Active Rain: It Never Ceases to Amaze

Amen.

Like Faina, I learned so much in the beginning months of AR and acquainted with some very high-quality agents. However, sadly most of them have left – including you Jay – so the value AND the potential to learn, has deteriorated significantly. They’ve sadly opted for the points (quantlity) over quality. I believe that it would be a much more reputable platform if they did away with their points. The frivolous posters would go away as would all the spammy comments.

I now spend more time reading the outside blogs because they prove far more thought provoking and provide a great deal more real estate information.

” I know it! I am always watching my back, keeping an eye on those that are gaining on me! ”

I am amazed someone would actually write that. Did they use their real name?

What would be more frightening, is to have to negotiate with that agent, for real money, not points.

I have met with several buyers and sellers through Trulia. I really don`t hang out on AR.
Wednesday I wrote a contract with a buyer from Trulia. We lost out to a cash buyer… #@&!%.

My point, During lunch my clients, they told me why they picked me instead of others on the Trulia thread.
Simple, I was the only one who did not BS them. They wanted a straight answer and I gave it.

I will never forget how they smiled, rolled their eyes, and laughed when remembering how Realtors would give them a phone # and say call them. ” Yea, like were gonna do that!” They said.

I am a top voice (#9) on Trulia.
#1 in Gilbert BTW.
#10 in Phoenix WTF.

That never came up at lunch. As you already know, and 99% of the other Realtors don`t know…….It`s the answer, that counts, nothing else.

Personally, I think my good looks also play a big part.

So who cares? If these Realtor clowns are focusing on ranking and points, they are not focusing on the Clients. The smart clients know this, Which means less competition for me.

Good day & Good luck

“Yes, you would get rid of a lot of riff raff, but you would also lose a lot of the quality bloggers as well.”

Marc – they’ve already lost a lot of quality bloggers. There is still a lot of good stuff there, no question. It’s just far simpler to me to put good quality blogs into my feed reader that I know will deliver consistent quality post after post as opposed to wading through the crap and self-promotion at AR to find the good stuff.

AR Points have zero to do with SEO. Google doesn’t know or care how many AR points you have. The one possible connection might be if you are one of the chosen ones that get “featured” regularly. Featured posts tend to stay “up front” longer, so could conceivably get a little extra “google juice” from that (though I doubt it).

The only good points do is get you listed higher on ARs state and national lists. The benefits of that is in theory if consumers come to AR looking for an agent, they may chose one at or near the top of the list. I used to be #1 nationally and was at the top of Arizona for ages. (currently 6th in AZ, and 2nd in Phoenix).

It never did squat for my business.

I’ve had some agent referrals from people I met on AR back when I was active, but never a consumer contact. I know others have had different results according to them.

Striving to be a professional/expert in anything really, requires a little continuing education. Between attending monthly Sales/Team Meetings, your Broker Caravan and other seminars hosted by your Board of Realtors and picking up an industry trade magazine or stopping by to read material from your feed reader or hopping on to A|R…it all contributes to that continuing education process. Active Rain, Agent Genius, the RE blog-o-sphere in general all has some great content. To think that you’d abandon it because you won’t get any “points”, well…what does that say?

@RealtorTed and I laugh at some of the answers we see on Trulia voices because you can tell their blatant advertisements. Now don’t get me wrong, we gotta advertise ourselves at some point or other otherwise it’s to our detriment if we don’t but at some point we have to provide some good quality content.

I stop by A|R not because of the points…it’s the content. If the points is the only thing that keeps you there, I wish you well.

I honestly don’t know that being at the top of the State Line Up Page has any benefit – I really doubt it. I have been driven – sort of – by the points only because I wanted to be near the top of the state page – but I also didn’t post CRAP on my blog just to get points, because the TRUE POINT of my blog is to GAIN CUSTOMERS.

I will not gain customers with endless joke posts, cutting and pasting articles from realty times or inman news…posting dumb comments, etc.

I actually was annoyed when they stopped awarding points for localism pictures – because so many idiots were posting CRAP photos just to get the points. Yes, I posted photos to get the points, but ALL OF THOSE PHOTOS HAD MY NAME ON THEM and I knew a potential customer MAY see them.

People who are driven by the “points” to the “point” that they forget what they “real point” should be are wasting their time.

I’ve also seen comments like “I already posted my ten comments today” – meaning, they won’t comment anymore because they dont’ get points for them. That’s just ridiculous.

Wow this is a rambly comment. sorry….I like active rain, I learned a lot there – I have actually gotten lots of customer contact from AR (2 listings – now both sold – and several buyers -at least one sale)

I really just had to ramble I guess, twitter has stifled me a lot. LOL

Hey, Jay. I am a lover of AR, and wouldn’t be where I am in Web 2.0 today without it, and a number of wonderful real estate professionals I’ve met there. Unfortunately, you have pointed out one annoying thing I run into on AR. True colors come out when a little glitch happens and points aren’t being awarded. You see why certain people are there. Luckily, there are more people who didn’t give a d*** abt points who didn’t comment on that particular post, than those who did.

