So, I wanted to see if I could transfer my mom’s DVR box to my account, I went the route most comfortable and chatted with an online support person. I was then told to stop by a local service center,so I did.  When I walked in, I walked toward the counter and was told to wait, while the one person who wasn’t serving a customer fiddled with her paper address book. Then after a few minutes, let me asked what I needed and I told her, she then explained to me that I needed to call the local office and give them the serial number on the bottom of the box,the only local number I can find isn’t actually always a local person, it’s like dialing the 800 number. I finally got around to doing that, and was told, my best option was to just drop off her box, and ask for one for me. Well, fine, that’s what I’ll do, but it would be nice if I didn’t have to go through three different people and waste my gas to find that out, the first person should have said that, so I am back to square one, awesome.

So, I’ve been curious about Yerba Mate tea for quite some time, haven’t got around to actually trying any yet, however, the other day on Facebook I discovered something that caught my eye. It’s called MateVeza… As in Mate beer! No joke, someone had the idea to brew Yerba Mate tea, into a dark lager beer “that won’t let you down”

MateVeza was conceived in 2004 by homebrewer Jim Woods after he fortuitously followed a sip of freshly brewed yerba mate with a hoppy pale ale in his San Francisco apartment. No stranger to creating his own beer recipes, sparks flew for Jim, as the contrasting flavors of yerba mate, hops and malt came together to create a delicious and truly unique beer drinking experience. Woods had first learned about yerba mate from his cousin and later experienced the yerba mate culture firsthand when he himself had the privilege of traveling to Argentina.

Sounds interesting! If you’ve read my blog in the past, I am always curious about strange lesser known beers and microbrews.

Sadly though, right now I can’t get it in Florida.

They also have an Ale, which is actually what I found on Facebook.

I was thinking today, Jeff Jarvis is all about openness, and transparency, in most circumstances I understand, and agree, but as far as real estate agents go, if the MLS was as open as say, Craigslist, and anyone could post a listing on it. That would be a bad thing! Why, you ask? Simple, another thing he does not seem to take into consideration, a little thing that is ALL OVER Craigslist called fraud, Craigslist is FULL of not just real estate fraud, but all kinds of fraud. Not that there isn’t fraud that happens in real estate anyway, but it would be A LOT worse if just anyone could post a listing on MLS. Of course, just because there is fraud, doesn’t make it right, and people who commit fraud should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

The reason Mr. Jarvis that real estate agents charge commission, has nothing to do with MLS, it’s because of the work they do, which is far from “little work”.

In his book, he says that he knows there are good agents out there, and he would work with one that would charge a flat fee like the discount brokers instead of a commission. That isn’t always up to the agent Mr. Jarvis, that is the company, and it is true, that most real estate companies take most of the commission. That’s not the case with Magnolia Properties.

There are also several things, that Jeff Jarvis fails to take into account when he refers to real estate agents, is the fact that most real estate companies, actually take a large cut of the agent’s commission, so they don’t make nearly as much as he claims, and honestly the 6% he refers to is nothing, if you take into account, that the company that holds the agent’s license takes a large cut of that.

He also does not take into account, the various fees that an agent also has to pay, to the association, to insurance companies for Errors and Omissions insurance, plus a lot of companies even charge them for desk space and their use of office resources.  So in the end, the agent does not get nearly as much as Jeff Jarvis claims for doing “little work”.

I’d like proof Mr. Jarvis, that my mother working from dawn to dusk everyday, is doing “little work”.

The last day or so I have been listening to, yes that’s right Leo Laporte, I said LISTENING TO, because you do not READ audio, the audiobook version of Jeff Jarvis’ book “What Would Google Do?”. Even though I have yet to listen to the entire thing, I would still highly recommend this book, It’s an interesting look at the changes companies like Google have brought to the world, thanks to the Internet, like Dell and Starbucks putting up sites for their customers to voice ideas.

Now, compared to Jeff Jarvis, who also blogs on his own site BuzzMachine I am pretty much a nobody blogger, who rarely gets any real comments left on the blog. That said, I have had companies like Belkin actually put two and two together with an issue I had with an iPod case breaking when I fell down the stairs, and made good on it by calling me and offering to send a replacement case as long as I edited my post. Wow, me nobody blogger me, people from Comcast have reached out to me too, once when I had a problem with my wifi and my Xbox 360 due to bad weather though I had not explained that the wifi router was actually above the garage detached from the house. I don’t live there anymore, I live in a condo now.

Now on to the meat of this post, which is my  beef with Mr. Jeff Jarvis.  A few times on This Week in Google and in his own book, he has stated that real estate agents make commission for doing little work.  I challenge you Jeff Jarvis, to come down to Florida and spend a day with my own mother,  or one of the 200 some odd Magnolia Properties agents, who work every single day, from the minute they wake up to the minute they go to bed. I am the IT department for that company, my paycheck was made possible by that company, and so therefore the thing you seem to state as fact, when it’s not, has even made it possible for me to buy your book. All you’ve done is ride around in the car with an agent, you do not see the work they do when you are not around. My mother is what we call a “working broker” not only does she have her own company, but she also has to sell houses herself in order to pay the bills and put food on the table, but she can’t do it all herself, and because she also runs the business, she has office staff that sometimes make appointments for her. My mother has not had a single day off of work for years. She has no real weekends! When she’s in the car, watching TV, eating dinner, doing anything else, she’s working.

Sorry, but I am going to tell you that from experience, of being around the industry as long as I have, living in it, but being slightly separate from it because I am not an agent myself, that you are wrong. I am sorry to even say this to you because I respect your views on the changing economy, and I love how things have changed this day and age.

Also, when you say that discount brokerages now having access to MLS is a good thing, I disagree with you there as well, because they take business away from the hard working agent. I yell at my TV every time a Buy Owner commercial is on. It is not a good thing at all.