{"id":219,"date":"2006-08-17T18:20:44","date_gmt":"2006-08-18T01:20:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/?p=219"},"modified":"2006-08-17T22:56:54","modified_gmt":"2006-08-18T05:56:54","slug":"is-that-aol-there-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/219\/is-that-aol-there-is\/","title":{"rendered":"Is that AOL there is?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jim Cronin of The Real Estate Tomato<\/a> asked me to take a look at ActiveRain<\/a>, seemingly a toe-in-the-water experience for technologically-timid Realtors. My initial take, reported back to Jim, was this: “ActiveRain is the AOL of real estate weblogging…”<\/p>\n

That’s probably pre-mature. I hit ’em with Realtor 2.0<\/a> to see who might salute. In the mean time, the conversation put me in mind of this essay, which I wrote in November of 1995. Sadly enough, it actually holds up after all this time…<\/p>\n

Is that AOL there is…?<\/b><\/p>\n

Well, seeing is believing, and now I know: America Online is lame.<\/p>\n

Like you, like everyone with a computer and a mailing address, I have been deluged by America Online start-up disks. Fortunately, most of those disks have been for Windows, and I run a Macintosh. It was bracing to learn that state-of-the-art target marketing can, with pinpoint accuracy, send the wrong pitch to an unmotivated buyer 79.91% of the time. But the truth is, I was unmotivated even by the Mac disks that sometimes came by accident.<\/p>\n

But then the Mac mail order houses started chucking in an AOL Mac disk with every order. And Staples and OfficeMax put racks of them by every cash register. We haven’t gotten to the point of extremely clean-cut kids going door-to-door or hustling harried travelers at the airport, but America Online has<\/i> taken to binding start-up disks in magazines, like those horrid scratch ‘n’ retch perfume samplers.<\/p>\n

And then the woman I hope someday to make my ex-wife sent over a two-disk installer, the very latest release. My daughter Meredith has an AOL account, so the plan was that I would install it for her benefit. I didn’t, or, rather, I hadn’t, but I was fooling around with a cool little CD-ROM that came with the December Macworld–which, of course, had an AOL installer on it–and I decided to give it a gander.<\/p>\n

What could it hurt? It only takes up slightly more disk space than the complete works of Shakespeare, and the worst that could happen is that my vital financial information would be shared with the FBI or less officious Read more<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jim Cronin of The Real Estate Tomato asked me to take a look at ActiveRain, seemingly a toe-in-the-water experience for technologically-timid Realtors. My initial take, reported back to Jim, was this: “ActiveRain is the AOL of real estate weblogging…” That’s probably pre-mature. I hit ’em with Realtor 2.0 to see who might salute. In the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"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":[3,6,5],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-219","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-blogging","7":"category-marketing","8":"category-real-estate","10":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1973,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1973\/activerain-discovers-that-the-code-of-web-20-is-the-code-of-the-west-do-unto-others-before-them-others-do-it-unto-you\/","url_meta":{"origin":219,"position":0},"title":"ActiveRain discovers that the Code of Web 2.0 is the Code of the West: Do unto others before them others do it unto you","author":"Greg Swann","date":"September 27, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"The Code of the West ain't some words on a page You just naturally know it when you come of age You eat when you're hungry, you drink when you're dry You look every man in the eyeIn the nineteenth century, rogue investors like Jay Gould and Big Jim Fisk\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1976,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1976\/an-open-letter-to-the-owners-of-activerain-show-us-the-contracts\/","url_meta":{"origin":219,"position":1},"title":"An open letter to the owners of ActiveRain: Show us the contracts","author":"Greg Swann","date":"September 28, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Messrs. Heaton and Washburn, owners of ActiveRain, My take on your having released your lawsuit against Move, Inc., and their response is that you know with a high degree of confidence that you cannot prevail in court. I read your original lawsuit as an attempt to extract something from Move,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6918,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/6918\/the-activerain-hokey-pokey-you-shoot-your-left-foot-off-you-shoot-your-right-foot-off-you-shoot-your-left-hand-off-and-then-you-present-the-audience-with-an-invoice\/","url_meta":{"origin":219,"position":2},"title":"The ActiveRain hokey pokey: You shoot your left foot off, you shoot your right foot off, you shoot your left hand off — and then you present the audience with an invoice…","author":"Greg Swann","date":"February 16, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"What costs $360 a year and puts you in touch with vast hordes of sweet people who cannot do business with you? Starting today, Active Rain will cost $30 a month for new members. That's a load of dough. If you want to host your own WordPress.org weblog, a perfectly\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1982,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1982\/you-can-view-or-download-mirrored-copies-of-activerains-complaint-and-move-incs-response-at-bloodhoundblog\/","url_meta":{"origin":219,"position":3},"title":"You can view or download mirrored copies of ActiveRain’s complaint and Move, Inc.’s response at BloodhoundBlog","author":"Greg Swann","date":"September 29, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"The PDF files of ActiveRain's complaint against Move, Inc., and Move's response, both attested to be linked from ActiveRain, are no longer there. (See comment below from Jonathan Washburn; the disappearance was apparently inadvertent.) I am fairly reliably paranoid about crap like this, so I took copies of the two\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2526,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/2526\/activeraincom-and-housevaluescom-the-ultimate-irony\/","url_meta":{"origin":219,"position":4},"title":"Activerain.com and HouseValues.com- The Ultimate Irony","author":"Brian Brady","date":"January 21, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Activerain.com received a capital infusion to the tune of $2.75 million from Housevalues.com. It was announced on Inman News, posted here, on BHB, and explained on Activerain. Housevalues has suffered an erosion of market value since its post-IPO \"pop\" in early 2005. It added 50% from its IPO price and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Marketing"","block_context":{"text":"Marketing","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/marketing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7308,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/7308\/brief-links-todd-carpenter-at-rebarcamp-virginia-active-rain-versus-move-and-why-the-kindle-iphone-app-is-too-little-too-late\/","url_meta":{"origin":219,"position":5},"title":"Brief links: Todd Carpenter at REBarCamp Virginia, Active Rain versus Move and why the Kindle iPhone app is too-little, too-late","author":"Greg Swann","date":"March 4, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Daniel Rothamel made a UStream video of Todd Carpenter's appearance yesterday at REBarCamp Virginia. Todd acquitted himself fairly well, only now and then sounding like an oily, evasive politician. His mien was perfect: Middle-management nerd, which is his newly-assigned role. His boss, Hillary Marsh, also spoke, and she was a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","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\/219","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}