In what direction goes Active Rain?

Yesterday I posted an entry on the FUD that I opined is gripping the country; and, to my great surprise it was picked up as a featured post. The post admittedly had at best a tenuous connection with our real estate business world but it drew a surprising level of response. One response in particular caught my attention and that was one that declared that Active Rain was not the correct venue for such political tripe as I had posted.

Fair enough, I thought; but, what is appropriate material for Active Rain posts. Surely not just the boring attempts to gain Google Juice and SEO points by posting every listing in your inventory. I could care less about some mundane listing that you have in East Nowhere, Your State; but, I'm sure that someone has told you that, if you post it on Active Rain, it will get you Google Juice. 

I run hot and cold on Active Rain as a blogging site because so many of the so-called bloggers on AR are out to do nothing more than to try to game the system to gain local SOE exposure. AR started out as much more a few years back. AR seemed initially to be a great place for agents to share their experiences and help each other through that process. It still is; however, way too many SOE gamers have joined the AR ranks with posts of no real content or consequence to anyone, just because posting it there will get them a higher ranking in some local Google search somewhere.

There are still many posters who actually have something of interest and intellect to share, but one has to sort through way too much drivel to find it. Is there a solution to this dumbing down of AR? Not really. There appears to be a natural evolution of sites like AR and even of the big social media sites like Facebook. They are initially started by, and grown by, small bands of like-minded zealots who share a true passion for something that binds them together. Those original zealots come up with all sorts of cute phrases to explain and share their enthusiasm like "singing in the rain." Remember that one? 

Over time, more and more non-believers and opportunists join the movement (site) and the original passions and beliefs get diluted and the site takes on a different life, sort of like a person becoming a movie star and taking on a different personality because of all of the attention - the site becomes the diva. You could see that happening at AR when they started running classeson how to game the system for better SOE rankings. The beliefs, content, and the passion, became secondary to the process of getting more Google Juice. It's kind of sad when you think about it.

So the SOE gamers at AR will continue to post mindless drivel that all have a plethora of the correct key words to get maximum Google attention and we will all have to skip bye them to try to find a few posts that are worthy of reading or commenting about. There are still some really good people posting some really good articles about stuff that is important or intellectually challenging, you just have to look harder through all of the SOE clutter to find it. Let's hope that it's not too late for an intervention with the diva. Singing in the rain needs to be fun again, not just an exercise in SOE. Then, again, maybe I'm just too much of a blogging idealist and Active Rain has evolved to be just what you always hoped it would become. What are your thoughts on that?