Saturday, December 3, 2005

I Need To Rethink My Business Model

The day before yesterday, I got an e-mail from a Seattle resident asking how to get in touch with downtown condominium developers Dawn Chaney and John Stratton because she'd read my posts about Vick Commons and Magnolia Court, is moving to Greensboro, and is interested in buying.

I gladly gave her the information, along with some information about a bungalow in my neighborhood that she's also interested in.

Yesterday, the Greensboro News & Record's front-page story by Marta Hummel, with full-color photos, was about downtown condominium development, covering a trend I've been commenting on and photographing for quite a while.

I finished my most recent condo post with this: "I think, a big, new chunk of the middle class doesn't like yardwork."

Marta Hummel's N&R lede was this: "For those hoping to ditch their lawn mower for a room with a view of a coffee shop, choices are expanding."

She didn't link to any of my posts from the N&R site, though.

So I'm thinking . . . real estate people and newspapers are making money from what I do here. But I'm not (unless you count the $15 or so I've made from Roch.)

P. S. Hoggard has a similar complaint.

UPDATE: The News & Record's editor John Robinson discusses this and other posts on his blog, with comments from some local media folks.

3 comments:

David Wharton said...

I meant the writing part, not just passing on contact info.

My site gets a lot of google hits for search strings like "downtown condos greensboro."

Maybe I'll sell ad space to realtors.

Anonymous said...

Hey, it works for The Rhino.

Anonymous said...

You seem a little hasty to conclude that the reporter stole (condos=no yardwork) from you. This is a (or the) well known virtue of condo life. Remember, Newton and Leibniz independently discovered calculus.