...about pmi and stuff and I got emails from some people who said I was an idiot (not in the Biblical sense, mind you) and that I was wrong, blah, blah, blah. Which brings me to the point that when you write stuff you'd better be write, er, right or else you're going to get it. I mean REALLY get it...since your written word is all over the Internet, or can be anyway, it can get dissected and picked apart (just wondering if dissecting and picked apart is redundant- seems not as dissecting implies precision where picked apart is closer to those dingo dogs in australia. but I appreciate any input)
anyway...I was right, the emails were wrong..they tried to correct me but they couldn't. when you put something up for people to read one had better do their homework and I'm not talking about Cliff Notes...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
9 comments:
I haven't figured out the blog thing either, but I've been writing professionally for 20 years. Your Realty Times piece is the only RT story I've bothered to read in three months, and
"Writing anything means people enjoy reading what you've written and get what you're trying to say. Not always an easy task that some find difficult to do. Speaking and writing are two different animals."
...gave me a good chuckle. Thanks.
'Blogging' is a brand new phenomenon, but it is exactly the same process that occurred back in 1700 in England, and there's a reason why people like Addison and Steele are remembered for their 'blogging' and people like Daniel DeFoe aren't (though DeFoe made up for it in the novel biz).
Florida Workforce Housing Network (www.floridaworkforcehousing.net) is probably a good example of an emerging trend within blogging. We've never 'marketed' our site, yet it gets 100 visitors a day on average and will eventually play an important role in public policy - about half our visitors today are builders/developers, local and state administrators and elected officials.
There's probably a big difference between the sort of "social blogging" we both think is silly and a more profound kind of 'blogging' that serves mass communication in ways Realty Times and Mortgage Originator only wish they could.
That 'dissection' you worry about is one of the factors. So is good writing, of course. But the biggest one is transparency.
In your most recent post, you claim you were right and everyone else was wrong. That sort of claim - without supporting links, quotes, etc. to allow readers to decide who was right - pretty much qualifies that part of your blog post as B.S.
'Unsubstantiated' is the same as ego-drivel in the 'blogosphere' and I'm not sure that isn't an enormously healthy phenomenon. 'Blogging' might actually lead people to think for themselves.
Nah....
steve webster
editor@floridaworkforcehousing.net
Glad to contribute to the chuckle bank. Your floridaworkforcehousing.net is huge, quite a community you've built. To be clear, I don't have anything against blogging at all, it encourages writing which, as you allude, encourages thinking. While I"m not going to be egotistical and say that I'm contributing to people thinking I do agree that it's a healthy phenomenon. It will be interesting to follow not just the blogs themselves but the new brand of blogmeisters.
I did go to some website (Realty Rain??) that gave points to people who contributed the most, promoted the website the most, and other such bennies. Lots of people leaving posts, in fact, too many of them, imsho. Reminded me of Amway a little bit and the MLM structure. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Imagining that you are sincere and not snarky — another bane of this blogging phenom — I am charmed that your perception of Fla. Workforce Housing Network is "huge, quite a community..."
And, regardless, your blog inspired me to think...
In fact, we are 54 registered 'users,' only eight of whom have ever 'contributed' content, and about 100 people a day on avg. who 'visit,' usually for about three minutes and about four page views.
But quite a lot of our visitors are people who matter - elected officials, policy-makers, et.al.
As we're not a commercial venture, they need not 'buy,' and that's a severe fault of our 'business' model, but hardly a valid criticism of the form or of the end result (which, we admit, at this stage is idealistic, imaginary and 'potential').
Back in 1978, I got paid a 'professional' salary ($125 a week) for playing managing editor of a local magazine that reached about the same number of people. We three on the payroll (a graphic artist and an ad sales secretary) always wondered why people would buy ads, but they did, and the three ad sales people made liveable commissions.
Some fine-tuning of the 'blog' model and a small change in our constructions (two cents for blog access instead of $1 for a newspaper) would result in a 'desiccated' manistream media, but arguably a more practical one.
If I "snark" I'm not aware of it, although many years ago a co-worker made a remark that I'll never forget.."David, you don't smile, you smirk." But I did mean what I said about your site. Lots of folks on it, at least from my perspective.
My comments on blogs are that blogging doesn't makes people more money. They don't. At least I've not found anyone that can tell me that they do.
On the contrary, blogs haven't yet made their mark from a commercial standpoint. Nor will they.
But the most important thing I've gotten so far from blogs is how ironic it is that the Internet, supposed to make people more anonymous with "screen names" and "Online IDs," actually fosters a more personal relationship with people they will most likley never meet in person.
One of my best online friends and mentor is a guy named Peter Miller who has helped me through the past 15 years developing my writing career...I've told him things I've told no one else and we've never met in person.
I also read an article today in the papers about a lady who blogs about her credit card debt...something few would share on such an open forum.
It's kinda like a letters to the editor section where there's one big newspaper and 120 million letters.
There's a compound word waiting to be invented that means what you're talking about; it overlays intimacy with anonymity, and you're right, it's a weird but pervasive phenomenon. Back in the late 60's Erica Jong wrote an iconic novel, Fear of Flying, where she labeled the same thing, in a different context, as a 'zipless f**k.'
Catholics probably experience something similar in the anonymity of the confessional, and I would bet that those crazy people who expose themselves to strangers probably experience something of it too. Maybe, in fact, that's part of what we get/got from movies and TV shows that engage our emotions (though that's rare in cinema anymore and I haven't watched TV in 15 years).
Clearly, there's a whole lot of blogging that's equivalent to urinating, as in we all have to do it, and interestingly enough, 200 years ago the phrase "expressing oneself" meant just that, but it wasn't commercially valuable then either.
As to your idea that there's not much money to be made from blogging commercially, that's true at the moment but I'm preparing a training seminar for a $700 million-sales Fla. Realtor group that will change that pretty dramatically. I can't share details here, because millions of your readers might see it, but I'll contact you as soon as I have enough of it nailed down to release details.
Keep me posted re: the seminar...how will you gauge success; will you track how many new home sales were made because of blogging?
How many sales come from blogging now?
The National Press Club is teaching media reporters how to blog. Here's a link to the course catalogue, which is really a calendar:
Blogger course
Mr. Reed--I just read your "They'll pay two points" column in Realty Times and it was just the info I was looking for. As a rookie agent in Austin, I needed some ideas of how to market to new home buyers and you did just that.
I think blogging is a great marketing tool; by reading someone's blogs, if it provides opinion and insight rather than just information, it gives you an idea of who the person is, and if the reader can relate to them, or at least benefit somehow from what they have to say, the reader may like you and may do business with you before anyone else that is just a name on a business card or a flat website to them at that point.
The book "Realty Blogging" by Richard Nacht and Paul Chaney is pretty helpful.
I should have my blog up by March 5, 2007, at realtyandthecity.com (hopefully HBO will leave me alone-hee hee). Even if no one were to read it, at the very least, like you said, when you write, it makes you really think about the subject you are writing about, and makes you accountable. There is intelligence to it.
To make it in Austin real estate, you have to BE Austin Real Estate--24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Contantly thinking about my next posting will help me achieve that.
Thank you for your time--and keep on blogging!
just checked out cdreed.com and did not see a clear link from your home page to your blog-? a must do
Post a Comment