360Digest

It turns out that death by blogging is greatly exaggerated, but New York Times writer Matt Richtel is concerned that bloggers are often paid based on how much they write and whether anyone reads them. He likens this to a “sales commission,” a comparison that evokes Alec Baldwin chalking “ALWAYS BE CLOSING” onto a blackboard in the real estate movie version of Glengarry Glen Ross. (”First prize is a Cadillac Eldorado. Anybody want to see second prize? Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is you’re fired.”)

EPerks is still reeling from the bad publicity for paying bloggers to write about their company. (Even now when you Google Eperks, most of the entries are paid posts.)

Redfin continues to seek paid bloggers and is offering $40 a post.

PayPerPost is paying bloggers $28 this month to write about Renuzit Home Deodorizer.

Housing Predictor is paying bloggers $65-$75 per entry.

And I’m doing this for free?

Apartment complex uses dancers in window to sell units

To Karen and Richard Carpenter fans, their home in Downey, California is their Graceland, so says Carpenters aficionado Jon Konjoyan, a 57-year-old Toluca Lake music writer and promoter who is leading a campaign to save the Carpenters house from destruction.

The five-bedroom tract house and a smaller next-door dwelling that was connected to it by an enclosed walkway was where Richard and Karen Carpenter fine-tuned their greatest hits in the 1970s.

The pair lived in the main house with their parents. The adjoining house was where there was an office, rehearsal studio and recreation room. Karen passed away in 1983, the parents remained in the residence until Harold Carpenter’s death in 1988 and Agnes Carpenter’s in 1996. Richard Carpenter sold the place in mid-1997.

Now new owners want to tear down the house that was featured on their album “Now & Then”.

Fans love Carpenters, not carpenters

Set your Tivo’s to see my interview with Jenny Cunningham, a reporter with KCTS-TV (9) in Seattle at 7:30 this evening on Channel 9. She has been working on a segment called, “Googie versus Goliath,” and it’s a look at the landmarking process in Seattle and the controversy surrounding the Ballard Manning’s/Denny’s battle. She invited me to add my two cents to the proceedings, as I’ve been documenting Googie architecture in the Seattle area for several years on www.SeattleGoogie.com. The show will be repeated again Sunday morning 2/10 at 10:30 am.

Many folks have asked me what prompted my interest in Google and I have to think it was looking at the Space Needle most every day outside my window. We’re living here with the largest known monument to Googe Architecture right in our backyard. What’s not to love?

Googie Architecture is most closely associated with the popular architecture and culture of 1950’s and 60’s Southern California, but the Seattle area had it share as well. Though quicky disappearing, there are still some remnants of this modern and space-age look around Seattle, and this Ballard Mannings building is one of them, and that’s why it’s so important to try to preserve this building.

Googie Architecture features bold angles, sweeping cantilevered roofs and pop-culture design. It was a way to grab and hold the attention of a budding car-culture, as we sped by on the freeways. It was a glimpse of the future, Today.

Knute Berger has a great series of articles about the controversy at Crosscut, our local online magazine of news from the Great Nearby.

Denny’s fans hunger for a historic grand slam in Seattle (Los Angeles Times)

Seattle real estate agent Sarina McDonald aka “Ravenna Black” stars in this week’s episode of the ABC reality show “Wife Swap”. The show takes two women — whose families have vastly different values — and asks them to switch places for two weeks. Each episode documents the drama that results when the husband and the kids are forced to adjust to a new matriarch in the family.

For this show, Sarina went to upstate New York to live with the Robarge family. They are involved in lumberjack competitions, and their family’s activities revolve around husband Wally’s professional lumberjack competitions, where the McDonalds’ lives revolve around Sarina’s trips around the country to burlesque events.

Sarina saw this as a great opportunity to highlight some of the charity work she does with The Pin-Up Angels.

Do you love this girl or what?

Wife Swap - Wednesday, January 30th at 8pm PST on ABC.

Agent fired for extra-curricular activities

Ravenna Speaks!

Real Estate and Sexual Politics

RisMedia notes How Graceland Celebrates the King’s Birthday.

Become a member of Elvis Candlelight and promote a greater understanding of Spirit through the example and spiritual seeking of Elvis Presley during his life time, and his continuing presence in the world.

