Like this…
Unchained was promoted by Social Media Marketing only, most of it here. No advertising. No affiliate marketing. No ass-kissing. No taking crap from morons. No Inman.
If the lesson of this is lost on you, then you missed out on the biggest piece of what we were doing this week. I might try to convey the point in a satirical post, but how can I top the item linked above?
All of this broke out as I knew it would. We talk all the time about “What would David Gibbons do?” but this sequence of events came straight from the “What would Greg Swann do?” playbook. We’re not revolutionaries, despite the poses we might sometimes seem to strike. We’re all about supplanting what we see as negative forces, not up-ending them or making war on them.
So: What did Inman News do to itself this week — and in the preceding months? It ignored us, which did us no harm at all — but which demonstrated beyond all doubt that it is not devoted to news in the real estate industry.
It’s a dead letter, just like the NAR. In their heart of hearts, Brad Inman and his employees have known this all along. Now you know it, too.
In any case, here’s my great idea: No chokepoints. No bosses. No taking crap from morons. No Inman.
Feel free to add your own great ideas. There’s no “application form,” and you don’t have to kiss anyone’s “community” to win recognition for your brilliance.
Technorati Tags: blogging, BloodhoundBlog Unchained, disintermediation, real estate, real estate marketing, technology
Chris Johnson says:
A couple things:
[1] Why is recognition needed? Honest question. I don’t think it is–and you helped me see that. Effectiveness is needed, to be sure, but good ideas are good regardless of if they are or aren’t recognized by the ‘masses.’
[2] While supplanting, let’s focus on DOING it, not patting ourselves on the back for it. Let’s IGNORE the garbage, not validate it. If there is some value in Inman (there is) let’s use it to our advantage. If they benefit as a by product? who cares. As long as they continue to benefit some real or percieved need, they’ll be around.
Glad to see success hasn’t mollified you too much. Congrats on what seems to be a well run event.
May 21, 2008 — 2:20 pm
Trace says:
We talk all the time about “What would David Gibbons do?” …….. Really? wow.
May 21, 2008 — 2:51 pm
Greg Swann says:
> If there is some value in Inman (there is) let’s use it to our advantage. If they benefit as a by product? who cares. As long as they continue to benefit some real or percieved need, they’ll be around.
I agree with all that in a much larger context than the one you are naming. It’s why we cover Inman and “the community” regardless of where their heads are at. Our job is delivering the goods. I care about the Inmanosphere’s behavior toward us in one respect only: To make fun of it.
> Let’s IGNORE the garbage, not validate it.
Indeed.
> Glad to see success hasn’t mollified you too much.
I’m an armadillo, dude. I’m a bulldozer. I’m a Bloodhound on the trail. I’ve got time to howl in triumph, but no time to growl. But I do like it when events play out as I expect them to.
May 21, 2008 — 3:00 pm
Lenore Wilkas says:
Bet Inman won’t ignore it next time.
May 21, 2008 — 3:43 pm
Chris Johnson says:
Bet they will.
May 21, 2008 — 3:55 pm
Greg Swann says:
Lenore: > Bet Inman won’t ignore it next time.
Chris: > Bet they will.
The essence of the thing: It does not matter.
This is disintermediation in action: The media — the quintessential middle man — has been dealt out of the game, and no one has any reason to care.
All other things aside, including my own predilection to being a poor winner, this is beyond cool.
Do you want a practical proof of the argument I made in The Unchained Epiphany? This is it. It’s our world now, each one of us as individuals, with no one to tell us whether or not we can have more pudding.
May 21, 2008 — 4:05 pm
Chris Johnson says:
When was it not our world? It’s always been. The game has shifted to favor us, to be sure, but I was never gonna be a kept citizen in ANY world.
May 21, 2008 — 4:25 pm
Tom Vanderwell says:
Greg,
That’s one of the many things I’ve learned in the last 3 to 6 months on the web as I’ve been reading you guys and others. The power of the web, the power of the social media is that it breaks the “chokehold” that the mainstream “forces” have. In one day, I twittered with a Realtor in Virginia, a tech guy in SanFrancisco, IM’d with a motivational coach in Ohio and Zillowed with two potential borrowers in Colorado, all from my office in Michigan.
The power that comes from being able to, shall we say, find your voice and realize that there are people all over the country and all over the world who can benefit is truly an exciting but yet humbling thing.
Keep up the good work!
Tom
May 21, 2008 — 7:45 pm
Vlad says:
I think Inman would themselves a favor if they opened their comments to unregistered users. I hate the fact that I need to be logged in order to write comment about something that spoke to me.
I have not logged into my account in months and am not planing to.
I thin the website that are trying to pretend they are the major news outlet often way to careful not to raise controversy due to the fear of loosing the sponsors.
I think every one should open their eyes and realize that Internet’s impact on main stream media is huge.
By the way Greg, you probably do no remeber that I have attempted to create a sort of “top 100 real estate blogs”- your blog is #4 way above Zillow a and other blogs. I know my list is somewhat silly, but I think at the end of the day it offers some value.
You can’t ignore blog #4 in your niche- especially when it is result of hard work and no “ass-kissing” (you make me laugh).
Anyway, if you care take a look at my little list:
http://www.top100realestateblogs.com/
May 22, 2008 — 9:10 am
Greg Swann says:
> Anyway, if you care take a look at my little list:
http://www.top100realestateblogs.com/
As you might guess, I love that list. 😉
In fairness, other sites beat us by other measures. We took David Gibbons to the airport the other day and he asserted that Zillow Blog has 1.8 million backlinks. I thought, “Oh, lord, another SEO tall-tale-teller.” Not so. Zillow Blog has 1.8 million backlinks. An amazing performance for a real estate weblog. For comparison: BloodhoundBlog: 64,000. Inman Blog: 63,000.
May 22, 2008 — 10:21 am
Vlad says:
Yes, I have always said that my list is far from being objective. I actually crated it to inspire real estate agents to start a blog.
Alexa, Google PR and Technorati are far from being reliable factors. Although Alexa’s new steps to improve their rankings will probably make it harder to manipulate them as well.
Again it’s just my silly attempt to measure real estate blogs. I have probably missed few dozens of good blogs. So if your readers want to add their blogs to that list they are most welcomed.
May 22, 2008 — 10:29 am
David G from Zillow.com says:
LOL. You were most gracious Greg, but I could tell that you were going to fact-check me on that one.
May 23, 2008 — 8:22 am
Greg Swann says:
> I could tell that you were going to fact-check me on that one.
You betcha. I want to send the Erics in sniffing to see if you’re right about where they’re coming from. Those kind of results come from being heavily blogrolled or being linked by software from dynamic pages. A newspaper site, for example, can generate the same one piece of content with hundreds of different URLs. I’m willing to take your word on this, or on anything, but I don’t see how one-off links from weblogs could produce those kinds of results.
May 23, 2008 — 8:34 am