Free Saturday Special, comin' up at Scottie's Eat-Mor

...too rainy and early to get a phone call - friend of wife, calling to go out for a morning walk...she asked how I was and I said fine as frogs-hair. By the time I got the phone to my wife who was still laying in bed, her friend was talking about how she used to sex African clawed frogs. I told here I don't mess with amphibians that sound like they need a bad movie to work in and escaped out of the house to Scottie's, a nicotine-hazy haven of caffeinated and caloric bliss. The crowd is always on time, the counter has been there since 1937 and today, Bob, who worked there in the '40s, came in to see if Scottie and Jackie, his waitress, could use a little help.

Scottie's is the only place where you ask for nothing and get half

-the BIG half you wanted when you were a kid.

We could all use a little Scottie's.

I gotta go.

Steve

Scottie mans the grill, Jackie takes the orders.

A rare trip behind the counter: Breakfast under construction!

The Special of the Day.

Ahhhhhhh...gimme a fork!

Bob used to work at Scottie's back in the '40s.

Free Speech for Realtors! - and other great ideas...

...after the last week, anyone who would not agree probably is crazy:

-Death Threats - Enough said. Kathy Sierra is a true victim of hate - as many others are on the world wild web. No one should live by fear. How do we and our colleagues stay safe?

-Blog Floggers - Another example of free-speech bloggers trying to speak and getting beaten down - by other free-speech bloggers. Teresa Boardmans' slightly delayed crusade to search out real estate weenies - people handing out bad real estate advice is not an example of debate, but an example of how speech can debilitate a great idea.

On the lighter, but still free speech side:

-Zillow talk is actually pillow talk - is it good for you too ? Watch out, it could lead to "Zlatulence", says Jessica Wynn Horton over at WannaNetwork - a damn funny rant on Zillow.

-Really Free Speech: or is it? A Clarification for Merrick at PR Leap on the previous post: PR Leap announces that www.athand24.com has free everything for free everybody-Realtors and private owners. Not a bad idea, but is this a free weenie lunch?

-Money finally talks - Ho Chi Minh City: The real estate fever spilled over from China : "HCM City is witnessing the most dramatic land price increase so far. Within one month, land prices in several areas have increased by 30-50%. " VietnamNet Bridge report-Got global?

-Mortgage Crazy : aside from the sub-prime market throwing stones and knives at us from the heavens, as Inman reports, we have something that appears slightly crazy since so many mortgage companies are closing : a mortgage search engine developed by the XBroker . WIll there be any mortgages left to look for when http://www.realespace.com/ is open?

Happy end of Q1! Look for my Free Saturday Special tomorrow.

I gotta go.

Steve
steven.stearns@obeo.com

Please throw up in the Blogvertisement...

(Graphic from www.behindthemortgage.com)

The last time we left our fearless blogger, he noticed there were minor rumbles in the bloggosphere between Inman News, WannaNetwork, and Mary McKnight .

Seems there is still a difference of opinion as to what is relevant blogging and what is not. Ms. McKnight replied to me and said Alexa told her traffic was flattening at ActiveRain and WannaNetwork. (Small-er) numbers do tell a story-which one does this point to? Maybe Inman, WannaNetwork and McKnight should all walk a mile-together-in each others' bloggin' shoes: Inman likes to report on the edge, McKnight really knows her stuff about blogging and WannaNetwork has the audience captive. It will be neat to see what happens here - sometimes any action is better that no action.

Anyway, Real Estate Tomato over at ActiveRain must have felt those rumbles (...okay, I got some emails, posts and a reply or two at MyBlogLog yesterday,-thanks, Sellsius!) because the Pomodoro saw it coming, too - the change in blogging, you know, the paradigm shift?

The one where expectation overtakes content?

Yup, Coldwell Banker must have seen it coming, too: Coldwell Banker Just Threw Up All Over the Real Estate Bloggosphere.

Yuck - did they get any on you? And when did all this nausea start? Are we all gonna get sick?
Is there gonna be enough cybervaccine to go around at 2nd Life ?

It's a pretty basic discussion: big real estate company tries to meet Web 2.0 expectations and gets slammed for having a canned product.

So if this is supposedly THE Big Year of Real Estate Blogging, where have all the Betas gone?
Doesn't anyone get to make a fumbling start and improve? Can I get a bucket, or a witness?

