We met today and set a firm launch date of December 1, 2005 for HousingNewswire in Chicago.

The site will be far from feature-complete at launch, but it will offer enough to delight users.

Many threads need to be woven together for HousingNewswire to launch successfully. Which comes first?

The people and businesses that generate housing news releases want to get their releases to the attention of the media. We need media people to pay attention to HousingNewswire and to begin clucking about its benefits. They won't do that unless HousingNewswire aggregates a substantial body of news release content and provides fresh eggs daily.

Where will that content come from? We're asking a few building industry leaders to engage in what Coleridge called a "willing suspension of disbelief" and test a more public form of public relations.

We met with one of those leaders this morning. Garrison Partners is a top-tier builder-marketing services firm that represents dozens of new construction developments in more than a dozen states. As such, it is a key influencer in the purchase of traditional public relations services for the developments iti represents.

The staff of Garrison Partners grasped the benefits of HousingNewswire and will, it appears, help us secure the content we need for a successful launch.

Media Guerrilla looks at some of the pricing pressures on public relations in light of blogging and other changes in the landscape, and links to a variety of resources for DIY PR.

I had breakfast today with one of the brightest and savviest people in Chicago's real estate advertising community. We'll call him adosaurus rex for purposes of this post.

I talked about HousingNewswire, and the potential it holds for his home builder clients.

Adosaurus rex saw an asteroid in every point of light I tried to shine on the subject. Everything I saw as an opportunity, he saw as a threat. Change, in his view, threatened extinction.

Disruptive technologies marginalize people who fear the changes they portend. Adosaurus rex won't become extinct very soon, but he may soon become irrelevant.

In the meantime, I'll be breakfasting a few more of his species.