Realtor.com Blogs…. The Horror
August 28th, 2007 Deeper Thoughts
Realtor.com now hosts/promotes some craptacular real estate blogs as the best in the business. The Real Estate Bloggers and Jonathan Dalton comment.
My view all it takes is one dumbass taking a dump in a swimming pool and the whole pool needs to have the water filtered through again before its safe to swim in again. Just as real estate bloggers are starting to generate some mass media respect, this is likely going to be a first real estate blog visit experience for millions of real estate consumers. Now that first experience is going to be shockingly bad.
I mean seriously, this is todays post, the very first thing a consumer will see signing up for the RSS feed today is a post on how to link.
Let me say that again very very slowly.
The first thing… A consumer will see Is a post.
ON HOW TO LINK IN A BLOG POST.
If these really are The Best Blogs In Real Estate, whats with the baby food and coated spoons explaining how to link??!?
I can only imagine the nightmare it must be trying to staff the helpdesk there.
/fade in
HELP DESK: Thanks for calling the help desk, how can we help you?
CALLER: My screen is all black and I cant write my blog.
HELP DESK: Thats a common problem, lets see if we can sort it out. Please hold just one moment.
Help desk guy finishes minesweeper level.
HELP DESK: Thanks for holding. Tell me, do you see any lights on the screen anywhere near the buttons?
CALLER: No I dont.
HELP DESK: Are you the first one in the office this morning?
CALLER: Yes I am.
HELP DESK: Ok, I want you to look on the monitor for a button that has a picture of a circle, with a line pointing up on it.
CALLER: Ok I um, oh I see it.
HELP DESK: Can you push that button for me?
CALLER: Oh! Its working! Thank you!
HELP DESK: Youre welcome, is there anything else I can help you with today?
CALLER: Ohhhh, whats my password? It says I have to put in a password, but its been three weeks since I wrote my blog.
HELP DESK: Is it your birthday?
CALLER: No my birthday is in March.
HELP DESK: No I mean is your password your birthday?
CALLER: Oh, no.
HELP DESK: The name of your kids? The name of your dog?
CALLER: Oh I remember! Thanks!
/fade out
If I was prone to conspiracy thinking, Id say this was a deliberate attempt to flood the real estate blog airwaves and drown out the feisty mouthy free spirits who currently make up the general core of real estate bloggers. If you werent aware, were not exactly the NAR/Realtor.com fanbase here.
The more reasonable explanation is Realtor.com is afflicted with magical thinking and is simply going to attract other magical thinking realtors into parting with their money. The result being amazingly pathetic blog content as while the basics are effortless, mastery is a much harder trick.
Its like confusing buying a Indy Car and actually racing in the Indy 500. One just requires money, the other effort, commitment and lets be honest here actual talent.
On the other hand, MOTHER OF FLUFFY BUNNIES, what the FLUFFY BUNNIES is a direct FLUFFY BUNNIES link from Realtor.com worth?
Based on the way a posse immediately disrobed and started making daisy chains to get points on Trulia (cf Jay Thompson Why Trulia Voice Drives Me Crazy!) I can only assume that some sort of a posse will form up and ride on over to Realtor.com.
That being said OMG I cant stand the thought of yet one more social networking anything.
August 28th, 2007 at 9:09 pm
Athol - please stop sugar-coating things and tell us how you *really* feel….
Brilliant post!
The realtorDOTcom “featured” blog in my slice of Phoenix suburbia was absolutely…. well, I’m not sure if I have the proper vocabulary for it. Let’s just say, “appalling”.
August 29th, 2007 at 5:51 am
Athol, you just don’t want to give credit where it’s due. R.com looked at ActiveRain and knew they needed to act quickly. And, with their huge member pool, a few of which don’t have blogging expertise….there’s a great opportunity here.
For a small extra monthly fee, REactiveREfrain (no reflection on REagent :)) will provide you with blog posts, thus making the experience much less time-consuming.
“{MyTown} real estate is bucking the national trend. The time is NOW to buy a home in {MyTown}!”
Instructions: Replace {MyTown} with your town’s name. Oh yes, don’t leave the brackets.
August 29th, 2007 at 6:32 am
Right on, man. The whole “social anything all the time” trend in real estate doesn’t seem to do much except distract a lot of the non-top producers from doing their actual job (helping people buy and sell real estate) and prevent them from actually becoming top producers.
Also, if I see one more career coach who’s actually not out there selling real estate… I’ll just cry.
August 29th, 2007 at 7:35 am
I don’t know Jim, it’s not like Active Rain was happening under a rock. R.com is about a year late to the party.
It’s may very well turn out okay for R.com and the realtors invovled, but I really believe all the really decent real estate bloggers are inwardly driven to write. That simply can’t be trained.
Stock posts will taste of plastic.
Even Active Rain seems like a huge real estate slush pile now, I just can’t get into it. It’s not something simple to nagivate like a Wikipedia site with the information polished and presented.
Or am I just grumpy?
August 29th, 2007 at 7:49 am
You’re a little grumpy, and I’m losing my ability to satirize.
Wasn’t it Alan Dalton that not very long ago criticized the real estate community for not answering their emails promptly? I believe he said that R.com might step in and help in some sort of routing scheme to those that respond well. “Respond well”, when dealing with R.com, would probably mean those who pay extra for top position in their area’s email referral list.
I wish he’d tackled that issue before starting this blogging mess.
Now you’ve done it….I’m grumpy too!
August 29th, 2007 at 8:13 am
Oh my bad Jim. I’m a little tired here, so misread you a little. Try…
/satire on
/satire off
commands. Works a treat explaining your intent to dimwitted or otherwise sleepy readers.
August 29th, 2007 at 8:20 am
It’s no wonder you’re tired, whose clock is wrong on the time with these comments? Or are you on a boat in the next time zone west of CA?
I like that /satire on/off thing.
August 30th, 2007 at 11:41 am
Athol,
It’s the first wave of “refrigerator magnets” hitting the RE Blog-o-sphere! KW announced a deal with Top Producer for their agents and today I received another anouncement from TOP AGENT Tool Box to sign up for their
“No-Cost Real Estate Web Blogging Mini Course”. The Tomato even launched a “Broker Blog” for magnets. Geez, I’m already starting to look for the NEXT best thing in technology for RE, cause this is going to get really crapped up fast!
September 2nd, 2007 at 3:02 pm
[...] Athol Kay, Realtor.com Blogs…. The Horror [...]
September 2nd, 2007 at 3:12 pm
Athol:
Brilliant! I am chuckling and groaning at the same time. It is not the technology that is holding real estate agents back from blogging.
More likely culprits: Time, commitment, skill, interest, voice and focus.
September 2nd, 2007 at 4:08 pm
“craptacular”. LOL !!
September 2nd, 2007 at 4:21 pm
I haven’t looked much at their blogs but i would have to say your obersvations are spot on
I stumbled upon a R.com blog and it is just a joke.
I didn’t even both reading the content because the blog is ‘iframed’ into their page and looks like crap.
September 2nd, 2007 at 4:26 pm
i forgot to post the link
http://www.linseyplaneta.com/frm/3580/linsey_s_blog/
You have to see the patheticness of this blog
September 3rd, 2007 at 9:51 am
Too, too funny Athol, and spot on.
September 3rd, 2007 at 11:10 am
Thanks for all the comments everyone. I appreciate it.
September 15th, 2007 at 9:16 pm
Athol, thank you for making me LAUGH OUT LOUD. The minesweeper was too much. Most of us won’t have a clue as to how to present blogs like your own, but at least the whole movement gets blogs like yours out there. Thanks!