Unveiling the Digital Evolution of REALTOR® Magazine Media
“This week, REALTOR® Magazine continues its digital transformation, with all its content moving 100% online under the digital hub “REALTOR® Magazine Media.”
The winter 2025 issue will be the last print edition.”
I know it’s been a month since this news broke but I wanted to say a couple things about this announcement. There was a time where being on the back cover of REALTOR Magazine was a thing. I’m talking about the late 90s. This was before “the web”. In fact we still had registration cards in the boxes of the software we sold that users would mail (as in using a pen and licking a stamp) in to get notified of any updates/upgrades. You sold software in person, or via an “800” number.
At that time I had co-founded my first real estate software company, IRIS, and we had a product called Lightning CMA Plus. The biggest third party software company at the time was Top Producer Systems. Their product, Top Producer, was by far the biggest third party software company in the space. They typically were the main company that advertised on the back of REALTOR Magazine.
As a young entrepreneur my aspiration was to have a company large enough to be able to afford the back cover of Realtor Magazine. In my eyes, that would mean, “we made it.”
We also advertised inside the magazine itself, I seem to remember of buying the “IBC”, Inside Back Cover in the parlance of the magazine ad salesman, a few times. And like the old saying goes, “Half the money, I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.”
We eventually did be able to buy the back cover. And I remember specifically being in a broker office at a meeting with their CTO and him asking about who we were. Seeing a REALTOR Magazine on the conference table I flipped that magazine around pointed at our ad, and said “that’s us”.
Later at another company we launched an ad campaign where we bought a centerfold ad in the magazine, which featured Fabio. But I’ve written about that story before.
I used to keep some of those old copies of REALTOR Magazine around in my garage, but somewhere in one of my moves I lost them or threw them out.
All this reminds me of a song…
“wanna see our pictures on the cover
(Stone) wanna buy five copies for our mothers (yeah)
(Stone) wanna see my smiling face
On the cover of the Rolling Stone”
-The Cover of the Rolling Stone by Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show
One day, paper magazines will make a comeback.