realweenie

Something to Think About

I found this cartoon a couple of weeks ago and used it as part of a Friday post.  I mostly have fun on my blog on Friday becasue it makes me happy.  I don't really have a reason for having fun the other six days but I can make one up if needed.

Lets imagine that is is possible to become well known in some circles becasue of a blog.  Let me tell you a few of the things that might happen next.  Not sure how I know this but lets assume that I do and take it from there.

One thing that happens is that people, I think they are people, plagiarize entire blog posts, and put them on web sites that advertise their goods and services or on sites that just sell ads.  They use my content to make money, which is just wrong, even if they do give a link back.  I know this is a common problem but it seems to be getting worse.

I send out cease and desist emails, with a warning, giving them two to four hours to remove the material, depending upon what kind of a mood I am in, and inform them that if it isn't gone, I will be taking screen shots and writing a post about it.  My reasoning is that if they are using my name and content to sell products to the real estate community I can just as easily use my name and content to make them look really bad. So far my tactics are working, the posts are quickly removed, which is good becasue I don't always keep my word on the two to four hour thing.  Unfortunately I keep finding my content on  web sites and I am looking for a better solution so people get the message, leave my content alone.

The other thing that happens is my name and face are used to sell products, services or even for recruiting.  They don't ask my permission and I end up endorsing things that I would never endorse or recommend.  I do not own most of the material being used this way and have not yet figured out how to get my name off the sites.  I used to just leave it be but have decided that I don't want my name associated in any way with anything that I don't agree with. Personal choice, nothing more, but I made it and I don't think I will be changing my mind any time soon.

One company has decided to take responsibility for my successes and use them for advertising, which I find facinating because they have never asked me or even talked to me for that matter, and have nothing to do with any successes that I have had.  I find myself out there on one of the worst examples of a blog that I have ever seen, endorsing blogging. I am also promoting products and services on the site that I think are close to craptastic, but who knows they might work for some.

My face is posted on websites and blogs against my wishes.  If anyone wants to have their face plastered all over the internet my advice is to ask people not to take pictures and ask that they not be posted on the internet.  Asking people not to take picutres just about guarantees that anyone with a camera and internet access will take your picture and post it.  The worse the picture is, the more places it will be posted.   

My face does belong to me and I choose not to use it for marketing for obvious reasons, that I won't share, becasue I am not talking about it publicly.    The face belongs to me but the photos were taken by others and do not belong to me.  I don't have any control over how or where they are used, or what they are used for.  I never understood that by starting a blog or getting a real estate license I was giving the world my permission to use my picture.

If anyone wants to use my name or face to endorse a product, which of course they don't, they could contact me, and who knows, for a small fee I might just go along with it.  I think I will include this post with my next cease and desist email, along with a price list.  I am also considering skipping the cease and desist part and just taking the screen shots and writing the posts, or maybe I should just send a bill and let them keep going.

This entire post is of course hypothetical, but it does show that I have a vivid imagination and can at least imagine what it must be like to be a well known blogger, in some circles. 

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

Red Shirt Update

Found in the Re-Blogoshpere

"I own several red shirts, but only one of them is a dress shirt for a tie.  I have a red flannel shirt, two red T shirts one is the incredibles and one is Thing 1.  Finally there is the red winter fleece shirt with a zipper at the neck for those cold Arizona days when it gets under 70 degrees." - Dave Smith

Now we all know more about the man in the red shirt. Does he have shirts in other colors?  Is red his favorite color?  Does the shirt match his eyes?  Will he tell us more?  Why is his face so small?  So many questions so little time . . . .

Dave Responded to the post above with proof of shirt ownership:

Dave Smith really does own more than one red shirt.  He likes red shirts so much that he hangs them on a fence outside where everyone can see them and he takes pictures of them too.   Does anyone else have a shirt story they would like to share?

 

"I own several red shirts, but only one of them is a dress shirt for a tie.  I have a red flannel shirt, two red T shirts one is the incredibles and one is Thing 1.  Finally there is the red winter fleece shirt with a zipper at the neck for those cold Arizona days when it gets under 70 degrees." - Dave Smith

Now we all know more about the man in the red shirt. Does he have shirts in other colors?  Is red his favorite color?  Does the shirt match his eyes?  Will he tell us more?  Why is his face so small?  So many questions so little time . . . .

Dave Responded to the post above with proof of shirt ownership:

Dave Smith really does own more than one red shirt.  He likes red shirts so much that he hangs them on a fence outside where everyone can see them and he takes pictures of them too.   Does anyone else have a shirt story they would like to share?

