{"id":2361,"date":"2007-12-13T13:48:59","date_gmt":"2007-12-13T20:48:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/?p=2361"},"modified":"2007-12-13T13:49:42","modified_gmt":"2007-12-13T20:49:42","slug":"are-zillows-forums-the-dive-bars-of-the-real-estate-conversation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/2361\/are-zillows-forums-the-dive-bars-of-the-real-estate-conversation\/","title":{"rendered":"Are Zillow’s forums the dive bars of the real estate conversation?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I admit that I haven’t paid much attention to Zillow.com’s forums feature since it was announced. I argued then that forums were a mistake, and that the design paradigm should be the weblog<\/a>. There are many good reasons for this, but a very important reason is that weblogs are defensible redoubts — “for each one spot should prove beloved over all.” Internet forums, by contrast, frequently devolve into free-for-alls, Kilkenny cats’ battles survived only by the rudest, most vulgar, most odious participants.<\/p>\n

Is this going on at Zillow.com? Ask China Moon Crowell<\/a>, a Wisconsin Realtor. She posted something innocuous to a Zillow buyer’s forum and found out that she is crispy flame-bait. She has had the most vitriolic scorn heaped upon her, and she has been called a variety of incendiary names. Her initial purpose was self-promotion, surely, and this might in fact be a violation of Zillow’s rules. But if it is, her slap on the wrist was delivered with a cat o’ nine tails. At this point, China just wants to kiss Zillow goodbye<\/a>, but her parting seems to be delayed by an email loop.<\/p>\n

But, what the hey, that’s free speech, right?<\/p>\n

Wrong.<\/p>\n

No one has a right to free speech on another person’s property<\/a>. Zillow has decent rules on bad behavior, but, from a spot check I did this morning, they’re not being enforced. This again is a curse of a forum as opposed to a more-proprietary kind of salon: The ratio of crooks to cops can be unworkably high. If the discussions on Zillow were broken up in weblogs, then each weblog “owner” could establish his or her own tolerance levels — just as I do here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The way to think of social spaces on the web is to analogize them to social spaces in the real world. (C’mon! You can make the leap!) When you go out for a drink with friends, you go to a place where you feel comfortable. If you’re gentle, smart and prosperous, you’re not going to pick a place where Fight Club<\/i> wannabes are welcome. And if Fight Club<\/i> really is your favorite movie, you’re Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I admit that I haven’t paid much attention to Zillow.com’s forums feature since it was announced. I argued then that forums were a mistake, and that the design paradigm should be the weblog. There are many good reasons for this, but a very important reason is that weblogs are defensible redoubts — “for each one […]<\/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":[3,4,6,5,25],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2361","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-blogging","7":"category-disintermediation","8":"category-marketing","9":"category-real-estate","10":"category-zillowcom","12":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2070,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/2070\/is-zillowcom-shutting-down-could-the-media-darling-and-incipient-double-jeopardy-question-be-headed-for-the-dead-pool\/","url_meta":{"origin":2361,"position":0},"title":"Is Zillow.com shutting down? Could the media darling and incipient Double Jeopardy question be headed for the dead pool?","author":"Greg Swann","date":"October 20, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Not so much, despite a prank posting on the realty.bot's forums:Zillow will be shut down on Nov 2nd Their revenue stream is in concert with the real estate market. They simply ran out of money. Hence no price updates for over a month.The Cluetrain runs on Saturdays in Seattle, so\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Disintermediation"","block_context":{"text":"Disintermediation","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/disintermediation\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1435,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1435\/ftc-to-ncrc-regarding-zillowcom-what-price-justice\/","url_meta":{"origin":2361,"position":1},"title":"FTC to NCRC regarding Zillow.com: What price justice?","author":"Greg Swann","date":"May 15, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"The attempted shakedown of Zillow.com that began last October -- when The National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC) sent a letter to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) complaining that the nascent Seattle-based Automated Valuation Model (AVM) was misleading minority homeowners about the value of their homes -- has come to stunningly\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Disintermediation"","block_context":{"text":"Disintermediation","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/disintermediation\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":580,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/580\/zillowcom-shade-down-creeping-disclaimerism-as-a-subject-changing-gambit\/","url_meta":{"origin":2361,"position":2},"title":"Zillow.com shake-down: Creeping disclaimerism as a subject-changing gambit . . .","author":"Greg Swann","date":"October 27, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Whatever. Just don't pay them off. The issue is a lot bigger than Zillow.com, and Net Exceptionalism is too important an idea to be squandered. Even if you don't know who your friends are, I will hang with you if you will hang tough... Our story so far:Welcome to Race\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":591,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/591\/the-zillowcom-shake-down-the-piling-on-begins-and-spencer-tracy-is-nowhere-to-be-found\/","url_meta":{"origin":2361,"position":3},"title":"The Zillow.com shake-down: The piling on begins — and Spencer Tracy is nowhere to be found . . .","author":"Greg Swann","date":"November 1, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Zillow news since the New York Times story broke: Zillow.com accused of helping predatory lenders Zillow.com: So bad it ought to be banned? Zillow Faces Minority Complaint: Rights watchdog group prepares charge that real estate site undervalues homes of non-whites Zillow.com accused of discrimination in home valuations FTC complaint filed\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":1009,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1009\/fortune-on-zillowcom-they-can-gape-but-they-cant-google\/","url_meta":{"origin":2361,"position":4},"title":"Fortune on Zillow.com: They can gape, but they can’t Google . . .","author":"Greg Swann","date":"February 7, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"It's possible that I've written more about Zillow.com than any other real estate weblogger. More on why Automated Valuation Methods necessarily stink. More on why the National Community Reinvestment Coalition's shake-down of Zillow.com stinks even worse. More on Zillow.com's new features. If I haven't written more than anyone else, I've\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":575,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/575\/zillowcom-shake-down-this-is-the-first-shoe-dropping\/","url_meta":{"origin":2361,"position":5},"title":"Zillow.com shake-down: This is the first shoe dropping . . .","author":"Greg Swann","date":"October 26, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"John Cook, Seattle Post-Intelligencer:Zillow has contacted the NCRC, and the two plan to meet soon, Berenbaum said. He expressed confidence that they can resolve the issues in a way that benefits the entire home valuation industry.Actually, the complaint made me think that Yahoo.com is going to have to cough up\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\/2361","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=2361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2361\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}