[T]echnology: Meta Wants a Seat on Your Couch
[E]ducation: Deep Dish Data Fight
[C]oaching: The Halftime Speech
[H]ow To: Not Work Alone
I may have gotten a little carried away with the Google Gemini images this week, sorry not sorry…
[T]echnology: Meta Wants a Seat on Your Couch
Instagram just put its TV app on Samsung TVs, its third rollout in about seven months after Fire TV and Google TV. Reels grouped into topic channels, Stories on the big screen, and tests for casting from your phone plus a dedicated home for horizontal video. They also said the quiet part out loud: they're exploring long form video, episodic series, and livestreams built for TV. 📺
Why is Meta copying someone else's homework? Because YouTube owns the living room now. Nielsen has YouTube at 12.5% of ALL US TV viewing...eleven straight months at number one. Bigger than Netflix. Bigger than Disney. And YouTube didn't build TV shows to get there. Viewers just started watching creator content on the biggest screen in the house, and YouTube followed them to the couch. 🛋️
Now, my first instinct was to say vertical video dies on a horizontal screen. Then I walk into my family room and, much to my dismay, my kids are watching YouTube Shorts on the TV...a skinny vertical strip in the middle of a 65 inch screen with giant black bars on both sides...and it doesn't seem to bother them one bit. The next generation of buyers genuinely does not care that two thirds of the screen is empty.
But here's where my broker brain kicks in. 🧠 All that empty screen is real estate. What if, while your listing video plays in the middle, the rest of the screen filled in with stats about the community or a map showing exactly where the home sits? Yes, I know that might be wishful thinking on my part, but somebody at Meta or Google is going to figure out what to do with those black bars, and a home tour is about the best use case I can think of.
Here's what this means for your business.
When YouTube viewing moved to TV, the winners were creators who already had content worth watching from the couch. Home tours, neighborhood guides, and market explainers are exactly that. People already binge HGTV and scroll Zillow from the couch. If Instagram builds this out, "Living in Your City" content is what fills it...and almost no agents are making it.
And think about who's on the other side of that screen. 📱 Phone scrolling is one person, half paying attention. TV is couples and families watching together. That's the actual buying unit for a house.
The move today isn't waiting for Instagram to ship the fancy features. Keep making your vertical content, my kids just proved it plays fine on TV, but grab a horizontal version of your tours and market updates while the camera is already out. That works on YouTube right now, where the TV audience already lives, and it's sitting ready for Instagram the day these features roll out. Same content, two bets, and one of them is already proven.
[E]ducation: Deep Dish Data Fight
While you were prepping for your 4th of July cookout this holiday weekend, Zillow, Compass, and Chicago's MLS were in federal court fighting over something that affects every one of us: who actually controls your listings.
Quick catch up if you haven't been following... Zillow sued MRED (Chicago's MLS) and Compass back in May, claiming they conspired to cut off Zillow's listing access. The fight is over Zillow's Listing Access Standards...the policy that says if a home gets marketed privately before hitting the open market, Zillow won't display it when it does. Compass and MRED call that punishing seller choice. Zillow calls private listing networks a transparency problem. On May 20, MRED stopped threatening and actually pulled the plug. Chicago listings on Zillow dropped from nearly 5,000 to 699 in a few hours. A judge ordered the feed restored two days later, and now here we are. 🤷
Here's the part worth understanding, because the headlines will confuse people. This week's hearing was not the trial. It was a preliminary injunction hearing, which is basically the court deciding whether Zillow keeps its feed while the real case plays out. Both sides put executives on the stand, including Robert Reffkin himself. Briefs are due mid July and a ruling comes sometime after. The actual antitrust trial doesn't even have a date yet.
So why should you care about a Chicago courtroom if you sell in Ohio or anywhere else? Because whatever the judge decides becomes the playbook. MRED already expanded its private listing network nationwide with Compass, a second major MLS has threatened to cut Zillow's feed, and CoStar tried to jump into the case before the judge told them to stay in their lane. This is a three way fight between MLSs, mega brokerages, and portals over who controls listing data. 🥊 Notice who isn't at the table...you and your seller.
