There is a thorough amount of interactivity, the information streams, and there is no more waiting in the mail for your latest issue.

For advertisers, content can be localized and interactive. Can you imagine taking out an ad spot on this tablet that allows the reader to browse your featured homes of the month… virtual tour, narration, and all?

I’d love to hear what you think about this… have a look.

Don't sell your haunted house!

As Halloween approaches, I thought this nice little bit of historical litigation was appropriate. In the 1991 case, Stambovsky v. Ackley, the New York Supreme Court ruled that the would-be purchaser of a home in Nyack, NY be reimbursed his initially forfeited down payment. Why? Because the house was haunted, of course.

Jeffrey Stambovsky, of New York City, was interested in a house for sale until he found out it was haunted. He made an offer, put down a $32,500 down payment, and then refused to attend the closing once he found out that the house- located 1 LaVeta Place- was haunted. He demanded that he be reimbursed his down payment, citing that the fact that the house was haunted wasn’t previously disclosed to him.

Helen Ackley, owner of the home in question, had previously advertised her house as having been haunted. She claimed that poltergeists roamed the halls of the lovely dwelling, and that her bed would be violently shaken every Spring (the ghosts didn’t like waking up early that particular season).

After a much publicized case, which was initially dismissed in lower court, the Supreme Court of New York ruled that, since the house was publicly advertised as having been haunted, it affected the overall value of the home. Subsequently, Mr. Stambovsky was  awarded the return of his down payment. Or, as the Court put it:

Where, as here, the seller not only takes unfair advantage of the buyer’s ignorance but has created and perpetuated a condition about which he is unlikely to even inquire, enforcement of the contract (in whole or in part) is offensive to the court’s sense of equity. Application of the remedy of rescission, within the bounds of the narrow exception to the doctrine of caveat emptor set forth herein, is entirely appropriate to relieve the unwitting purchaser from the consequences of a most unnatural bargain.”

More of the story can be read in this Wikipedia article.

To say it in practical terms, Facebook Connect is what could be compared to a virtual European Union. Several entities are providing the capability for users to streamline various media outlets and sites via Facebook as a platform.

What does this mean to you? If you’re not familiar with Digg, I suggest you vist their site here. For those already familar, it will place what your friends have dugg into their news feed for you to see.

If your feed is anything like mine, there are tons of news links posted everyday that I have to sort through, deciding what’s worth clicking and what isn’t.  With this new feature, I’ll now be able to see what news pieces are popular amongst my friends, giving at least some indication of my level of desire to actually click through to the new post.

Facebook Connect also partnered with a few other sites, such as tech crunch and joost.

The first official entry will be outlining my experience at the 2009 annual Leading Real Estate Companies of the World conference in Scottsdale, Az.

I will also be announcing the first of many many monthly contests, so get ready for the fun to begin!