The points are great in that it makes it easier for me to see an active blogger when I’m looking for a referral. Rather than look for a needle in a Haystack, I can narrow it down and then read the blogs to see if I can find some one I’d like to give a referral to. The reverse works for me being found as well.

Trulia. Don’t get me started…Love the platform, but you’ll note that I’ve answered Q’s after an agent has blabbed on about Winchester, VA when the Q was about Winchester, (other state) and suggested they get advice from a local expert BECAUSE MARKETS ARE LOCAL!

It’s really too late to be up reading posts, so hopefully you can see that I value the points you brought up, but still have love for Active Rain.

Until the search engines learn how to read content, the web is going to continue to be bogged down with empty words.

Points on AR have been an on-going debate since day one. Nothing new there. Some like it, some don’t. Are there problems inherent in awarding points for various activities and level of involvement? Absolutely. Have people gamed the system to their own advantage? Unfortunately yes. And has the Point System encouraged the contribution of content that is less than desirable? Again, yes. I suppose at some juncture in the process, the point system will be renovated, replaced, or removed. I had actually suggested something similar along the lines of what eBay does, and to create an algorithm that would rank members based on a number of criteria, other than just simply quantity. Regardless, points were a big part of what made AR so much fun in the early days. For those of us who have remained active, the points don’t mean as much any more. Many veteran members, myself included, ventured onto creating our own local blogs. It’s a very natural and logical progression for those with the wherewithal to do so. There is always an evolution and usual attrition associated with social networks. We’re a restless bunch, always looking to be on the cutting edge of something new and different. ActiveRain isn’t what it was, and it won’t be what it is now (How’s that for a brilliant observation?) With nearly 90,000 members now, ActiveRain continues to provide tremendous value and benefits to its members. New developments are underway that will only serve to further enhance those benefits for the future. If anyone is disappointed or dissatisfied with their experience on ActiveRain, just drop me a note and I’ll make sure that you receive a full refund. 🙂

I think AG has way too many quality posts – I say start the point system here to solve that issue! 😉

Rich – I do think everyone has to start somewhere and I still recommend AR to people that want to learn about blogging. Remember looking back at our first posts and the stuff we used to write? I have left them up as a reminder that there is a learning curb. Now the whole point system and the manipulation of that system is what I find atrocious, but I don’t have a better suggestion nor have the time to find a better way. You and I have spoken at length about this and IMHO if enough time is taken to research the options, a better way is bound to occur.

Jeremy: You can have some of mine. They took them all away when I was hired!

Jay – as a relative newbie on AR I can say that I didn’t really get the whole blogging thing until I got involved at Active Rain. Maybe that’s one of the draws AR has. Participating is fairly simple and it’s easy to get started. The whole “points” thing may give people some feeling of accomplishment as they start out. As with anything on the internet – someone is always going to find a way to game the system. Whether it be points or SEO. Everyone is trying to carve out a niche. Maybe Agent Genius does this by appealing to the agents ego – implying that the smart agents are here at AG not AR. I don’t know if that’s true – but it’s an inference one could make. I just discovered Agent Genius about a week ago – and it was through multiple references at AR. Truth be told – I think there is room and reason for the different real estate blogging systems to exist. Maybe I will change my mind in 6 months or a year – but for now, I am enjoying the Rain. Thanks for the quality thread. I’m also curious – is it appropriate to be posting content from AR here on AG without the permission of those who wrote it?

Bo –

Thanks for the inference; I hadn’t made it but I appreciate the sentiment. 🙂 I agree there is room for all sorts of blogging models, just as there are all sorts of commission structures. Some agents prefer autonomy and others would rather have structure.

As far as quoting – as long as the quoted material fits the Fair Use doctrine, you should be fine.

I think Rudy may have said it best about commenting on the recent Trulia thread –

“Overall, many of you have been in the online real estate space much longer than others. You know how to participate and how not to. I remember when I first started commenting and contributing many, many years ago – I too had to learn the ropes…..But I did. Some people are at that earlier learning stage now. Rather than shooting them down, I think it’s much better to lead by example – as many of you do. Remember AR when it first started? Many didn’t know what they were doing, but everyone learned from each other. And today, they are doing great and teaching others. ”
Maybe I’m old (school) – but we didn’t need points as motivation.

Hi Jay: Interesting, very interesting. As some have already mentioned, AR has been a tremendous “jump off” place to learn about blogging and to get to communicate – sometimes effectively – with others in the same profession. I joined at the beginning, but did not really begin to post until about a year ago. Lately I’ve pretty much run out of profound things to say on AR, but do read and reap what benefits I can. I like to “stay in touch” with my AR friends, and will occasionally post if I so feel the need. Meanwhile, I have two other blogs I post on – my own – and will be stopping by here as well. As Jim said, it is really time consuming……I stopped RT for the same reason…..too many adversarial arguments and not enough substance. AR still has tons of substance, and great people.

As for Truilia, didn’t realize there were points to be gained, but do – on occasion – jump in with my two cents’ worth………

Collecting points as a motivation for posting is indeed a bad incentive and definitely encourages useless comments. I have to admit I didn’t even realize that Trulia awarded points, never noticed…only noticed their thumbs up and down options.