Two takeaways for your business. First, where a listing appears is now a strategy conversation, not a default setting. Your sellers are seeing the "Zillow doesn't have all the listings" ads, and they're going to ask. Be the agent who can explain private versus open marketing and what each one actually costs a seller in exposure. Second, look at that number again. Five thousand listings to 699 by lunchtime. If your entire lead pipeline runs through someone else's feed, somebody else's lawyer can turn it off. Your database, your content, and your relationships are the only distribution you actually own.
[C]oaching: The Halftime Speech
July 2nd. We are officially past the halfway point of 2026.
I know what the headlines look like right now. War, interest rates, affordability, portals suing MLSs. It's real easy to read all that and decide the market is the reason you're behind on your goals. But here's the thing...the market you read about isn't the market you sell in. Homes are closing in your town this week. The only question is whether your name is on any of them.
You've got less than six months left. Here are three things to do about it.
Run the math backward. 🧮
Most agents set a goal in January and haven't looked at it since. Pull it up. Take your annual goal, subtract what you've closed, and divide what's left by six months. If you needed 24 deals and you've closed 8, you don't have a "slow year"...you have a number: 16 closings, which is roughly 3 a month, which at your conversion rate is a specific number of conversations per week. Anxiety is vague. Math is actionable. You can't fix a feeling, but you can absolutely fix a number.
Audit the first half before you plan the second. 🧠
Look at every closing from January through June and write down where it actually came from. Not where you think your business comes from...where it came from. If 6 of your 8 deals came from your sphere and past clients, and zero came from the online leads you're paying for, your second half plan writes itself. Double down on what produced and cut what didn't. Halftime is when good coaches change the game plan, not when they run the same plays harder.
Book appointments, not opinions. 💬
Your sellers and buyers are reading the same scary headlines you are, and most of them are sitting on the fence waiting for someone to make sense of it. That's the opportunity. Call twenty people in your database and offer them a local market update...what homes are actually selling for on their street, what their equity looks like, what a payment really costs today versus what the news implies. The agent who explains the market wins the listing over the agent who complains about it. Every hour you spend consuming headlines is an hour somebody else spent on the phone.
Six months is a full season. Plenty of agents will make their entire year in the second half. Decide to be one of them.
[H]ow To: Not Work Alone
Tyler mentioned above but the year is halfway over…🤯
I really want you to take a moment and honestly think about where you are. Do you enjoy the environment you're in? Do you like the people you surround yourself with? Do you have a network of professionals in this industry who will support you when a transaction gets challenging or when you need advice?
One of the most valuable investments you can make as a real estate agent isn't just in marketing or lead generation, it's in building a strong sphere of fellow real estate professionals. 👫 Success in this industry can be incredibly rewarding, but it can also be challenging, emotional, and unpredictable. Having a trusted network of agents you can lean on, vent to, celebrate with, and ask for advice can make all the difference throughout your career.
It's easy to fall into the mindset that every other agent is your competition, but that perspective can limit your growth. Instead, view other agents as potential mentors, collaborators, and friends. Every agent has different experiences, strategies, and lessons they've learned along the way. 🎓
Ever since COVID, people have been more reluctant to come into the office and attend in-person events. However, the benefits of finding people you connect with in your office far outweigh the convenience of staying at home. Attend office events, participate in local networking opportunities, and make an effort to be a real estate friend to someone else. Building genuine relationships with other agents can lead to valuable advice, encouragement, referrals, and lasting friendships. Make sure you're in an office that encourages collaboration and offers events where you can connect with others. Choose a brokerage that promotes a supportive, relationship-driven culture rather than the opposite. If you aren't in a place that does that, leave.
Want high commission, a low cap, and real support to grow your business? Aspire is our exclusive program for motivated agents who are ready to scale fast with elite coaching and next-level tools
-Ty Morton + Abby G