There are many ETA’s (Elvis Tribute Artists) but few PTA’s in the U.S.

Marlow/Priscilla at the Elvis Invitationals

Other agents and real estate folks love Elvis too….

Elvis Real Estate

Elvis Birthday Events at Graceland

Elvis Vogrin, Re-Max Agent

Boston real estate agent, Elvis Doda
Elvis Turkovich, Aspen Realty

Elvis Chin, Singapore Real Estate

Zillow loves Elvis

Simpson’s Quotes

Simpson’s Punk Rock

The Simpson’s perform Shakespeare

Last exit to Springfield

Did anyone else notice the sexy theme on Sellsius this last week? What’s with those guys? Geez, get a room!

Here’s one they missed…..

Hometown Hottie/Real Estate “Executive” Monica White

More photos of Monica (probably not work-safe).

Another real estate Monica

The most beautiful people in Las Vegas

This just in via email from Mr. McKinney, self-described “Maverick Daredevil Real Estate Artist”, about his hero Evel Knievel, who died yesterday at the age of 69.

Evel Knievel died today. I am hard pressed to explain the uncontrollable outpouring of emotion I experienced when I learned the news, and watched a tribute to his life on ESPN tonight.

Evel Knievel will always be one of my heroes. Until today, he was the only living “super hero” I ever knew. The only one who actually leapt off the comic book pages and came to life for me when I was a young boy. As I grew a bit older, I realized what an impact Evel had on the formative years of my life. We know how impressionable we are just before we turn teenager. For the years leading up to that milestone for me, I vividly recall being transfixed less than two feet from the screen of a small 15-inch black and white TV watching ABC’s Wide World of Sports portray the larger-than-life daredevil attempt so many of his death defying motorcycle jumps. My world came to a halt when these events were shown on TV. Yes, I was infatuated with the stunts, but I wanted to understand how Evel thought. What caused for him to be able to take such enormous risks when the rest of the world were just spectators.

Oh, how I wanted to be him.

We lived on 16 acres in rural Indiana. After watching his jump over many double-decker buses in Wembley Stadium in London in the mid-70’s, I recall sprinting outside to discard the measly 10 stacked bricks out from underneath my own ramp, and inserting a 3-foot tall metal trash can turned upside down under the ramp. This would give me greater distance, yet more fear. I grabbed my Schwinn bike with banana seat, my pee-wee football helmet and raced to the top of a steep hill in our back yard.

As I sat trembling on my bike on the top of that hill I imagined I was Evel at the top of his ramp inside a stadium with thousands of cheering fans.

With my heart racing and mouth dry, I pedaled and sped as fast as I could toward that over 45-degree take off ramp. With a friend watching, I hit the ramp, and launched what seemed to be 10′ in the air. I remember looking down, as I was sailing so unbelievably high in the air, at my friend’s face staring up at me in total amazement. He seemed so far below me. I landed with such force that I cracked all the welds from my bike frame (probably cracked a couple of other things too), and ruined my bike, but I made the jump. Just like Evel. It is a memory that I will never forget. Getting over the fear, following through with a challenge and pretending to be one of my heroes for one chilly Indiana Sunday afternoon.

I am proud and even fortunate to say Evel Kneivel’s life influenced how I choose to live mine. I am now aware that he taught me a behavioral pattern when I was unaware I was learning one.

It just occurred to me, look at the moniker below my name on my homepage “The Maverick Daredevil Real Estate Artist.” I will never forget how I felt when I was referred to by the Wall Street Journal as a real estate “Daredevil.” Not worthy of the comparison, but blushed with the honor nonetheless. For further proof of the influence, see a news archive photo of me launching over a replica of my 1st $50,000 fixer-upper at the launch party for my 2nd best seller, Frank McKinney’s Maverick Approach to Real Estate Success

Evel Knievel was a performer, daredevil and professional risk taker. He made millions (over 300 million). One of my favorite life’s mantras, actually it is the 25th Chapter in my first book Make it Big! 49 Secrets for Building a Life of Extreme Success “Gently Yet Often Exercise Your Risk Threshold like a Muscle. Eventually It Will Become Stronger and Able to Withstand Greater Pressure.”

