Daniel Rothamel made a UStream video of Todd Carpenter’s appearance yesterday at REBarCamp Virginia. Todd acquitted himself fairly well, only now and then sounding like an oily, evasive politician. His mien was perfect: Middle-management nerd, which is his newly-assigned role.
His boss, Hillary Marsh, also spoke, and she was a lot less encouraging. She clearly sees social media — essentially Twitter to her — as yet another spam channel for NAR agitprop blather. Here’s how it is: People don’t respond to the NAR’s ActionSpams, but it’s not because they hate the NAR and despise its continual abuse of the political process. No, it’s because they’re not being spammed enough. Yeesh!
There was a long discussion about NAR responsiveness, but it boils down to this: You will become one with The Borg. The NAR will be happy to listen to your complaints as long as you don’t have any. Nothing new…
By the time the deal fell through in May 2007, the window of opportunity for ActiveRain’s founders to cash in on their site’s success had closed, attorneys for the company claimed. In an August 2007 lawsuit ActiveRain sought $33 million in damages, alleging breach of contract, unjust enrichment, unfair competition, fraud and deceit.
Last month, attorneys for Move and ActiveRain said a settlement had been reached in which each side would bear its own costs and attorneys’ fees. They asked U.S. District Judge Dean Pregerson to dismiss the case “with prejudice” — meaning ActiveRain would be barred from filing another suit making the same claim.
This was interesting to me: While he was employed by Move, Inc., Dustin Luther was casting about for ways to pimp the RE.net to Move:
Move had hired a prominent real estate blogger, Dustin Luther, and developed a set of company blogs. A team under Samuelson was working to develop more sophisticated blogging and social networking capabilities for Move.
Realtors are “probably our largest untapped resource,” Luther said in a Nov. 1, 2006, e-mail to Move’s then-CEO Mike Long. “There are hundreds (if not thousands) of Realtors who write about topical issues on a regular basis, and yet we don’t really have an effective way to empower them with the necessary data and arguments when news breaks.”
The two-page e-mail — which Luther also copied to Merrill, Samuelson and Realtor.com President Allan Dalton — lamented that many real estate bloggers “are starved for content, so they simply paraphrase the Zillow talking points,” he said of the property valuation site’s summaries of market trends. “At this point, the group that is most effectively organizing this resource (Realtors) is the people at ActiveRain.”
That’s not terribly surprising. It’s what you do when you have a job, try to make things better for your bosses. But this is a bright red flag to me with respect to Todd Carpenter and the NAR. Move wanted to eat us, and Dustin Luther was helping them try to do it. The NAR wants to eat us. What will Todd Carpenter do?
One more quote from today’s installment. It strikes me as being pure bullshit, but it’s fun:
During this period, ActiveRain claims it terminated negotiations to enter into a joint venture with Trulia.com and Eppraisal.com, and suspended discussions about an equity investment and business relationship with Zillow. ActiveRain also said it halted discussions about an equity investment by parties associated with the Inman Group, the parent company of Inman News.
Also in the too-little, too-late department, Amazon has released a software version of its Kindle eBook reader for the iPhone.
The Kindle device itself is the Zune of literature, a not-completely-horrible solution to a non-existent problem. Unlike the Zune, it’s not a stand-alone product. It’s a “razor” and its job is to sell “blades” — books from Amazon’s inventory.
The trouble is that it’s one more clunky device to carry, and the iPhone is already perfectly adequate as an eBook reader. Building a free Kindle app for the iPhone is the smartest piece in the whole Kindle puzzle. But it’s still a lost cause, I’m afraid.
First consider this: On my way to Seattle, I read Acts I and II of Romeo and Juliet on eReader — for free. Just to give my mind a workout, I also read a dozen pages of De Bello Gallico in Latin — also for free. The very next eBook I pay real money to buy will be my first — but I never will, since all the world’s best literature is already available for free.
Worse for Amazon, while Kindle books have a marginal incremental production cost approaching zero, the discount on purchase prices is negligible. This is dumb. A paper book is forever. A Kindle book is for-now. eBooks need to sell for a lot less than paper books.
But the first caveat eats the second. Amazon will either make the Kindle format public by API or someone will crack it. Within a few months, the entire Gutenberg Project library of free books will be available for the Kindle. Amazon will still have a business — for now — but if for-pay popular entertainment media products don’t get a lot cheaper, soon there will no longer be any for-pay popular entertainment media products.
Technorati Tags: blogging, real estate, real estate marketing, technology
James Boyer says:
I tend to not listen to much of what NAR has to say because it comes across as self serving. Until NAR manages to get some sort of good reputation back, being associated with them will not be the most possitive thing for the real estate professional.
March 4, 2009 — 10:55 am
Kevin Sandridge says:
Hey Greg – great to hear that Todd came across well. I still have high hopes for him in his new role.
That said, it’s a shame the NAR keeps on with their spammy-ness. Sadly, they aren’t the only ones using Twitter as a PR machine. What exactly is “Scocial” about a Press Release?
March 4, 2009 — 2:06 pm
Daniel, The Real Estate Zebra says:
You’ll have to forgive the useless footage at the beginning and the end of the video. There was some set up, then I forgot to stop the recording when I was done. 🙂
I have plans to download it, and edit that stuff out, I’ll let you know when I have it up.
As far as Todd goes, I think that obviously, that interview was done on Day 2 of his new job. I’m willing to give the benefit of the doubt for that.
I was a bit surprised by the fact that NAR didn’t have more concrete, strategic goals. Or if they did, Hilary didn’t share them when asked about their measure for success.
I also think that Todd might discover that reactions to him will change as a result of him being NAR staff before reactions to NAR change as a result of Todd being on the staff.
I think there there will be more winning-over that will have to be done. I think that Todd is a good person to do that, but it will have to be done, nonetheless, even if he is that person.
Personally, I hope that the vast majority of the work that Todd does, and the change he hopes to affect, will be focused on the organization, and less on the general membership. Given Todd’s “Titanic” analogy, he obviously has an inkling of the task before him.
The membership has plenty of places to turn, and people to rely upon already. I think that the biggest challenges Todd will face will come from staff and elected membership.
One thing is for sure, it is going to be interesting to keep tabs on. . .
March 4, 2009 — 2:14 pm
Thomas Johnson says:
“I was a bit surprised by the fact that NAR didn’t have more concrete, strategic goals.”
I think I said it here before. First assignment out of the box is to defend the mortgage interest tax deduction from Obama on the social media platforms. This will take Todd through 2009. When he is not doing that, Todd will be tweeting “now is the time to buy”
Now, if you will excuse me, I have a zestifarm to attend to.
March 4, 2009 — 3:47 pm
Bob says:
The flip side to that is that you can only complain if you are a NAR volunteer.
March 5, 2009 — 10:53 am
Louis Cammarosano says:
Greg
Please take another look at the kindle -I have one of the first versions and its superior to the iphone to read ebooks. The screen is larger and glare free.
Most importantly almost all of our favorite are there for free or a buck or two
The decline and fall of the Roman Empire by gibbons-all volumes are available
Plato, Livy, Aristophanes, Aristotle, all Shakespeare, dostoevsky and others almost all available and free or a buck or two on Kindle
March 5, 2009 — 8:17 pm