BrokerScience Mortgage Marketing Blog » National Association of Realtors

Dear Realtor.com: This is How You Communicate With Your Users

Trace Richardson — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 01:59:00 +0000

Redfin suffered about the worst occurrence a datacenter can endure, fire. They still beat Realtor.com by 12 hours with only 5 hours of downtime compared to Realtor.com’s 17 hours of downtime or 53 hours of downtime if you include the 36 hours of in-action before going offline for 17 hours after their blog was hacked. In fact, the once daily posts on the Realtor.com blog have ceased altogether for over two weeks, so it is apparent that the problem is not under control, unless giving hard working / blogging Realtors less exposure is part of an unannounced strategy.

That’s right, their datacenter caught fire and they still smoked Realtor.com, pun intended. There is only one right way to handle such a situation: quickly, honestly and transparently. If Redfin gets this, why can’t Realtor.com?

Chris Neitzert Sorts Through Charred Rubble of Redfin Datacenter

There was a fire in the Seattle-based data center that Redfin uses to host our web servers, causing a loss of service between approximately 5 a.m. and 10 a.m. Pacific Time. The entire data center was shut down by the fire department, including universal power supplies. Thanks to Redfin’s Chris Neitzert and his team, the site is now up and running. Throughout the interruption, our agents have of course stayed at their posts working with clients. But as the data center installs new equipment, it is possible that we will experience much-briefer interruptions in our website service around midnight tonight. We will continue to be available by telephone at 877-973-3346 or through the direct number our clients have for their agents.
For now, we apologize for the interruption in our service.

Aftermath of Realtor.com Blog Hack

Rebuilding the Realtor.com Team From the Ground Up

Trace Richardson — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:48:11 +0000

Realtor.com is clearly in disarray. They not only refuse to acknowledge or communicate with their community, I have come to question whether or not they even recognize that a Realtor community exists. More importantly, I ask myself, if I were charged with rebuilding Realtor.com, reversing the brand and community damage and making a genuine effort to start a new relationship with Realtors, how would I do it?

A good starting point would be to review Loic Le Meur’s 10 Rules for Success. While the list is geared for startups, many of the ideas work just as well for established businesses.

Don’t wait for a revolutionary idea. It will never happen. Just focus on a simple, exciting, empty space and execute as fast as possible
Share your idea. The more you share, the more you get advice and the more you learn. Meet and talk to your competitors.
Build a community. Use blogging and social software to make sure people hear about you.
Listen to your community. Answer questions and build your product with their feedback.
Gather a great team. Select those with very different skills from you. Look for people who are better than you.
Be the first to recognise a problem. Everyone makes mistakes. Address the issue in public, learn about and correct it.
Don’t spend time on market research. Launch test versions as early as possible. Keep improving the product in the open.
Don’t obsess over spreadsheet business plans. They are not going to turn out as you predict, in any case.
Don’t plan a big marketing effort. It’s much more important and powerful that your community loves the product.
Don’t focus on getting rich. Focus on your users. Money is a consequence of success, not a goal.

(via Financial Times)

Realtor.com Hacked Day 8: It’s Not Going Away

Trace Richardson — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 22:54:43 +0000

Once daily posts halted for a week. 36 hour delay in acknowledging hack. 19 hours of downtime. No communication with the Realtor community as to whether their personal data was compromised or even an acknowledgment that the site was even hacked.

Previous Coverage: It all started here.

Realtor.com Hacked Day 7: Nobody Notices or Cares

Trace Richardson — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 03:24:45 +0000

For the seventh day in a row Realtor.com is failing to communicate with its community regarding the hack that we first reported on June 4th. Realtor.com is approaching one week with no blog posts, no communication with its paid users and increasing doubt in its ability to run a blog, let alone one of the largest real estate portals in the world, Realtor.com. This is bad folks.

Another stunning story comes from 4Realz.net with news that weeks ago, following in Zillow’s footsteps, Realtor.com launched a new home estimates feature. Again, nobody noticed and nobody cared. Perhaps this is why Realtor.com thinks they can behave in the manner they have and get away with it. The fact is that if nobody notices what you do or don’t do and you are a company with the reach and funding of Realtor.com / NAR, that should be a warning that you are not doing things right, not something to be used as a shield to hide behind.

Realtor.com Hacked Day 5: Communication Breakdown

Trace Richardson — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 04:15:45 +0000

The original posts that had spam injected to them have been removed. The daily blog posts have halted and communication about the situation is non-existent. This is turning uglier by the minute. Where is Blaine Cooke when you need him? {sarcasm}

Realtor.com Blog Hacked Day 3: Down for 17 Hours and Counting

Trace Richardson — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 16:43:59 +0000

(Previous Realtor.com coverage – Realtor.com Hacked Day 1 / Realtor.com Hacked Day 2)

At around 7 PM last night the Realtor.com Blog was taken offline. 17 hours later and counting, they are still down. The speculation is that a wordpress plugin was at fault, but that remains to be seen.

We are still scratching our heads over how nobody at Realtor.com noticed the hack in their RSS readers, why no action was taken when we notified them of the hack for over 36 hours and why securing the website and servers is taking 17 hours and counting.

Realtor.com is not a mom and pop shop, they take in millions from hard working Realtors and should be held to a higher standard. Have you ever seen Trulia, Zillow, Redfin or HomeGain down for 17 hours? Of course not.

Realtor.com has yet to release comment or respond to our request for comment.

Update: As of 2:30 PM, the site is back up minus the specific posts that had injected spam for a total downtime of around 19 hours. Wow. Still waiting for an official response from a Realtor.com spokesperson. My hope is that they do not fail to address the issue and communicate with the Realtor.com community and bloggers that use their service. Failure to make users aware of the circumstances involved with the hack (considering its anyone’s guess whether personal data was compromised) would be unfortunate for the Realtor.com blogging community.