The seven stages of real estate weeniedumb

By: Todd Carpenter

Stage one: Contribute to your own, independent blog. Stage one, being more like stage zero. The is real estate steak compared to real estate weeniedumb. If you want to waste time, money, and effort on the Internet, you're going to have to move beyond stage one.

Stage two: Contribute to someone else's blog. If your name is Chris, Paul, Mike, or Gina... move along. No need for you to read this stage.  :) I'm a proud stage-two weenie myself, blogging for the Inman News Blog, and occasional here at the Weenie. Do I get as much out of it as I put into it? Probably not. But at least two people bought me a beer when I told them I blogged for Inman at the Blogger's Connect parties this summer. So that's something. Blogging for others can be good, just make sure it's driving your own personal brand as well.

Stage three - Blog for Active Rain, and only Active Rain. Eventually, you want to drive your own customers to your blog. Do you really want to send them to a site with 50,000 other real estate agents?

Stage four - Blog for The Man. Who dominates in Google for real estate queries? Move.com. Who charges you to be a member of this merry club? Move.com. Who want's to let you blog for "free", thus boosting their own search engine relevance of their network of real estate domain names? Yep. Move.com. I don't know, it seems to me that bloggers who blog for The Man are helping Move to justify higher and higher membership/advertising rates. What does Move give you that Wordpress.com does not? Stage-four weeniedumb is starting to not make sense to me.

Stage five: Blogging for Google Love. First off, have you seen the two guys who created Google? I don't care how much money they have. The term "Google Love" grosses me out. Anyway, blogging for Google love is when you go type a bunch of words and stuff on a well ranked site like Active Rain for the sole purpose of creating some Google Juice (oh, wait, that sounds even worse) back to your blog. It's one thing if you are using a site like Active Rain to advocate a cause among your peers. It's one thing if you are writing good content for Localism. But if you are simply phoning it in, you are a stage-five weenie, and I'm officially starting to not like you.

Stage six - Leaving weak comments, or spam comments. "Great post man" is pure garbage. I know it, you know it, even Daisy knows it. At least try to add to the conversation. "Visit my site for more articles like yours" is pathetic. You're one step away from a spammer. All you are going to do is irk the blogger who's giving you the opportunity to comment in the first place. "Great investment opportunity in Costa Rica, costa rica real estate, real estate beach, costa rica condos. Visit us for more information at www.jaco-bay.com" is full fledged stage six weeniedumb. Leaving spam like that is liable to get you a serious case of Google Hate.

Stage seven - RIS Media ought to be ashamed of themselves for even putting this out there. If you are really willing to pay $2000 a month to commit stage two, three, four and five weeniedumb, then let me tell you about a well ranked mortgage industry blog with just as much Google love as RIS could ever give you. I also have a bridge in Brooklyn and some land in Florida that you might be interested in.

Thank You!

Todd Carpenter
mariah.com | bizomi.com | rembex.com | lenderama.com

Do you have something to say?  Put it on the Weenie, the evil blog cleverly disguised as a hot dog stand where anything goes . . . well almost anything . . . I really resent the term "weeniedumb"

Found in the Re-Blogoshpere

"I own several red shirts, but only one of them is a dress shirt for a tie.  I have a red flannel shirt, two red T shirts one is the incredibles and one is Thing 1.  Finally there is the red winter fleece shirt with a zipper at the neck for those cold Arizona days when it gets under 70 degrees." - Dave Smith

Now we all know more about the man in the red shirt. Does he have shirts in other colors?  Is red his favorite color?  Does the shirt match his eyes?  Will he tell us more?  Why is his face so small?  So many questions so little time . . . .

Got Bob?

I just want to tell you about Got Bob.   He  seems to always be there on the internet leaving kind, and funny comments and has often made my day, such as it is.   He has a great blog:  Focus on Frederick, and in addition to his wonderful sense of humor he is a fine writer.   His tag line is "Got Bob?"

Even after saying all this about Bob, I still have to put him on the weenie.  He left the graphic below as a comment to a post that I wrote on Active Rain.

Bob and I view the re-bloggoshere differently.  If he got to the end of it he would rewind, if I got to the end of it I would get a life.   Just the same I am sending him some link love from MN.  I think he is also one of my facebook, linked-in, twitter, digg friends so we must be pretty tight.

Over Heard in the Re Bloggosphere

"I have not joined one single social network today"

Kristal Kraft
Denver Real Estate - Relocation

Can you go for a day without joining a social network?

A Rose for Lani

Still laughing.  Sometimes I get interviewed.  OK, I have been interviewed a few times. Yup more than once is too much but you don't have to read it. . . . .  and no I don't get it either. 

