Notorious R.O.B. – Conversations on Marketing, Technology, Real Estate

Image via Lovely Petal (Flickr: Samiksha)

On Twitter tonight, Sue Adler (@sueadler) says nonchalantly:

Shocking to find MY town pgs & photos copied exactly on another’s site. Hoping this agent, who I know well, hired someone & wasnt aware. hmm

That ain’t a “hmm” Sue — that should be a, “I’ve been robbed!”  That’s outright copyright violation — a theft of your intellectual property.

I know it happens.  Copyright violation on the Internet is not a matter of “IF” it happens, but “WHEN” it happens to you.  A lot of the violations are these automated spam blogs (“splogs”) that go out, scrape content, put it on a page to drive Google rankings and make a few bucks off of advertising.  In less common cases, it’s someone who just really liked your post or your content or something and thought it’s no big deal to copy the whole thing and put it on their site, as long as they link back to you and give you credit.

Except that it’s not okay, since Google punishes duplicate content.  To be sure, there is some dispute as to whether the original copyright holder gets hit with the penalty or not… but since anyone who claims to know exactly how the Google algorithms work who doesn’t have a valid Google Employee ID is probably talking out of his ass, why take the chance?  It isn’t as if the plagiarist is doing something legitimate to begin with.

As it happens, there are others who are far more expert than I in this area of what to do and how to protect yourself.  So here are a few links you might want to browse if you think someone (or multiple someones) is copying your content wholesale:

• What To Do When Someone Steals Your Content by Lorelle.  This is a fantastic, detailed post, with helpful tips, even a form email to send to the offending party, useful links, and just a wealth of information.  Start here.
• Copyscape.  This is a website that can simplify the effort of tracking who out on the Web is stealing your content.  I’ve managed to find quite a few of my blogposts on random splogs through this tool.  It also has helpful links right into WHOIS and other tools to simplify gathering information you’ll want and need to pursue the matter further.
• Chilling Effects.  This is for those who want to get a bit deeper into some of the legal issues in copyright infringement and piracy.  They also provide a great FAQ on copyright on piracy.
• Splogs: Spam Blogs and Stolen Content.  More of a call to arms, but there’s a lot of great information on this post, as well as links to other useful sites and tools.

I’m certain there are other great resources on the Web and elsewhere.  I’d appreciate any comments sharing ones you’ve found.

Fight Back; Content Theft is NOT Sharing

I know the spirit of sharing on the Web generally and in the RE.net more specifically are very strong.  Many of us are constantly sharing ideas, giving away “intellectual property”, and go to REBarCamps where we give stuff away for free all the time without any expectation of (immediate) gain.

But stealing content outright is not sharing.  I’m not talking about excerpting a paragraph or two to make a point here.  I’m talking about copying entire blogposts, pictures and all.  I’m talking about taking another agent’s local market information lock, stock and barrel and passing it off as your own.  Even if you include a token link to my original post, or put up some little piece of crap like “originally posted on XYZ blog”, you’re stealing my traffic, stealing my ability to interact with readers, and should anyone actually comment on your copy of my post, preventing the community from sharing ideas with each other.

As in all things, you can go overboard with trying to fight content theft.  You can’t live with paranoia all the time.  You have to use your judgment as to whether the offender was trying to steal your intellectual property, or made an honest mistake.

But fight back.  For all of us.  I for one plan on starting.  Have sent one letter so far tonight to a splog operator.  We’ll see if he takes it down.

-rsh

Buried within last week’s firestorm ignited by a couple of posts over at AgentGenius was an actually important issue that all social media practitioners and companies thinking about social media need to think about.

When is a company or an organization responsible for the social media actions of its employees?

Now, while I have gone to law school, and am a member of the Bar, I am not a lawyer, and what follows should not be construed as legal advice or any such thing.  Consult your own attorneys for their take on the issue.

