Cease and desist

With a bunch of new online real estate companies vying for the Web 2.0 brass ring, we are starting to see a landscape of sites all too similar in look, feel and function. It’s really starting to look like 1998 again.

I am therefore issuing a personal cease and desist order (or wish list, really) on a few things:

• No more URL’s that start with the letter Z, have the words "real" "home" or "agent" or a color followed by a noun. I’d like to see words like "splotch" "pyaemia" and "patooties" make their way into the URL vernacular.   
• No more logos featuring a house, roof line, or globe connected to a thought bubble.
• No more sites trying to connect people who don’t even want to be connected to each other in real life. I’d rather see a site that helps me avoid people at this point.
• No more sites that allow agents to post information about their neighborhoods. What we need perhaps are more online tutorials on how to write.
• No more "find a Realtor" sites. Do we really need help in this area? 
• No more business plans that rely exclusively on ad revenue. If you are banking on this puppy read this, "what the subprime mess means for real estate 2.0" then this "how mortgage collapse could wallop Google".

— Davison