I recently participated in Lani's bubble gum interview at Re Revealed.  It was different from the rest, I think Lani is too.  Different is a personality trait that I respect, admire and maybe even identify with.

None of the usual, what got you started blogging?, how long?, what kind of camera?, where do you get your ideas?, how much time do you spend? . . . .  can you give us some tips? . . . . stuff.

Lani asks important questions about hair and make-up and kittens, and puppies and movies.  Tough questions for me, but probably easy for most.   

Lani took the important information from the interview and wrote a summation.  She did such a good job that I am going to add it to my Bio:

"So, there you have it. Teresa is a kitten loving Realtor with a toddler’s attention span who makes up for feeding her dog lipstick by being able to effectively describe her job to a small child or dumb person."

Lani has several interviews on her site, see "Bubble Gum Interviews".  When she asks you for an interview, please say yes. 

Thank you Lani.

Plan A Head

Stop by the St. Paul Real Estate Blog on Friday October 12, 3007 for a special announcement.

Plan a head . . . plan a head . . .plan a head . . . plan a head . . . plan a head . . .plan a head . . .plan a head . . .plan a head . . .

Content is King and Worth Fighting For

Blog content written by real estate professionals is so desirable, that companies are fighting for it.  They can make money from it.

I am watching the blog posts and commentary on the Active Rain Vs. Move.com.  I read with fascination as Techcruch talks about Realtors suing Realtors.  They don't seem to understand that several entities are fighting to be thee destination for home buyers and home sellers and they are trying to accomplish this, at least in part, with free content generated by Realtors. They are not themselves Realtors, just companies trying to make a buck or two off of the real estate industry.  Techcrunch was dead on with their comments about how screwed up our industry is.

Of all  the posts I read,  I think I enjoyed Jonathan Dalton's the most "Some day my princess will come", because he seems to get that the fight is over content and who gets it, from real estate professionals for free so they can make money off of it.  I also enjoyed the sock puppets "Still thinking about the Active Rain Thing".

Real estate is local, do we need national web sites to promote local real estate? Or is the idea a carry over from the pre-web 2.0 era ?  One stop shopping would be great if folks were looking for property in several states.  The power of the blog is the individual voice.   Problogger says, that the best way to build page rank, is to build a better blog.  I recently read a great post on the Performancing, blog about how good bloggers have an advantage in SEO.   The post talks about writing content that people want to read and achieving page rank through non-real estate related social networks like Digg, Myspace, Facebook and stumble.  Personally I like Outsidein, and Flickr too. 

I rarely contribute to the "localism" section on Active Rain that is supposed to bring me business becasue I write the same type of content every day for my own blog. Why would I compete with my own blog, and brand by providing local content for Active Rain?  The goal is to have consumers visit my blog first.  Google is on my side on this one.  My St. Paul Real Estate Blog comes up number one in several searches for information about St. Paul real estate, and Active Rain can not be found.  How can that be?  I am just one person? Doesn't it take a huge powerful network to propel a blogger to number 1?  My friend Alex Stenback of  Behind The Mortgage, does just fine with out Active Rain, joining a large network would have little impact on his successful blog. 

Some beleive that without Active Rain they can not be successful.  Active Rain may help them but I have seen their blogs and know that Active Rain needs them worse than they need Active Rain.  We as individuals are the people that consumers work with and as individuals we have a tremendous amount of power on the internet, perhaps more than thousands of voices all talking at the same time.

Active Rain does a fantastic job and they have a great idea. They grew to 50,000 members in less than 18 months, a most impressive accomplishment and I hope they make a ton of money when they do sell it.  They have earned it through innovation and hard work.  I do enjoy my blog on active rain,  I get to meet others in my profession and share ideas. There are several companies, and friends of mine too, who sell products and services to real estate agents.  They love Active Rain and have gotten new clients because of it. I also take advantage of the networking opportunities, but I don't see my Active Rain blog as a viable option for a business blog.

Content really is king, hence the struggle between companies and web sites to get it. If we all hung onto our own content and built our own blogs what would Active Rain, or Move.com do?   If no one answered questions on Trulia voices, what would become of it?  Maybe consumers would come directly to us and skip the middle man. Who needs who?  More importantly what does the consumer want to read?  Are they in love with the huge commercial sites plastered with the pictures of real estate agents?  Is real estate the center of their social world?  Do they want to chat online with total strangers, who don't even use their real names on line,  about houses? 

(Notice that I gave myself a gold star for this post?  I can because it is my blog)