I like the shirt, and the info.

Insightful for those of us who are newbs and not up to snuff on many things.  If Active Rain is acquired by whomever.. will it become a PAID site?  oh my i hope not.  there is great stuff here we all can use.

Way to go Frank, keep us in the loop.

Thank you Frank for educating me to all of this!  We'll see...but...your prediction is probably dead on!  The question for Move.com is how effective marketing can be with Active Rain.  They just started marketing to us and do it by impression only right now.  I don't know if that is equating to any sales for the advertisers yet and no company is going to pay for a bunch of bloggers that don't spend any money...unless they want a $33 Million tax write off!

Frank, for a minute there I got confused, I thought you were Vargas Llosa, oops.  It is almost like a novela.  If I had to pay to be here I would not mind doing so as long as it is reasonable.

Hey Gail, it will probably always be free, but it might have more ads around it.

Chris,

The value in my opinion is less about bloggers paying Realtor.com directly for other services. (even though that is a great idea, maybe they will let bloggers pay to feature their articles) It is more about building content for the web surfers. The more traffic, the more eyeballs, the more ads they can sell. 

Here is my thought.  As controversial as I am sure it will be.  R.com has the listings.  They have access to the Realtors.  If they can figure out SEO then they don't really need AR.  They also have the deep pockets to sustain a lawsuit and to figure out how to monetize.

Nice post, I like you logic.  Too bad we agents let these companies exploit us, yea I said exploit us.  It may be free but we supply the content.  Out content is the most important part of this equation.  The smartest thing any of us can do is to have out own blog and web presence.  Real estate is local, consumers find our content through google. :)   . . . I have been saying this for more than a year, and no one agrees but I am OK with that.

Oh, I do hope you are wrong, Frank. I love Active Rain just the way it is. I hope they are not stupid and start tampering with it.

Wouldn't it be a dream for Brian Buffini to buy Active Rain?

Whoever buys AR will buy it for profit, not for fun.  It will be tampered with.  A paid site I can handle, but something is surely not going to sit well with many.

Whoever buys AR will buy it for profit, not for fun.  It will be tampered with.  A paid site I can handle, but something is surely not going to sit well with many.

Frank - If we do not have an outside site or high ranking website - we are sunk! I don't think it is wise to put all of our eggs in one basket and have to wonder what will happen to our blogs and contant if AR is taken over by someone else. I do see your prediction as probable.

I have a friend who works for realtor.com and he told me they have no intention of buying AR.  They don't need it or want it.  They cross checked the AR members with Realtor members and realized it was not a good fit. They have the money to go to trial. You think AR has money to defend. NOPE.  MOVE.com will NEVER Buy AR. Suing blew it for AR.  They should have focused on building a better site rather than suing.  BTW; companies don't buy sites to close them off via fee. They just run ads.  Duh.