In this weekend’s New York Times, an interview with Frederick Peters, the head of Warburg Partnership, illustrates clearly how the world of real estate brokerage has changed forever.

“I remember a time many years ago when I started doing e-mail blasts to the brokerage community, announcing new properties I was listing,” says Leonard Steinberg, managing director of Prudential Douglas Elliman and publisher of Luxuryletter. “Frederick Peters called me, somewhat outraged that I was using the e-mail system to do this. At that time, even Warburg’s website was an annoying distraction. Now, Frederick Peters is on Facebook, Tweets and is as tech-savvy as any 18 year old tech start-up geek! Now with “Selling New York”, will he be the next Danielle Staub?”

One does have to admire a company leader that at one time may have remained stuck in the past, who now embraces the new world whether we like it or not. Whether we think Fred’s “Housewives-of-New Jersey-style-reality-TV” debut into “Selling New York” is something we think is great is a whole other story. There is no reality in REALITY TV, and unfortunately we think the distortions of reality are counter-productive. Then again, reality TV is the info-mercial of the 2000’s and can be food for brand recognition.

So while the old world of brokerage, the broker-to-broker chatter, the listing systems, the broker open houses, etc, will continue as from the past, now the web, blogs and all things electronic and cyber will be entrenched into the industry…..until the next great thing comes along.