Give Shaun McLane of EKDAY.com credit for self-promotional skills, anyway. He has started a new site called Posh’d, which is — I kid you not — a beauty contest for real estate web site.
Say that again: He is finding the least ugly of — let’s face it — the ugliest stuff on the web, and featuring it on a one-page gallery site, which links back to the designated beauty queens. I can’t but think that this will win Shaun the Mister Congeniality award, but the idea is still kind of a stretch.
For example: BlueRoof.com is featured first and should be. It is a stunning site. But right next door is Realtor.com, looking as dowdy and dated as the Yellow Pages.
(For younger readers, the Yellow Pages is a big, useless book perfect for exhausting landfills. The Council of Residential Specialists publishes its own version, which is even stoopider.)
The rest of the dog show, including BloodhoundBlog, is not awful. But it’s not great, either. Better than average, maybe, but that’s hardly an accomplishment. I know there are some sightly sites among the Realty.bots. For example, Eppraisal.com has the coolest Web 2.0-like Weebils. My guess is that there is more and better to be found in The Undiscovered Country, the world beyond weblogs.
So: Here’s for everyone except BlueRoof getting kicked out of the dog show by ever-prettier dogs. Even better: Here’s to clinging by claws to our vaunted status by revising our sites into something useful and beautiful — with no movies, no MIDIs and an absolute maximum of 937 links on the home page. Who ever heard of anything like that in real estate?
Technorati Tags: blogging, real estate, real estate marketing
shaun mclane says:
Greg, I LOVE it!
Couldn’t have said it better myself. Now – to defend the ugly dogs at the show. I needed content. I have not added sites without asking permission first, and the pretty puppies of the world have not replied. As this site catches on (and I think it will), I will be able to be more selective. I can’t imagine I will have more than 20 sites featured a month. Once the month is up, those sites fall into archive purgatory, and the show starts over. I have one or two template sites in the list, which I assure you will be the only two to ever make it on the site. As far as Realtor.com showing up….hmmm….well, truth be told – I just needed their help promoting the site (which they haven’t). For those of you reading this – I do NOT think realtor.com is among the best the web has to offer, but it was all I had to choose from. The requests are starting to pour in, so let’s hope for a more accurate portrayal of a true “Posh” site. If you have any pull with eppraisal, tell them to reply to my email. 🙂
May 3, 2007 — 3:20 pm
Derek Burress says:
“For younger readers, the Yellow Pages is a big, useless book perfect for exhausting landfills.”
Thanks for the clarification 🙂 Got to love your humor there.
May 3, 2007 — 7:40 pm
charleston south carolina real estate says:
Am enjoying hearing what you all, as we say here in The South, have to say about real estate websites. Am curious to hear more about number of sites that one agent might have running simultaneously…if I caught the drift of the communication correctly.
Realtor.com has actually been one of the venues that I’ve thrown $$$ at that has more than paid for itself. Dowdy or not…people “go there” and call me and become clients in a healthy % of cases. . .would like to know of other internet resources that you have found that are more up-to-date AND effective.
Becca
843-371-0132
PS…The Yellow Pages AND the local paper, too, for that matter. . .I’m just about convinced that anything in print is a waste of $$$ and not environmentally sensitive…
Charleston South Carolina Real Estate
May 8, 2007 — 1:24 pm