Move.com Tried to Buy ActiveRain

184730 Resource 76407 1 1 1191177581751 1222713003121 Controlled Spreading Your Marketing Message Too Thin

Should you focus your Web 2.0 content into one domain or spread it around on free conversational blogging sites? There's no simple answer, but here are some observations and a few helpful tips.

The recent <a href="http://www.futureofrealestatemarketing.com/movecom-tried-to-buy-activerain#comment-14430">earthquake</a> felt by real estate agents who have invested heavily in <a href="http://activerain.com/">ActiveRain</a> as a means of blogging and participation in the conversational web was a surprise to many who believed ActiveRain was a place to build brand equity, enhance outbound communication, and benefit from participation in the blogosphere. While all of these attributes remain true, the idea that AR was almost acquired by <a href="http://move.com/">Move.com</a> (and could be acquired by any larger company) turned out to be unsettling news.The <a href="http://realdiablog.typepad.com/weblog/2007/09/move-inc-tries-.html">details of the buyout</a> (about $33 million) and the lawsuit brought by ActiveRain against Move for backing out of the deal are interesting, but not nearly as interesting as the reactions of the ActiveRain community. Joel Burslem (<a href="http://www.futureofrealestatemarketing.com/movecom-tried-to-buy-activerain">Future of Real Estate</a>) comments ...<blockquote dir="ltr" style="margin-right: 0px;">"Thousands of real estate professionals have moved their conversations online over the last year as blogging has become more and more popular and has become an important part of a Realtor’s marketing arsenal. Don’t be fooled, your content is very valuable. Platforms like ActiveRain, Trulia Voices, Zillow Q&A all seek to tap this knowledge base and build massive databases which they hope to monetize. ActiveRain’s near-acquisition shows just how much your words can be worth. On the flip side, and mostly because of the communities that have developed around these sites, people start to feel very personally attached to their blogs, their profiles, whatever. They start to feel like it’s their own little corner of the Web."</blockquote>And therein lies the rub -- Your ActiveRain blog is not really "your corner of the web"; it's a thin slice of someone else's corner. While the words you write are indeed your words and your copyright, your content is freely offered at the pleasure of the community provider. If they choose to change the publishing and/or participation terms, you have little control. But this is the domain of communities - it's a deal that is fair - they take all responsibility for the infrastructure; you take responsibility for contributing interesting content. And the benefits are obvious; your content is made visible to additional prospects; the gravity of a community is far greater than your own domain. But some downside aspects also exist:<ul><li>The community could be absorbed into another community.</li><li>The community may go out of business without the slightest warning.</li><li>The community might eventually charge fees to avoid going out of business.</li><li>The community might shift its policies or focus in ways that are not conducive to your own business focus.</li></ul>Any of these outcomes could be counter productive to your business objectives; at worst, leaving you with nothing. As one observer notes..."The only way you own your content is to host it yourself."This is not entirely true. MyST Blogsite hosts business and corporate blogsites for hundreds of clients including many real estate firms. Our <a href="/agreement" target="_blank">terms of service</a> doesn’t lay any claim to our client’s content or domains. In fact, the service and <a href="item/102513">XML API</a> is designed specifically to protect the client’s content, brand, and domain. MyST even provides access to copies of the client’s content for up to a year after service cancellation. We also provide web services to download 100% of the content at the client’s discretion 24/7.So, is it wise to spread your domain expertise across one or more community sites? I think it is if you follow these simple guidelines.<ol><li>Don't rely [solely] on free community sites as your primary blogging solution. You already have a primary web domain; create your primary blogsite domain as a sub-domain (i.e., blog.myDomain.com). </li><li>Always maintain a backup copy of everything you write on these community portals. Since almost all of them support RSS, consider using a desktop news reader such as Feedemon to subscribe to all your community blog feeds. Most RSS news readers can be configured to cache all posts to your PC - you'll have a complete XML version of your content should you ever need it.</li><li>Always link from your free community blogs to your primary blogsite.</li><li>Spend only a portion of your time blogging on free community sites. Make it a point to write 2 posts on your primary blogsite for every post you write on community sites.</li><li>Adopt the philosphy that your primary blogsite and website is the "authoritative" place where your marketing message and brand equity is maintained.</li><li>Leverage your blogsite and website content by publishing excerpts from your primary content on free community sites with links back to the complete posts.</li><li>Where possible, syndicate your primary blogsite content into your community sites. <a href="http://www.facebook.com/">FaceBook</a> offers this capability.</li></ol> 9 application/xml false ActiveRain content ownership Move.com Realtor.com Move.com Tried to Buy ActiveRain Earlier this year, ActiveRain, the popular social networking site for Realtors, was about to be acquired by Move.com, the owners of Realtor.com. Right at the eleventh hour however, Move.com pulled out of the deal. http://www.futureofrealestatemarketing.com/movecom-tried-to-buy-activerain ActiveRain Who owns the content on ActiveRain? http://activerain.com/blogsview/219663/Who-owns-the-content Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.0.2) Gecko/2008091620 Firefox/3.0.2 127.0.0.1 127.0.0.1 $Admin 71.55.143.162 false true false false true 174050 false false true false false false true 185130 Resource 174050 173239 21 1191344998268 1201453473038 Controlled Kevin Steele?

Not sure who he is - I wrote those word on my blog - but I'd like to meet him. Sounds like a smart guy. ;) 10 application/xml false xlint:ignore Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727) 127.0.0.1 127.0.0.1 aseidl 68.40.167.222 false true false false true 185511 Resource 174050 1 21 1191767397146 1201453244020 Controlled Kevin Steele?

Joel - when I wrote my post I looked to the top of your post from the bottom up and saw Kevin Steele's name. It says "by Kevin Steele". It turns out that is the name of the photographer of the picture you pasted into the top of the post. You might want to transform that a little differently. ;-)I've corrected the reference - great article BTW. 10 application/xml false xlint:ignore Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727) 127.0.0.1 127.0.0.1 aseidl 68.40.167.222 false true false false true 76407 blog blogsite/Blogsite/web