Just like Evel starting out with a small ramp, two cars and a few rattlesnakes to jump over, we should all learn from those who embrace fear, then slowly expand their tolerance for risk (higher ramps and more busses) and succeed in life because they chose to do so.

Thank you Evel Knievel for helping me understand that. If you read all the way to the end, thank you for allowing me to share on an unanticipated emotional evening.

Before his death, Evel Knievel sued Kanye West and his record company for the use of Knievel’s trademarked image in a popular West music video. He took issue with a 2006 music video for the song “Touch the Sky,” in which the rapper takes on the persona of “Evel Kanyevel” and tries to jump a rocket-powered motorcycle over a canyon.

In addition to hawking Legend Power Scooters, Knievel made somewhat of a marketing comeback in the 1990s, representing Maxim Casino, Little Caesar’s and Harley-Davidson.

Evel Knievel (real name Robert Craig Knievel) used to own a motorcycle dealership in Washington State. After much success as a daredevil performer, he ended up losing several homes and oweing the federal government more than $5M in backtaxes.

Kelly Knievel, Evel’s oldest son, owns a construction firm in Las Vegas. (In 1995, Kelly’s telemarketing company was sued by Missouri for targeting senior citizens with high-pressure calls. He agreed to stop the calls, and the company paid $150,000 in restitution.)

Evel Knievel’s Conversion to Christianity

On April 1, 2007, Knievel announced to a worldwide audience that he “believed in Jesus Christ” for the first time. He professed his personal faith in Christ to more than 4,000 people who gathered inside the Crystal Cathedral for Palm Sunday services in Orange County, California, and to millions via an Hour of Power telecast of the service to over 100 countries.[3]

Knievel told how he had refused for 68 years to accept Jesus Christ as his Savior because he didn’t want to surrender his lifestyle of “the gold and the gambling and the booze and the women.” He explained his conversion experience by saying, “All of a sudden, I just believed in Jesus Christ. I did, I believed in him!”[4] Knievel said he knew people were praying for him, including his daughter’s church, his ex-wife’s church, and the hundreds of people who wrote letters urging him to believe.

Knievel recounted how he “rose up in bed and, I was by myself, and I said, ‘Devil, Devil, you bastard you, get away from me. I cast you out of my life….’ I just got on my knees and prayed that God would put his arms around me and never, ever, ever let me go.”[5] At his request, he was baptized before the congregation and TV cameras by Dr. Robert H. Schuller, Founding Pastor of the Crystal Cathedral. Christianity Today reported that “…Knievel’s testimony triggered mass baptisms at the Crystal Cathedral.”

While I do not have a picture of Evel being baptized, I do have a cool photo of me and a couple of my boys taken at the Crystal Cathedral just a few days after Knievels miraculous conversion. I just had to see the enormous edifice that Pastor Dr. Robert H. Schuller built with all the millions of dollars his television ministry had brought in to his church.

The Faulty Gospel of Robert Schuller

Another Possible Gospel of Robert Schuller’s

Thanks to Sellsius this week for bringing us not one, but two explicit posts this week, Real Estate Porn, Broker-Agent Edition and Real Estate Transparency: Real Estate Agent Fired for Sexy Slideshow, which allows me the perfect segue to share, once again, more news from the lovely Ravenna, Queen of the Burlesque Realtors.

If you happen to be in Seattle on December 19th, don’t miss Ravenna and Gal Friends in a fundraiser called “Christmas Stockings: A Burlesque Benefit” to support our troops. It’s at the The Rendezvous Jewelbox Theater and there are two shows: 7:00 and 8:30 pm
21+ $15.

Through the sale of their vintage style pin-up images, THE PIN-UP ANGELS raise money to send comfort packages to U.S. troops serving overseas. The Angels do all the work to collect donations, shop for the necessary items, organize the packages, and ship ‘em out to the troops in need. After sending 200+ Christmas care packages, THE PIN-UP ANGELS continue fund-raising for this on-going effort.

Don’t miss this happenin’ event hosted by Trixie Lane, the Queen of Shame!

Live music, scantily-clad girls and real estate. What more can you want for the holidays?

Jack London, who died today on November 22nd in 1916, was an American author most famous for writing The Call of the Wild. He was a pioneer in the world of commercial magazine fiction, and he was one of the first Americans to make a lucrative career exclusively from his writing.