From where I stand, I believe the answer will depend largely on three factors: (a) the employee’s “day job” responsibilities, (b) the “social media act” at issue, and (c) employer’s level of knowledge.  But this is a first stab, and I would love thoughts/comments from the readers, especially from those who are practicing attorneys.

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Get yer popcorn here! Fresh piping hot popcorn!

Earlier today, we had a bit of a brouhaha among the Twitterati of the real estate set.  The genesis was this video blog by Greg Cooper in which he blasted Todd Carpenter, attacked him personally, and laid the heavy artillery on to NAR.  Which then brought responses from various members of the RE.net, some friendly to Todd and others hostile to him, and resulted in this post by Bill Lublin.

Periodically, it seems we get one of these little kerfuffles in the RE.net; I personally think it’s pretty healthy.  As far as the specifics of the Todd vs. Greg deal and all of that, the whole thing is likely blown way out of proportion, and others will address the “personal vs. corporate” burdens on someone using his personal channels.  I hear Jay Thompson is working on a post.  Suffice to say that Todd is a great guy, and if any “embarrassment” resulted, I’m 100% positive he did not intend it.  So count me in Team @Tcar as far as that goes.

But the real issue I’d like to discuss is actually from a comment by Ines Hegedus-Garcia to Bill’s post which goes:

But again, that’s not the point – it’s not about Todd, it’s about the flaming of an individual on a public forum that totally crosses the line. (And the fact that is Todd makes it all the worse)

And via Twitter, there are a number of folks who thought Greg’s post was over the top, unfair, and illegitimate.  Criticism, it goes, should be “constructive and thoughtful” of else, not worth the time at all.

This is where I part company with polite society.

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This post by Marty Neumeier on @Issue (from which the above graphic cometh) might be the most interesting branding-related insight I’ve read in quite some time.  Go now and read the whole thing.  I’ll wait.

Let’s assume that he can back up the assertion via survey data, focus group data, and actual market results.  The conclusions are very cool and very interesting indeed.

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Image: bluefin_102 ~ Mike Forsman via Flickr.com

Joel Burslem, whose intelligence is matched only by his ability to eat samgyupsal and drink soju with native Korean boys, opines on 1000watt blog that 2010 will be the year of mobile:

In my presentation yesterday at Virtual RE Bar Camp I made the case that 2010 will be the year the mobile finally matters in real estate marketing. But its not mobile by itself that matters…

2010 is the year the mobile web really begins to matter. In 2009, the mobile web grew 110 percent according to Quantcast. And just as advertising dollars flowed from print to the web, soon I suspect, they will flow from the desktop to the handset.

As much as it pains me to disagree with Joel, in this case, I’d like to offer two points to temper his (and others’) enthusiasm.

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So how does this RPR thing affect us and our brokerage?

In part 1, I tried my level best to keep my opinions restricted to what RPR actually is, based on the demo.  And what RPR is is a fantastic piece of web engineering.  In this part, I get more into the opinionating and what Reggie Nicolay might term, “fearmongering”.

Let us examine the possible impact of RPR on brokers and agents, based on what we know thus far.

Caveat Lector: What We Know That We Don’t Know

One thing I learned at REBarCamp NYC that just happened last week, from Reggie himself, was that the Terms of Use for RPR have not yet been set.  And while the RPR has announced API’s, the terms of use on those have not been set or published.  We also don’t know what those API’s will actually do in terms of data provisioning over the API’s to third party tools or websites.

Therefore, one of the biggest pieces to the puzzle — the legal rights and responsibilities of RPR’s users — is as yet unknown, except in glimpses.  We also don’t know how flexible the RPR system will ultimately be.  It may be incredibly flexible, or it may be a closed system.

We don’t know yet whether brokerages (or even agents) can participate directly in RPR, or if they have to wait for their MLS to first sign up with RPR in order to utilize the full range of functionality.

