Mhaaaaa..the mAgicK BuS!..and a thank you across the bow.

...Real work has been interfering with my blogging, but not my desire to blog. I apologize again to all my readers and 5-second looky-loos (according to Google analytics) for my absence, the topics that never were covered or properly expanded on and the generally lame attempts at being a bad real estate blog.

Meanwhile, back at the blog:

...I would love to be on the Sellsius bus, so to speak - the requisition has been made through the proper channels and a response is forthcoming in the next 24-36 hours.

...of course, if Teresa Boardman, Pat Kitano, JimmyZ, ZIllow, niknik, Joel Burlsem, REBlogGirl, JeffX, MaureenFrancis and Inmannews would offer me $300 dollars not to place my face on the bus..., well?????

By the way:...Joel has been a busy man lately pushing web RE video. He looked really Gen-Neutral during his Inman interview. His is a worthy cause for those selling digital video equipment - but likely not a great marketing solution for most single listings for Realtors.

Here is why:

Video Tours Lack Traffic and Aggregation: If you Alexa the companies that are doing RE video and stack them up, the traffic pile is not as deep as you-know-who-E-O. Video works great for building affinity for a community, a charismatic Real Estate agent/team or for showcase properties where the money is there to support video production values.

Video Tours are Tooooo Linear: They drag you though a property like a bull with a ring through its nose. Plus you usually have to look at some broker or agent hind quarters, making you feel like a sled dog.

Video Tours Lack Production Values: As a photographic mentor once told me, you cannot make chicken salad out of chicken guano. Find me ten RE video tours - done by agents or brokers at any site anywhere on the web that have any production values at all and I will eat this blog. The vast majority of RE video tours are so poorly executed with lousy lighting, fuzzy focus, shaky shooting, poor panning and awful audio it really isn't any wonder why this hot new trend is flailing to sizzle-yes, flailing.

EXTRA SPECIAL THANKS:

... to Voyager International, a kind-of competitor: Hey! You spelled Obeo right! And it's great to know our name leads on your web page presentation. Just so you happy-go-lucky gang of marketing mash-ups know:

-We are tops with Realtors in the NAR Vertical Metrix : money follows market leaders, and Realtors know their money works hardest with us.

-Obeo posts the vast majority of its tours on 4 days.

-And sorry about your traffic accident: One of my current clients has had a tour with you at Kayyah and the listing has been viewed 38 times since 09/06/2006. Get well soon !

More later, if you can stand it...

Steve

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