Well, well. My first day to howl and what perfect timing. This morning the Realty Times had an article called “Dog Blog 1.0“. I am the owner of two dogs that frequently order toys and other strange things on the internet, so of course, I read it.
Let me save you some time here and let you know that columnist David Reed is putting us all on notice that the blog is dead. Yep. It seems there are just too many of us. He has lots of numbers to suport this, of course. It seems David was the very first person to ever have a web page waaaayyy back in 1996 or so. Gee, so cutting edge.
It seems that there are 6.5 trillion people on Earth and 6.5 trillion blogs, so we are all lost. However will we find each other, Will Robinson?? David’s words of wisdom are “If someone tells you you need a blog, you are already too late.” We need to go back to actually shaking hands with people. (Eeeuuuwwww)
Well, David, it seems people are making connections all over the place, in spite of you being lost. Perhaps you need an internet GPS so you can make your way back home. Blogging is relaxing, fun, and a valuable source of interaction among like-minded folks. Communities. As a marketing tool, blogging allows for an informal way for an entire generation of people that really don’t want to shake hands, they just want a house. And they want to use someone they feel they can connect with.
Like it or not, David, most people start their home search on-line. Here in sunny Florida, a great deal of my clients are moving here because of the weather, cost of living, etc. On a local level, how can I reach that couple in Michigan with a static web site? If you are lost, don’t blame it on the internet.
But that’s just me.
Jonathan Greene says:
Seems like it would be difficult for me to “shake your hand” from Tampa. However, this blogging thing seems to work a little better from that distance. Blogging allows you to experience the world as if you have a private jet….without paying for fuel.
I think I’ll add you guys to my blog roll. I wonder how David feels about that?
January 26, 2007 — 7:06 pm
Steve Jagger says:
Blogging works. There is no question. Sure there will be more and more out there every day and some will be great and some will be weak… but does that mean don’t do it? I don’t think so.
January 26, 2007 — 8:00 pm
Christoph Schweiger says:
Norma I concur with you. Brad Inman said: “Blogs are telling it like it is at the street level”. And I feel that it would be a mistake not to extend your hand out on the web. Who cares how many blogs are out there and who says blogs have to be competitive?
January 27, 2007 — 9:45 am
Dave Barnes says:
Grammar Nazi:
You wrote: “I am the owner of two dogs that frequently order toys and other strange things on the internet”
Should be: “who” not “that” as you are referencing a mammal.
The real question is: Do you order toys or do your dogs order the toys?
January 27, 2007 — 11:30 am
Jeff Turner says:
“If someone tells you you need a blog, you are already too late.” Wow. I told someone that today. Boy do I feel like an idiot now.
January 28, 2007 — 3:21 am
David Reed says:
Hi Norma, how’s the toys! thanks for the pub, but I would like to clarify a couple of points…and I know you’re not being sarcastic…
1: Blogging is not a business-getter. Someone would have to literally stumble across your blog or happen to type in a few key words that match your blog to find you…I googled david+reed+mortgage+website and found you and your dog-blog at around the 6th page of google listings. Okay, it could be a business-getter but not from some anonymous web-surfer, only from someone who was referred to you already. Hence my mention in the article about doing the very same with your website. A dynamic one.
Don’t get me wrong here, I agree with you completely that a blog (your personal little journal) is the perfect way for someone to get to know you via the web..but finding you is the issue…
2: Technology makes people lazy. Too many fall for the easy way out of advertising themselves (shaking those Eeeuuuwwww-ee hands and relying on a website for instance.)
3: Yeah, I’m an old geezer alright. I did my first website many, many moons ago (maybe while you were still in high school) and studied such obscure stuff as search engine optimization and meta-tags…when it mattered…but it doesn’t matter as much anymore…
4: I ain’t lost though…just wandering. 🙂
February 6, 2007 — 8:32 pm
Cathleen Collins says:
I agree with David on this point… unless you’re writing about local places and events that the typical real estate consumer is searching for, that typical real estate consumer isn’t going to stumble across your weblog. BloodhoundBlog is a very popular weblog… among real estate professionals, but not at all among consumers. Once I showed my sister an article on this site that I thought was particularly cogent, and she awarded me by snoring!
We real estate professionals think about real estate all the time, but the typical consumer thinks about it … what, four to eight times in her life? So, when she thinks about searching on line for a helpful Realtor, she may Google on the phrase “Phoenix Realtor.” I just did that very search. At the top and along the side, of course, I get the sites that paid for those spots… weblogs be damned. But of the first two pages of organic results, only one is a weblog — that of our favorite, Jay Thompson, who not only is a fine writer, but who reserved an excellent name to bring local traffic to his blog.
A weblog is a great way to let prospective clients get to know you, though. But I think you need to suggest this to them. Greg taught me this early on when I “met” him over the internet in 1997… a good way to get to know someone is by Googling on him. But, this would never have occurred to me had Greg not suggested it. He wanted to save both of us time — if I didn’t like what I read, then why should either of us bother to take it a step further. The same would be true of prospective clients. By suggesting that they read your weblog, you give them the opportunity to decide, without wasting a lot of either of your time, whether or not they would like working with you.
February 10, 2007 — 1:43 pm
Marc Rasmussen says:
One thing you forgot to mention Norma was that the Google gods love blogs when it comes to their search results.
Hi, from down the road (Interstate 75) in Sarasota, Florida.
April 26, 2008 — 4:00 pm