One of London’s most famous writings is “The Scab“.

What is a scab? Simply, a person who purports to do the same amount of work as another person, but for less money. According to Jack London, anyone who undercuts another person, as far as wages or compensation for labor, may be considered a “scab”.

In a competitive society, where men struggle with one another for food and shelter, what is more natural than that generosity, when it diminishes the food and shelter of men other than he who is generous, should be held an accursed thing? Wise old saws to the contrary, he who takes from a man’s purse takes from his existence. To strike at a man’s food and shelter is to strike at his life; and in a society organized on a tooth-and-nail basis, such an act, performed though it may be under the guise of generosity, is none the less menacing and terrible.

It is for this reason that a laborer is so fiercely hostile to another laborer who offers to work for less pay or longer hours. To hold his place, (which is to live), he must offset this offer by another equally liberal, which is equivalent to giving away somewhat from the food and shelter he enjoys. To sell his day’s work for $2, instead of $2.50, means that he, his wife, and his children will not have so good a roof over their heads, so warm clothes on their backs, so substantial food in their stomachs. Meat will be bought less frequently and it will be tougher and less nutritious, stout new shoes will go less often on the children’s feet, and disease and death will be more imminent in a cheaper house and neighborhood.

Thus the generous laborer, giving more of a day’s work for less return (measured in terms of food and shelter), threatens the life of his less generous brother laborer, and at the best, if he does not destroy that life, he diminishes it. Whereupon the less generous laborer looks upon him as an enemy, and, as men are inclined to do in a tooth-and-nail society, he tries to kill the man who is trying to kill him.

Before someone writes in complaining that this definition of a “Scab” is defamatory, consider the following:

After God had finished the rattlesnake, the toad, and the vampire, he had some awful substance left with which he made a scab. A scab is a two-legged animal with a corkscrew soul, a water brain, a combination backbone of jelly and glue ….

This passage figured in a 1974 Supreme Court case, in which justice Thurgood Marshall quoted the passage in full and referred to it as “a well-known piece of trade union literature, generally attributed to author Jack London.” A union newsletter had published a “list of scabs,” which was granted to be factual and therefore not libellous, but then went on to quote the passage as the “definition of a scab.” The case turned on the question of whether the “definition” was defamatory. The court ruled that “Jack London’s… ‘definition of a scab’ is merely rhetorical hyperbole, a lusty and imaginative expression of the contempt felt by union members towards those who refuse to join,” and as such was not libellous and was protected under the First Amendment.

Jack London wrote The Scab in 1903 and died in 1916 at the age of 40…..

Christopher Hitchens represents conspiracy theories as the ‘exhaust fumes of democracy’, the unavoidable result of a large amount of information circulating among a large number of people. Other social commentators and sociologists argue that conspiracy theories are produced according to variables that may change within a democratic society.

Conspiratorial accounts can be emotionally satisfying when they place events in a readily-understandable, moral context. The subscriber to the theory is able to assign moral responsibility for an emotionally troubling event or situation to a clearly-conceived group of individuals. Crucially, that group does not include the believer. The believer may then feel excused of any moral or political responsibility for remedying whatever institutional or societal flaw might be the actual source of the dissonance.

So, it may be a coincidence that events of a certain importance happened on the first day of the NAR conference, however, on some occasions particular conspiracy allegations turn out to be more than a mere alignment of the planets.

Some argue that the reality of such conspiracies should caution against any casual dismissal of conspiracy theory. Many “conspiracy theory” authors and publishers, such as Robert Anton Wilson and Disinfo, use proven conspiracies as evidence of what a secret plot can accomplish. In doing so, they attempt to rebut the assumption that conspiracies don’t exist, or that any “conspiracy theory” is necessarily false.

However, it is just so odd that NAR convention-goers are witness to the eerie collision of events that cause 1000’s of Realtors to converge in the same city, on the same day, at the very same time that the New Frontier Hotel, yes, the location of Elvis’ first performance in Las Vegas, implodes upon itself.

Conspiracy or coincidence.

You decide.

The dust-up caused by the revelation that Active Rain management was in discussions with Move about a possible purchase is reminiscent of the Washington Post’s investment in tribe.net, another social networking site, a few years back.

