS. In my opinion a purchase from the MLS is like leaving your door open when you live across the street from Mosswood Park. The real estate agents have total control.

Real estate associations are notorious for keeping certain properties on the databases and others off to serve the needs of their constituencies. For instance in Berkeley agents took many properties off the market during the dive to keep local values high.

Intraday brokerage price data recieved by the public reflects the trading prices the brokerage will take. If you compare the prices between any two brokerages they will be close but rarely the same. Not to mention the time delay between a request to execute a trade and time of execution is not reported. This time difference is time during which a brokerage may have enough time to find a better price for themselves before they sell it to you. The Rothschilds were recently sued in international courts for doing this within their own mutual funds.

Job sites are qualitatively each very unique. Indeed is a decent aggregator but still a traditional job site. LinkedIn provides you with jobs within your network and Jobfox uses a sophisticated model to determine your fitness for a position. These days good recruiters and hiring managers are using all of the above to cross reference applicants resumes in addition to corporate press releases relating to the uptake or release of talent.

Froogle has never worked for me but maybe you have had better luck. In any case online data services may provide more information but this has increased the work required to make decisions not decreased it. This has provided people with the tools to make more comparisons but we have to make the comparisons to take advantage of the information.

I say take the information super highway but stay in the far right lane or you may very easily miss your exit.

I thought you ought to know that.

-David Caro-Greene