The nausea comes: just because you may have been at it longer, and have been working harder, and might be better at blogging than ALL the Realtors at Coldwell Banker -where is the love here? Okay, it can be said that these people may need some guidance and some coaching - or maybe, just maybe, Coldwell Banker is going to let them do whatever they want with these new consumer-facing blogs : post listings, send out CWB real estate tips or (shudder) blog about their dog.

Geez, if enough people do this - it just might become acceptable - and maybe under a different name, like blogvertisement.- (Thanks to Alex J. Stenback at his site behindthemortgage.com - he may have invented this term.)

I feel a sniffle coming on. I gotta go.

Thanks for stopping by,

Steve
steven.stearns@obeo.com

How does your blogging grow?

Disclosure: I am a member of the WannaNetwork Forum.

Inman News' recent three-part series on social media is sparking questions about what is advertising, the value of content-and who decides.
The rub comes in the second part of the series. Author(s) Jessica Swesey and Glenn Roberts Jr. mention all the usual big players: ActiveRain, Google, YouTube, RSS Pieces, Groundswell, Robin McKnight-and the not-so-big WannaNetwork, created by Tony Sena, a Las Vegas Realtor.
McKnight comments ActiveRain is getting bloggers noticed because of the relevant content on the site. By comparison, she said the agents using WannaNetwork "...were using it to advertise and Google never trusted it because of the quality of the content just isn't there."
Whoa - them could be fighting words. But here, the weary-fingered blogging expert McKnight appears right -relevancy and timeliness of content can push a blog up in a search engine. Content is still king. Credibility still is a keystone in what I call the "information is more important than influence" game.
But what if something different is going on at WannaNetwork - granted the blogging tools are a bit limited, but the forums are lively and anyone who looks there will see business is being done.
Hmm. Making money without SEO or blog content. Happened before the web, why not now in the web? This alone will probably not put Google out of business, but it does highlight the constantly changing realities of new emerging markets and web-resident consumers.
Roberts points out in the final Inman piece today that Web 2.0 and the way it works "...can lead some of these web sites and tools to jump from oblivion to immense popularity while others dim to virtual obscurity in viral fashion..."-Newer ways of doing new business may not be immediately obvious to those watching, reporting or blogging about it. And not getting the right information out could put a damper on a pretty good new thing – whatever it is at the moment.
Inman is giving a broad view of what is happening right now. Wright has a presence at WannaNetwork and has some great blogging tips posted there in the forums. Sena is developing a networking community. And Google is getting bigger, of course. Blogging? Perseus.com reports after randomly surveying eight leading blog sites: “...1.09 million blogs were one-day wonders, with no postings on subsequent days.”
Maybe information can be kind of like the Emperor laughing because he knows he has no clothes on.

If you can hear him laughing.

Thanks for stopping by,
Steve
steven.stearns@obeo.com

Oh, yes - really crazy...

...isn't it? Just think about the human factor, and forget the (springy) market. Or mortgages. Or the currently popular short-sell. Or the global market.
You own a home. You have an opportunity. Wow. A BETTER job! You have to move-gee, someone just has to come up with, oh, say, between 180k to oh, 1M+ so you can move, and they can move, too - depending on where you live and what your equity situation is. And how much the kids cry. People with more money than that can pay someone else to move there for them.
And what your spouse expects to move into, of course...
Oh yeah - don't forget leaving your house on sudden notice in your Sunday best sweatpants so strangers can troop through it and judge you on your home hygienics, and whether or not they like the neighbors; and the neighbors kids and three or four large dogs, or the fact that you are NOT a vegetarian.
And this can go on for one, two or three months? Longer? Or until your spouse finds a job halfway across the country, too? Why does anybody even move out of their recliner, let alone a place where their kids, pets and in-laws can eat over the sink if they feel like it?

(Bear, our canine companion, and a tasty treat.)

A while back, and likely it still is the case, in Japan a small rambler-type home was a million dollars. Who is ever going to pay that mortgage off? Only love can bear a burden like that - maybe these homes will remain in families for generations.
Even in our 100+ year old pile of bricks and boards near the Rock River in the Midwest, it could happen - not flooding -we are WAY out of the flood plain - I mean moving. But only if I get to retire when we get to our new place.

But I suspect this home will (lovingly) fund a reverse mortgage for my spouse, Theresa.
When they finally come to move me-in my recliner-to a place where she doesn't have to listen to me snore so much, or watch me eat over the sink.



Thanks for stopping by,
Steve
steven.stearns@obeo.com