When in Doubt, Make it More Difficult to Participate

RSS – Really Stupid Syndication

Over the past couple of days I’ve watched the count for Trulia Voices articles in my Google Reader rise. And rise. And rise. I hadn’t thought much of it … didn’t have time to deal with it, at least until tonight. And that’s when I discovered that the RSS feed I’ve used since Voices started has been infected by Trulia’s blogging platform.

When I deigned to participate (and my mood shifts based on whether Deborah Madey tells me she found another client through Trulia), I had found the easiest way was to work through a specific RSS feed. In my case, it was Trulia Voices questions about Arizona.

In a particularly adventurous mood, I even added a second RSS feed for the Home Buying category with the hope that I could find some general questions where I could share my brilliance or at least battle my latest bout of writers’ block with some new subject matter.

I suppose I still can do that, but only if I’m willing to wade through the muck. Please don’t misunderstand – from a blogging perspective, I can see the value being added in saying that Fountain Hills is the hidden jewel of the Valley or telling me how to find a good deal in this community or where to eat in another.

I just don’t want to see that in my RSS feed for Trulia Voices. The real Voices platforms. Questions and lord willing legal and non COE-violating answers. And assuming there’s a member of the public at large who is watching the action in a similar manner, I’m sure they’re less than thrilled with commercial interruption.

You can argue that I’m not the target audience. (Boy do I love that phrase. And boy do I wonder whose target audience I’m really in.) But given the strides Trulia has taken in trying to get agents to participate in Voices, it seems that this change is a case of shooting oneself in your big, floppy foot.

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Topics: Real Estate