{"id":6276,"date":"2008-12-26T14:06:19","date_gmt":"2008-12-26T21:06:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/?p=6276"},"modified":"2008-12-26T14:18:40","modified_gmt":"2008-12-26T21:18:40","slug":"the-case-against-paid-reviews-why-agents-vendors-should-never-use-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/6276\/the-case-against-paid-reviews-why-agents-vendors-should-never-use-them\/","title":{"rendered":"The Case Against Paid Reviews: Why Agents & Vendors Should Never Use Them."},"content":{"rendered":"

First a disclaimer:\u00a0 I’ve done fine on the web.\u00a0 Made great money connecting with clients that don’t know, used to know, and kinda know me.\u00a0 A lot on LiveJournal till I left, and even more on Facebook.\u00a0 I’ll make more money in 2009.\u00a0\u00a0 A second disclaimer:\u00a0 I hope that this post makes me tens of thousands of dollars by attracting to me the type of person I wanna do business with.\u00a0 So this post is written for perfectly selfish reasons, but we all have that on the table now…and can move forward.\u00a0\u00a0 I guess with that said, every single post I write here or elsewhere…I write with the intent of connecting with someone cool.<\/p>\n

When I first joined BHB, no less than 3\u00a0 ‘vendors’ that currently advertise elsewhere on the RE.NET looked at me and assumed that I’d be the type to shill their products.\u00a0 I wasn’t ever offered cash, but I was offered to use the product and see if I like it.\u00a0\u00a0 I was too busy at the time, and didn’t give a shit about those particular products. I don’t know if I would have taken cash, I wasn’t asked, so I can’t answer that question. \u00a0 What I do know is that I blew it off because the products didn’t seem interesting.\u00a0 Who cares about some new CRM that manages your showings or whatever…<\/p>\n

Vendors invariably harm themselves with paid reviews.\u00a0\u00a0 When you coopt a voice like Agent Genuis with ad money and reviews, you short circuit your ability go gain feedback<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 If you’re trying to make anything better and different, you must be able to rely on places like AG to give you honest feeback on your product.\u00a0 You either want to advertise it–which is what Todd at Lenderama<\/a> does transparently and honestly…or you want to improve it.\u00a0\u00a0 Co-opting the people that have influence is not the way to get actionable feedback. It’s also an insult to them: it basically says hey, we like your readers, but we will give you money instead of listening to your ideas.<\/p>\n

The RE.NET is packed with bright people. \u00a0 More valuable than the Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

First a disclaimer:\u00a0 I’ve done fine on the web.\u00a0 Made great money connecting with clients that don’t know, used to know, and kinda know me.\u00a0 A lot on LiveJournal till I left, and even more on Facebook.\u00a0 I’ll make more money in 2009.\u00a0\u00a0 A second disclaimer:\u00a0 I hope that this post makes me tens of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"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":[3,7,174],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-6276","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-blogging","7":"category-enduring-interest","8":"category-inmanically-incorrect","10":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2025,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/2025\/third-party-vendors-pick-up-where-the-nar-leaves-off-milking-the-realtors-dry\/","url_meta":{"origin":6276,"position":0},"title":"Third-party vendors pick up where the NAR leaves off: Milking the Realtors dry","author":"Greg Swann","date":"October 11, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"It's Milk the Realtors week on the RE.net -- with the shilling appeals for useless new \"solutions\" getting pretty close to actual sleaze -- so I wanted to revisit a couple of themes we've hit before. Inherent in the Web 2.0 idea is a de-verticalization of real estate marketing. Big-budget\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":1736,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1736\/controlling-your-own-destiny-in-your-hi-tech-real-estate-practice-three-simple-rules-for-dealing-with-technology-vendors\/","url_meta":{"origin":6276,"position":1},"title":"Black Pearls: Controlling your own destiny in your hi-tech real estate practice: Three simple rules for dealing with technology vendors","author":"Greg Swann","date":"May 21, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"[This post came up yesterday in a discussion at Unchained, and I'm kicking it back to the top of the blog because the issue of data portability is so important for people who might be coming anew into the world of Web 2.0\/Social Media Marketing. --GSS] \u00a0Would it surprise you\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":284,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/284\/labor-day-linkathon-catching-up-with-real-estate-topics-raised-here-and-elsewhere\/","url_meta":{"origin":6276,"position":2},"title":"Labor Day Linkathon: Catching up with real estate topics raised here and elsewhere . . .","author":"Greg Swann","date":"September 4, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"From a comment here, here is the full context of Marlow Harris's remarks to the New York Times:\"The only complaints I hear about are those noted on the official Redfin blog or talked about by their CEO in newspapers. As I mentioned in my previous email, they have such 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":[]},{"id":592,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/592\/defending-zillowcom\/","url_meta":{"origin":6276,"position":3},"title":"Defending Zillow.com . . .","author":"Greg Swann","date":"November 2, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Picture yourself living in Boston, Massachusetts, where the climate is six months of drizzle and mud followed by six months of deep snow and permafrost. Let's say it comes to your mind to bid a final farewell to all things wintery and shuffle off to the endless, boundless, soul-enriching sunny\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":342,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/342\/sellsius-zillows-the-value-of-an-explicit-disclaimer-on-zillowcom\/","url_meta":{"origin":6276,"position":4},"title":"Sellsius Zillows the value of an explicit disclaimer on Zillow.com . . .","author":"Greg Swann","date":"September 16, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"A vigorous cross-examination of David G. from Zillow.com. The richer ore is in the comments, so be sure to keep scrolling. Technorati Tags: blogging, disintermediation, real estate, real estate marketing","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":307,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/307\/incremental-movement-toward-a-blanket-zillowcom-disclaimer\/","url_meta":{"origin":6276,"position":5},"title":"Incremental movement toward a blanket Zillow.com disclaimer?","author":"Greg Swann","date":"September 8, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Today brings a game effort by David Gibbons of Zillow Blog to address Zillow.com's disclosure\/disclaimer issue. The problem for me is that the material he cites is at least one click deeper than where he puts is and two clicks deeper than where it should be. Even worse, the page\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\/6276","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\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6276"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6276\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6281,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6276\/revisions\/6281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}