Every web 2.0 Realtor\u00ae that is any web 2.0 Realtor\u00ae has at least one or more widgets up and running on their preferred social networking sites. Some Realtors\u00ae collect widgets like my son collects insects\u2014strange little trapped creatures placed proudly on display\u2014creatures that I don\u2019t want coming anywhere near me! And, just like my eight-year-old and his obsessions with all things creepy-crawly\u2014I\u2019m not sure if Realtors\u00ae really want these things, or if it\u2019s just the thrill of hunting them down, jumping online, sniffing them out, inserting those few lines of pre-written HTML code into their blog like bugs going into my boy\u2019s empty-and-cut-open Mayfield Dairy milk jug. Then, slowly but ever so proudly lifting them up, so the whole world can see their widgets, more widgets, and look, a whole colony of social-networking, virtual-reality widgets.<\/p>\n
Or, as I like to call them: Idjits, Digits and Midgets. The Digits<\/a><\/strong> – These contraptions tell people how good you are at selling real estate, how many posts you\u2019ve written, how many points you\u2019ve earned and how often you appear on the front page of such and such social media site. Funny thing is, not once have I ever been asked by a home buyer or seller how many posts I\u2019ve written, how many comments I\u2019ve Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Every web 2.0 Realtor\u00ae that is any web 2.0 Realtor\u00ae has at least one or more widgets up and running on their preferred social networking sites. Some Realtors\u00ae collect widgets like my son collects insects\u2014strange little trapped creatures placed proudly on display\u2014creatures that I don\u2019t want coming anywhere near me! And, just like my eight-year-old […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"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":[3,19,16],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-5277","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-blogging","7":"category-technology","8":"category-weblogging-101","10":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3101,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/3101\/trulia-widgets-a-deeper-look\/","url_meta":{"origin":5277,"position":0},"title":"Trulia Widgets — a deeper look","author":"Eric Blackwell","date":"May 12, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Why would Eric Bramlett post something like this? Or this? The debate rolls on as to Trulia Widgets and their use as a linkbaiting scheme. They are writing these things because they matter. But it has been said that they don't matter, that Trulia would still be climbing in the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Real Estate"","block_context":{"text":"Real Estate","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/real-estate\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3132,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/3132\/number-1-expert-and-opt-out-web-template-widgets-why-put-your-website-clients-at-risk\/","url_meta":{"origin":5277,"position":1},"title":"Number 1 Expert and Opt Out Web Template Widgets – Why put your website clients at risk?","author":"Eric Blackwell","date":"May 17, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I have been trying to think of a way to explain what has been going through my mind in plain english. Here's my attempt: When Galen first posted about Trulia's aggressive no-following of listings links, it was a bit technical for many folks to follow, but it set off alarm\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Real Estate"","block_context":{"text":"Real Estate","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/real-estate\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3116,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/3116\/mike-wallace-interviews-number1expert-and-trulia\/","url_meta":{"origin":5277,"position":2},"title":"Mike Wallace interviews Number1Expert and Trulia?","author":"Eric Blackwell","date":"May 14, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Things have been busy around here lately. This controversy over Trulia's widget baiting tactics rages on in the internet world. Now Sherry Chris has chimed in as well. (Kudos to you for entering the arena...others should follow). Bottomline is this: Trulia calls us partners. (REALTORS and them) Before someone calls\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Real Estate"","block_context":{"text":"Real Estate","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/real-estate\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7144,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/7144\/number1expert-again-r-u-serious\/","url_meta":{"origin":5277,"position":3},"title":"Number1Expert – Again? R U Serious?","author":"Eric Blackwell","date":"February 25, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"In May of last year, Eric Bramlett shined the light on an apparent link building scheme that Trulia and Number1Expert had **apparently** **allegedly** been doing, having 3 links to Trulia via a little map widget installed on thousands of unsuspecting REALTORS' sites created by N1E... Here's the post that started\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bloodhound SEO"","block_context":{"text":"Bloodhound SEO","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/bloodhound-seo\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1966,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1966\/the-odysseus-medal-getting-arms-back-up-on-their-own-two-feet\/","url_meta":{"origin":5277,"position":4},"title":"The Odysseus Medal: Getting ARMs back up on their own two feet","author":"Greg Swann","date":"September 24, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"If you didn't look at this week's nominees for The Odysseus Medal, you should. We had 20 posts on the short-list, but 24 more that were also very good. Here are this week's winners: This week's Odysseus Medal goes to Peter Coy at BusinessWeek for Believe it or not, the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blog Carnivals"","block_context":{"text":"Blog Carnivals","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blog-carnivals\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3089,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/3089\/number1expert-re-launches-as-number2expert\/","url_meta":{"origin":5277,"position":5},"title":"Number1Expert Re-Launches as Number2Expert","author":"Eric Bramlett","date":"May 11, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"In a surprise move, website template provider Number1Expert has announced plans to rebrand as Number2Expert. This decision came following their inclusion of Trulia widgets on the myhomes.asp pages of all of their client sites. Here\u2019s an example. When asked about the decision, a spokesman said, \u201cTo date, our clients are\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":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5277","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\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5277"}],"version-history":[{"count":32,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5277\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5308,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5277\/revisions\/5308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n
\n The <\/a>Idjits<\/a><\/strong> – These things give me the creeps. Every time I see one, I think of the little girl from Poltergeist talking about somebody trapped inside her television. The only difference is that these are little faces trapped inside my computer\u2014probably wanting to get out, but can\u2019t. Prisoners in their own private sidebar hell wishing they had spent their time more productively than typing meaningless replies to words they never even read. Now, some agents swear by this widget and even use it as a makeshift stalker tracker. Obviously they don\u2019t know what having a real-life stalker is like. If they did, they would know that the ones you can\u2019t see are the ones you need to worry about. I\u2019m not concerned about the agents staring at me on my computer, I already know what they are doing\u2026or not doing.<\/p>\n