The Problem With Blogs

Good morning again. How's this for starters: Blogs are ruining our culture and are a waste of time.

If you're curious, read more in this provocative item from the Inman Blog calling into question the value of blogs (I guess that's like a newspaper story about the decline of newspapers).

Story notes the new anti-blog book "The Cult of the Amateur," in which Andrew Keen "challenges the great democratization promise of Web 2.0. He concludes that the movement is a hairball of casual commentary and connectivity around celebrity, tech trends and the idiosyncracies of a small number of obsessive personalities. We are dubbed 'enthusiastic monkeys.' "

More from Keen: The explosion of blogs and user-generated Web content will cheapen culture and journalism -- this is what happens, he says, “when ignorance meets egoism meets bad taste meets mob rule.”

Well OK then. The Inman blog item goes further, and allows Real estate blogger Mike Agee to argue that blogs are a waste of time for real estate professionals.

Any enthusiastic monkeys want to weigh in on this?

Comments

[Pete Viles]

Just a footnote: Andrew Keen, the guy who says blogs are ruining culture and not much more than a mouthpiece for loudmouths? He has a blog. I'm not sure what that proves, but he too likes to hear the sound of his own fingers tap tap tapping. To show you how large-hearted we are, here's the link: http://andrewkeen.typepad.com/

[rebecca]

Peter Viles! You seem to be without contact information, sir, unless I am retarded?

[Peter Viles]

Rebecca: Nothing makes me happier than being contacted. Email is lalandblog@yahoo.com.

Actually, that is a lie, many things make me happier than being contacted, but I do check my email often.

[brettdl]

I don't bother with all the critics of blogs anymore. It's just silly, especially when they talk about cheapening a culture that watches a billion TV commercials and thinks soda belongs on the food pyramid.

[AnnS]

Oh dear, the relators don't want the masses gossiping or having more sources of information about the market than the realtors choose to tell them.

Having the masses (read: customers or suckers) having the information so they can make an informed judgment about the relators perennial "happy talk" and "its always a good time to buy" pitch does put such a crimp in their pawning off of their false optomism.

The internet and blogs are merely an extension of the long-standing tradition of people gossiping about current events over coffee at the neighborhood diner where the locals hang out.

And speaking of news that relators would NOT want buyers to hear, check out the sotry on the foreclosures and sales at auction in Atlanta. Houses are typically selling at auction for 1/3 -1/2 of their prices even 2 years ago.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/09/business/09auctions.html?pagewanted=1

The story mentions the opinions of several prominent economists - and none express the undying enthusiastic belief of the National Relators in-house economist that prices won't continue to plummet downward on a very steep slope.

[Westside Bubble]

Andrew Keen is suffering from the too-typical "sweeping generalizations" of certain commentators. Bloggers come in many flavors, as do commentators. The solid, detailed content of bloggers like Calculated Risk rivals the mainstream business press, and is quite a contrast to Keen's generalities described in your summary.

Keep up the good blogging here, Peter! You bring a good combination of journalist's experience and blogger's focus on current real estate bubble issues.

[www.BetterVillage.com, XYZ, PDq.]

"Any enthusiastic monkeys want to weigh in...?"

Doesn't Keen realize that even if we're all monkeys, and even if we were typing randomly, given unlimited amounts of time we will produce great works. Moreover, we're probably closer to homo erectus than monkeys, and a little less random. Blogs are starting to have a profound affect (citation?) on public opinion, and the big boys and girls realize this (http://blogs.health.yahoo.com/blog-for-hope/clinton/). Keen's motivation to create a stir seems fairly easy to understand: sell book. I worry about powerful entities masquerading as concerned academics or journalists ala lonelygirl15.

[Gary Lee]

The cream always rises to the top . . . . . look at the dot com bust . . . we're just in a blog-boom era right now . . . the real bloggers with real content will be able to stand the test of time

[Linda Slocum]

Keen is right, to a point...

Many real estate bloggers are only blogging because someone told them it was a good search engine strategy. They don't like to blog, they don't do any research, and all they do is post other people's stuff cut-and-paste style. Or worse yet, they pay someone else to cut-and-paste for them.

Thankfully there are many others that provide great information on all aspects of real estate, from buying and selling, to mortgages and mortgage fraud, to staging and preparing a house for sale, to real estate trends (although some of these are more fiction than fact-based just for the drama).

My guess is that these wanna-be blogs, especially the company-sponsored blogs created by HomeJots and the like as well as the free add-on blogs, will go away at some point. Most of these only have maybe one post a year anyways. If there are any monkeys in the bunch, I'd say these bulk-processed generic blogs will be the first to go.

For the rest of the bloggers who have quality blogs, regardless of their point of view, BLOG ON!