Flaming for Ardell

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There’s definitely a tech bent to today’s list…

  1. Starting off with Niki’s interesting take on the Reply.com launch. Niki runs Homethinking, a site dedicated to letting users review agents. I had a chance to talk with him at SF Connect over a beer (or two or three) and got to learn a fair bit about his site. It is definitely worth checking out as there is a lot to the backend of what he’s doing and it is not necessarily what you might fear (assuming you’re an agent!).
  2. Inside Google talks about a fun press release from Intermedia that talks to the snarky discussions that Galen and Robbie have been having around online office applications. Tech blogger Om Malik gives his reason for not using google’s new service.
  3. Others are asking if Google services are joined too tightly? I’d be really curious to get Robbie’s take on that.
  4. Thinking of Google, Ardell, does it help that Google could could be adding 1000 people in Bellevue? (via Greg)
  5. I’m not the only one thinking of Ardell… I noticed someone trying to start a flame war on Craigslist over Ardell (look for the post title: “Get the feeling Realtors read from a script?”)… It was great to see a few people come to her defense and unlike so much of the stuff over there, the flamewar never materialized.
  6. I’m all over microformats, so I was glad to see someone write this post about understanding microformats for the non-technical web professional or marketer. Most relevant to real estate is the hListing format currently being deployed by Edgeio.
  7. Watch out when Greg’s talking about rethinking everything. 🙂
  8. Also, considering Greg’s opinion on hosted blogging platforms is not exactly private knowledge, I thought he might enjoy this comic from Chris Pirillo…
  9. The blogger from from hismove (a christian real estate network???) points out an interesting chart from the NY Times displaying the inflation adjusted home prices in the US since 1890.
  10. Not only are the For Sale By Locals people ready to launch, but these people are serious about going international. Interestingly, they will be launching their official site at a conference in Bolivia. Their temp site looks really bad in firefox, which doesn’t bode well for them in my mind, but considering the massive activity on their blog as of late, I’m definitely interested in seeing what they produce.

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22 thoughts on “Flaming for Ardell”

  1. I couldn’t find any “flaming” of me. But this line was cute,
    “Wow, what an insult “not a Realtor” Damn, that stings about as much as “not a hooker”.

    Reply ↓

  2. Where’s the flame? The only thing else I could find in there was that I “think I’m not an Amway salesman”…I’m pretty sure I’m not am Amway salesman.

    You guys should peek into a Realtor Forum some time if you think THAT is flaming. I was pretty sure one of them invited me on a cruise so he could throw me overboard 🙂 I declined the invite.

    Reply ↓

  3. The short answer is no. It’s Google’s network, they can do whatever they want with it. Then again, I also think there was nothing wrong with Microsoft putting IE in Windows either. (Obviously many people will disagree with those statements) All’s fair in love, war & business.

    IBM had antitrust troubles in the ’70s. Microsoft had antitrust troubles in the ’90’s. If Google’s current lucky/winning streak continues, they very well could have antitrust troubles in the 2010s. You know you’ve made the big time when you’re subject to antitrust laws! 😉

    Perhaps Russ or Craig would have some interesting comments on the history of antitrust law and how it could shape the future of both the real estate and tech industries?

    Reply ↓

  4. Thanks for the link, Dustin.

    I can assure you that Firefox compatibility is very important to us for our release. We have a relatively small self funded development and design team – so we’ve been 100% focused on our launch pages rather than our temp pages. I’ll certainly agree with you that we could have done much better with our temp pages. Honestly, we were not expecting 5% of the level of interest *prior* to launch that we’ve had (especially given the lack of fanfare or real PR). The only mechanisms that we’ve used are blogs in three languages and a couple of links here/there to attract listings and videos of properties for launch – that’s about it. Hopefully, given the issues of a higher level of interest than expected and poor temp pages, a high level of interest will end up being the better problem of the two… . We’ll see….

    Just to set everyone’s expectations correctly, like any newly launched service, we’ll also have a number of known work items to finish just after launch as well as respond to user feedback and suggestions for improvements. For me, we’re trying to build a sustainable business over time so, to me, we’ll be a success if people are thinking, “ok I see the possibilities” upon launch, “oh..they are getting better” after 4-6 weeks, and “good…really nice site” within 6 months, and “wow…among the best” within 12-18 months. As such, we’ll need to be constantly improving the service over time – look for these improvements and V2 information on our blog the week after we launch.

    thanks again!

    Tony

    English: http://forsalebylocals.wordpress.com
    Spanish: http://casacomprar.wordpress.com
    Portuguese: http://repousos.wordpress.com

    Reply ↓

  6. Ardell,

    I’m with you in that a flame war never developed… However, I noticed the post on Craigslist when it was only a link to your name and I could tell that the author (flamer) wanted to start a big to-do over you (and agents in general)… I kept following the conversation all day and was glad to see so many people argue on your behalf.

    Reply ↓

  8. Hey Giles,

    So far I’m seeing typical August slowdown, which I can hoepfully use to the advantage of a buyer or two . On the listing side, just waiting for that spurt in September. Normal cyclical conditions.

    Dustin, If Google does hire 1,000 people, that could put some upward pressure on the Eastside market. Think I’ll write something on Google vs. Microsoft from a real estate perspective this morning.

    Reply ↓

  10. No doubt Tim,

    About 2 years ago (before the blog), I thought it would be a good idea to use the Craigslist Housing forum as a place to pick up clients for Anna… (A bunch of people looking for local real estate information, why not???)

    So I started by posting interesting articles on real estate (nothing even remotely “marketing” about it), but the comments I would receive on the articles shocked me time-and-time again… Because I wasn’t saying the whole industry was out to screw people with each and every comment, I quickly became enemy #1. Since then, I only observe from a distance. (A distance being whenever they link to a RCG story!) 🙂

    Reply ↓

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