Are Prominent Real Estate Web Bloggers Buying Traffic?
 Gotta ask the question. I dont know if they are but the below Twitter snippet might make a reasonable person think that at least some are. If not, then perhaps twitter should be redefined as the opiate of the masses…
Why else would exact copies of the same twitter post (or “tweet”) linking to an otherwise smart guy’s posts appear in different people’s twitter streams without any sort of indication that it’s an ad? Hopefully, this anything but the future of real estate marketing.
Here’s the problem even if this isnt a paid service. In my view, you can automate your own twitter stream to your heart’s content - put it someone else’s and it’s now an ad (even if unpaid). For all of the fuss that some in the re.net make about vendors (the term, “vendor slut” used by some comes to mind), at least you know that vendors are trying to sell you something.
Lots of people dislike the magpie service (including me) but at least they put a #magpie in their automated marketing posts to let people know that its an ad…. Perhaps it’s on his blog someplace that he is doing this. I didnt see any reference to it after a quick search. Perhaps its just pure coincidence…I’m sure some carefully crafted answer will be forthcoming.
Until then, so much for transparency, bring on the manipulation of the masses!
January 21st, 2009 at 5:27 am
It does seem odd, but before you make accusations, perhaps a little more investigation is in order?
First, your title is, IMO, a little misleading. “Are Prominent Real Estate Web Bloggers Buying Traffic?” is plural, yet you only accuse one. And it’s really not even Joel’s post getting “advertised” it’s the snippet about it from Inman News (though obviously there is a connection between Joel and Inman)
Did you ask Joel or Inman what was going on before posting this?
Here’s what a couple of minutes of looking into this shows:
The first Tweet in your list (from @jbrealestate) come from a Tweeter that does nothing but send messages linking to other Inman News (and RISMedia) blog posts - and the links go back to his splog, not directly to the titled piece. I can’t see Joel or Inman paying to have a splogger link.
The second Tweet (from @lashemiller) originates from Twitterfeed — a service that distributes RSS feeds via Twitter (as well as a couple more networks). Joining Twitterfeed does not require payment of any form. Personally, I don’t care for the service but some 116,000 people apparently do. Heck, it’s even possible that someone other than Joel or Inman added their feed to it.
The the third tweet is from someone, who according to their Twitter profile, is a “internet video fiend and video ninja”. To me, it’s not that big a stretch to have a “video ninja” retweet a link to a post about video.
I dunno. The whole “vendor slut” thing is stupid beyond belief. But that isn’t used by “some” in the re.net, it’s used by one. And ironically, it’s used by him to attack (primarily) Inman News — the group you are accusing of buying traffic without disclosure.
Should “paid” traffic be disclosed? Absolutely. But personally, I think a post accusing someone of doing it ought to have a little more investigation done before hitting “publish”. To me, part of that investigation would include an email or phone call to the accused parties.
January 21st, 2009 at 5:37 am
I meant to mention that I LOVE the redefinition of Twitter - “then perhaps twitter should be redefined as the opiate of the masses…”.
That may be the single best definition I’ve heard of something that’s kind of tricky to define.
January 21st, 2009 at 6:31 am
Jay
Well thought out response.
This post was not intended to be an accusation. To be clear - there’s no accusation here because an accusation would need to have some defined rule or standard to break. I may not like it and it may well be unintentional but the perception is what it is - duplicate posts in multiple twitter streams.
The beauty (and possible Achilles heel) of web 2.0 is that bloggers and twitterers are free to market their blog posts however they’d like and through whatever channels they like. Heck, there likely no shortage of people that disagree with my own approaches. But much like the tweet that declares a given approach/functionality/release to be a “fail”, the result is all we see, respond to, and ask questions about.
Tony
January 21st, 2009 at 6:47 am
Tony -
“Accusation” was a poor choice of words on my part.
You make a great point about perception. And whether we like it or not, perception is reality in many cases.
I agree that the line between beauty and Achilles heel is very thin.
January 21st, 2009 at 9:45 am
Let me just go on the record that I have absolutely no idea what is going on here. So there’s nothing nefarious behind it - to be clear, I’ve never bought traffic and never will. Don’t see the point, don’t need the traffic. Don’t even know how I’d go about doing it even if I wanted to, frankly.
But you have piqued my curiosity as to what’s going on. And I think Jay nailed it.
Inman’s RSS news feed gets scraped/parsed/pirated my thousands of sploggers all over the web — it’s a losing battle we’ve all but stopped fighting. And it now looks like through automated tools like Twitterfeed these sploggers are starting to pollute Twitter too.
BTW, like Jay, I think it’s probably coincidence that the third tweet got lumped in there.
But I do think the larger issue you’ve brought to light here is a potential tipping point for Twitter; the spambots and sploggers are starting to arrive en masse just like they did with blogging. That’s a shame - but probably not surprising.
The issue will be whether Twitter can withstand this onslaught without degenerating the overall experience for its legitimate users and forcing them to leave. Users of any social media platform can be a fickle bunch… just ask the folks behind Friendster, Jaiku and others.
January 21st, 2009 at 2:06 pm
Joel
Thank you for your thoughtful response. It makes much more sense now.
Tony