So far, most of the 43,000 Active Rain members appear supportive of the aborted purchase, even as their personal information and content was about to be sold to the highest bidder, yet there are a few comments of indignation, though most of the writers appear naive to the sell-out.

Tribe.net was founded by a group of Burning Man attendees in 2003, the same year MySpace was started. Like Active Rain, its site features user-generated content and social networking, and like other social networking sites, has inspired rabid loyalty and feelings of belonging and community.

Anyone could register as a new tribe user, and could join a network of friends, usually bonded together by alt interests or activities. As more and more people and their friends joined tribe, it resulted in an elaborate social network with many thousands of members. Tribe users leveraged the small world phenomenon as a way to enhance their own immediate social network and it has about 500,000 members v.s. Active Rain’s membership of 43,000.

In a surprise move, in 2005, the owners of tribe.net accepted an unspecified amount of VC (though the number speculated was about $6M) from Knight Ridder and the Washington Post, giving them about a 20% ownership of tribe.net.

Members were indignant that their personal information and content was sold out. Unlike the MySpace sale to FOX, this was personal. The tribe’s members, being made up of mostly alt culture, techno geeks and BM attendees, had very left, liberal leanings. They hated being sold out. Tempers were exacerbated when new tribe management announced it would remove all “mature” content from the site. How could they sell advertising on the site to major advertisers if the corporate ad appeared next to a topless hippie or nude Burning Man attendee?

Angry and upset tribe.net members left the site in droves and started their own new site, Free-Association.net, their MO “What sets us apart is that no company owns us. We’re open-source, volunteer-developed and -run, and donation-funded.”

The look and feel of tribe was changed and then, in a coup by the original creator, was supposedly “reclaimed” and returned back to its original look/feel, but it’s never been the same since.

I doubt that even if/when Active Rain were to be sold to Move or any other corporate entity, the agents & lenders online would ever revolt. According to reports, there are only about 500 active members anyway, and it’s doubtful that membership is very radical or subversive enough to give a R.A. who owns it, as long as they get their points and show up as the #1 agent in their market.

One thing to note, last year when there was talk of NBC Universal purchasing tribe.net, the price bandied about was $5M, and this was for 500K users. Based on those numbers, the $33M price offered to Active Rain by Move for 43K registered members is, uh…. optimistic, at best.

I’m not exactly sure what happened but what I can piece together is that tribe’s original investors gave up on the company last year. Talks with NBC failed and they sold their stakes to tribe.net founder Marc Pincus. The original investors didn’t recoup their $6.3 million investment. Then, with still about 500,000 subscribers, Pincus sold tribe.net to Cisco Systems. And the price was rumored to be less than $3M.

Social networkings next phase (NY Times)

NBC rumored to buy tribe.net from TechCrunch

Activerain.com v. Move.com: The Duplicity at Activerain.com

What Active Rain should do now

The voices of bitter experience: ActiveRain’s petition against Move, Inc., is a heart-breaking sob story with no legal merit

Social networks aren’t products

Yeah, yeah, the Feds cut the interest rate and Bush says he doesn’t want to raise FHA limits, but let’s get to the important news of the day: One of Seattle’s favorite sons, Sanjaya Malakar, is moving to Hollywood, Baby. His house (actually, his step-dad’s home) has been put on the market, as Sanjaya’s off to seek his fortune in LA and on the American Idol tour.

The listing agent is Dennis Fletcher, an agent with Windermere Real Estate, who formerly worked with Sanjaya’s step-dad writing radio and TV jingles when they were in the music business together.

Another American Idol contestant with a Seattle real estate connection was Leah LaBelle from Season 3. Her mother was Anastasia Vladowski, a musician and immigrant to the United States, who defected from communist Bulgaria during a tour of Western Europe in 1979 at the height of success with the Bulgarian Pop music groups Srebyrnite grivni and Tonika. She was also a Realtor and sales agent with Coldwell Banker Bain in Seattle.

Now that’s news you can use!

Leah Labelle Fan Club

So Long, Sanjaya

You might have seen the original Shift Happens a few months ago, but it’s been remade, a little more professionally, still called Shift Happens, still kind of scary.