{"id":12630,"date":"2010-07-09T15:16:03","date_gmt":"2010-07-09T22:16:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/?p=12630"},"modified":"2010-07-09T15:16:03","modified_gmt":"2010-07-09T22:16:03","slug":"active-rain-says-tanstaafl-to-founding-members-uproar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/12630\/active-rain-says-tanstaafl-to-founding-members-uproar\/","title":{"rendered":"Active Rain Says TANSTAAFL To Founding Members&#8217; Uproar"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a title=\"activerain\" href=\"http:\/\/activerain.com\/azbrady\">Active Rain Real Estate Network<\/a> is charging a fee.\u00a0 I&#8217;m not surprised.\u00a0 The network has been trying to find ways to monetize its business since inception.\u00a0 It tried a referral network and advertising and now it&#8217;s faced with the hard decision of pay-for-play.<\/p>\n<p>Lani, at Agent Genius <a title=\"lani\" href=\"http:\/\/agentgenius.com\/real-estate-news-events\/activerain-goes-back-on-promise-infuriates-founding-users\/\">reported that one founding member deleted all of his content<\/a> in protest:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>This week, Active Rain inadvertently makes for heated conversation  again by going back on their promise to founding members (the first  users of the service) that they would never have to pay to participate  because they evangelized for free and promoted the service making it  what it is today.<\/p>\n<p>Real estate blogger <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/www.phoenixrealestateguy.com\/why-i-deleted-my-activerain-blog-posts\/\" target=\"_blank\">Jay Thompson<\/a>, one of Active Rain\u2019s original users  and long time advocate of the brand noticed along with many other  bloggers today that despite ActiveRain\u2019s promise to grandfather in  \u201cfounding members,\u201d he was asked to pay an annual fee before he would be  allowed to continue participating.<\/p>\n<p>ActiveRain allegedly fudged notifying founding members and moved  forward by only allowing active members to be grandfathered in.   Thompson\u2019s argument is not only one that he and others did not receive  proper notification, but he and others comment frequently and despite  being on a points based system tied to each user\u2019s account, it is not  considered to be \u201cparticipation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Thompson\u2019s response?  He deleted all of the content he had ever  written and I suspect he and others will no longer refer to ActiveRain  in their frequent seminars, courses and speaking engagements.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I don&#8217;t know if I would have chosen to delete my content there.\u00a0 Like any advertising model, it might have been useful to really analyze the costs and benefits.\u00a0 I can think of three benefits to paying for membership in the network:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Back links to my<a title=\"12mortgage.com\" href=\"http:\/\/www.12mortgage.com\"> home site<\/a>&#8211; I can&#8217;t quantify what that benefit is but I know it helps my SEO<\/li>\n<li>Traffic- I get some 200 visitors monthly from Active Rain URLs<\/li>\n<li>Conversion- I receive 1-2 GOOD inquiries monthly, directly from the Active Rain contact forms.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This isn&#8217;t too hard to quantify.\u00a0 The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/12630\/active-rain-says-tanstaafl-to-founding-members-uproar\/#more-12630\" class=\"more-link\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Active Rain Real Estate Network is charging a fee.\u00a0 I&#8217;m not surprised.\u00a0 The network has been trying to find ways to monetize its business since inception.\u00a0 It tried a referral network and advertising and now it&#8217;s faced with the hard decision of pay-for-play. Lani, at Agent Genius reported that one founding member deleted all [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,6,16],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-12630","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-blogging","7":"category-marketing","8":"category-weblogging-101","10":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1979,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1979\/activeraincom-v-movecom-wheres-caleb\/","url_meta":{"origin":12630,"position":0},"title":"ActiveRain.com v. Move.com:  Where&#8217;s Caleb?","author":"Brian Brady","date":"September 28, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Caleb Mardini was one of the founders of Active Rain. He played a significant role in the expansion of the network, offering weblogging tips and serving as one of the \"community cops\". I've always been a Caleb fan because he was a sales guy; he sold real estate and originated\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Blogging&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1532,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1532\/active-rain-happy-first-birthday\/","url_meta":{"origin":12630,"position":1},"title":"Active Rain- Happy First Birthday","author":"Brian Brady","date":"June 14, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Many of the contributors on Bloodhound are also members of the Active Rain Real Estate Network. Active Rain is a social networking site comprised of some 20,000 members in the real estate and related industries. The ActiveRain Real Estate Network is a free online community for real estate professionals designed\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Real Estate&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Real Estate","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/real-estate\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1866,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1866\/active-rain-unleashes-impression-advertising\/","url_meta":{"origin":12630,"position":2},"title":"Active Rain Unleashes Impression Advertising","author":"Brian Brady","date":"August 28, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"If they're ain't no margin, there ain't no mission. Active Rain has released it's revenue model to the network of 43,000 members. My only question is, \"What took you so long?\" In the interest of fairness, Jon Washburn, Caleb Mardini, & Matt Heaton are tech-guys. They always felt that if\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Blogging&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1980,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1980\/activeraincom-v-movecom-slowly-nailing-the-coffin\/","url_meta":{"origin":12630,"position":3},"title":"Activerain.com v. Move.com:  The Duplicity at Activerain.com","author":"Brian Brady","date":"September 29, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"In an effort to placate angry users, Active Rain announces that the content is owned by the author; not the network. This isolates the membership roster as the only valuable asset in the failed sales to Move.com The platform is not proprietary, the content was never owned (and couldn't legally\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Blogging&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2918,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/2918\/80000-members-and-only-300-have-anything-to-sell\/","url_meta":{"origin":12630,"position":4},"title":"80,000 Members And Only 300 Have Anything To Sell?","author":"Barry Cunningham","date":"April 8, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"In addition to questioning certain real estate agents as to just what they do that justifies the commission that they charge, we also have wondered aloud if the real estate market is in the state that it is because there are \"no buyers\"or is the real estate market in the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Marketing&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Marketing","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/marketing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.realestateradiousa.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/04\/inactive.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3343,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/3343\/localismcom-its-not-just-for-surfers\/","url_meta":{"origin":12630,"position":5},"title":"Localism.com:  It&#8217;s Not Just For Surfers","author":"Brian Brady","date":"July 9, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I remember when ActiveRain.com released its Localism.com portal.\u00a0 SoCal surfin' REALTOR dude, Rory Siems commented that he thought \"Localism\" was a term surfers used for defending their beach from \"kooks\".\u00a0 While Localism is not a surfing site, the principle of \"protecting your turf\" is alive and well for local real\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Blogging&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12630"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12630\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12637,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12630\/revisions\/12637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}