Posted by: Leonard Steinberg, 11/21/2010

Have you noticed how markets have been reduced to entertainment in recent years? Did it start with Donald Trump who once upon a time was just a serious (seriously!)developer that morphed into a reality TV star?

When did we ever think that picking stocks could be akin to a Wheel of Fortune styled show with Jim Cramer spewing market advice like a character out of Punk’d?

Then what was once a guilty pleasure, looking at other peoples homes on line, became an HGTV show, and now I know of friends who watch that channel all day long, transfixed by the REALITY of the real estate world.

Well, maybe Grey’s Anatomy is no REAL insight into the lives of real doctors in real hospitals either. But with all this UN-real REALITY, I beg to answer the question: What is reality, and are we re-defining the meaning?

A brilliant example of how one can create one’s own reality is Sarah Palin, who with FOX, FACEBOOK and TWITTER communicates her message to the world, and in many ways avoids the immediate questioning that comes with the real world.

We have entered the era of MARKETAINMENT, a new era where what is real and what is fiction, what is created and what is natural will be much harder to define, and much more difficult to identify.

From a real estate broker’s perspective, I find this the most exciting prospect of all: now, more than ever before, the consumer will really have to rely on a trustworthy, informed source to edit through the un-reality of the new ‘real’ world.