For that matter, since all we’ve really seen is a video demo and some screenshots, we don’t really know at the end of the day what the finished product will actually look like and how it will work.

Enough caveats?  Okay, let’s get into this…

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Let me tell you who my sponsors are...

While I’m recuperating from Rebarcamp NY and Inman Connect, and working on the next chapter of the RPR reviews, I thought I’d post something that crossed my virtual desk because, well, I feel like it.

I’ve heard from a couple of people during Inman week that some of the more prominent voices (and honestly, it doesn’t matter who, so don’t ask me) in the real estate space are paid to mention specific companies and products in their public speaking and public blogging activities.  Again, since I’m interested in discussing the principles here, names and identities are wholly unimportant.

In some cases, there isn’t a direct payment of cash, but there may be other sorts of compensation — revenue share on the back-end, cross-marketing arrangements, and the like.

Question is, should these arrangements be disclosed, and if so, how much disclosure of what sorts of relationships is appropriate?

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All your castles are belonging to us now!

After a fairly lengthy silence, the team at RPR has released a deluge of new information on their new blog.  A couple of things before we delve in.

First, Reggie Nicolay and his team deserve a ton of credit for the new blog.  It’s well-designed, the content is rich and detailed, and many of the tools I would expect from a professional social media engagement site are there.  So kudos to Reggie and the gang on the marketing side.  (Minor quibble: can you not use videos that can be embedded? Or provide more sharing tools, like Wordpress, Posterous, and the like?  The goal of RPR blog isn’t to drive traffic, right, but to get the word out?)

Second, from the movie of a live demo of the software, it seems evident that the development team has not had a easy and relaxing holidays.  They’ve been hard at work, and what I saw on the demo (we’ll spill many pixels on this) is slick, polished, and truly excellent.  They too deserve immense credit for what they’ve managed to accomplish in such a short period of time.

Now, as you probably know, I’m on the skeptical side of things as far as RPR is concerned, having announced its death and all.  And the demo itself, as amazing as it is, doesn’t completely change my mind on that front.  However, from the start, I have had nothing but praise for the software itself, and I’d like to make that crystal clear:  The RPR software is by far the most impressive piece of design and web development I have seen in real estate since the launch of Trulia.  I have nothing bad to say about it as a piece of software.

In this part, I’d like to simply review the RPR based on the demo that was recently posted.  Since I haven’t driven it myself, I’m not clear on what I may be missing.  So keep that in mind as you read.

Let’s dive in.

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Had a great time at Virtual REBC (kudos to Jim Cronin), and thought I’d put up my presentation in case anyone is interested.

7DS on Social Media

Thanks to everyone who came, and again, apologies for the audio cutting out.

-rsh

Sherry Chris at REBarCamp San Diego, 2009

In part 1, we explored the controversies and the issues surrounding what a Real Estate BarCamp should or should not be, and explored the rules and principles of the original tech-focused BarCamp.  At the end of that, I asked three questions:

• What goals are we trying to achieve with REBarCamps?
• Who benefits from REBarCamps?  Who should benefit from REBarCamps?
• What principles and rules help achieve the answers to the above questions?

The answers have been varied, and interesting, and I appreciate the dialogue, y’all.

The heart of the dilemma comes out in the responses as well.  Kathleen Buckley (@kvbuckley) writes:

# What goals are we trying to achieve with REBarCamps?
In my mind REBarCamps aim to help RE Professionals learn about and leverage a wide range of new, largely technology driven tools to enhance performance.

In contrast, Andy Kaufman (@andykaufman) writes:

# What goals are we trying to achieve with REBarCamps?
As organizers, I think we should strive to provide a friction-less setting where participants can meet face to face with their peers who are passionate about the space can interact. As a participant, I want to meet people, strengthen relationships, learn & share knowledge without ‘being sold’.

Is REBC about “helping RE professionals learn about technology”?  Or is it about peers meeting to share their passions?  Can it be both?  If so, how?

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