More Threats?

FROM INMAN NEWS:
One real estate blogger, who had initially written a paid post about the company, later clashed with the company and its law firm when he wrote several follow-up posts, including one that questioned whether ePerks was a “scam or a gem.”

That blogger, Volodymyr “Vlad” Zablotskyy of Go-Beyond-MLS.com, this month announced at his blog that he received a letter from an ePerks lawyer related to the online discussion about the company.

The letter requests that Zablotskyy cease alleged “ongoing efforts to unfairly disparage and slander ePerks.com through the dissemination of false and/or manufactured information. Any resistance to our demands will be met with swift and decisive action.”

The letter refers to the “scam or a gem” blog post and other blog posts, and states that the company has determined damages “as a direct result of your activities … in multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

Behrouzi said that the company’s legal team is “considering filing a suit” against Zablotskyy “and an organization this individual is affiliated with.”

How To Determine The Value Of Feed Subscribers and Track Associated Goals With Google Analytics

If you write a blog, it is safe to presume that you want other people to read it. Unless of course you have blocked the search engines and are allowing only certain people to see your blog. From what I can gather when it comes to the real estate blogs, most of us would like our blogs to be read. In fact some of us have set a goal to turn first time visitor to our blogs into regular one or even a subscriber. In fact in some other niches, the value and the influence of a blog is determined by the number of subscribers.

In real estate, blog can also be responsible for the growth of your business. In fact, many real estate blogs are highly monetized digital “properties” on the internet, while others contribute to the successful real estate transactions outside of the Internet. In either case the subscribers to your blog may have something to do with the dollars in your pocket at the end of the day.

In this tutorial, I will show you one way you can track a specific goal (lets call it “subscriber goal” for the sake of the argument) using Google Analytics. If you are not familiar with Google Analytics but are serious about your online marketing efforts I strongly suggest opening an account. Learn as much as you can about what Google Analytics has to offer, it will only benefit you in the long run.

Before I get into technical part, which will require some minimal knowledge of HTML, I would like you to sit down a determine following. Think about the past month. How much income (preferably net income) can you contribute directly to your blog? Now divide that amount by the number of subscribers- the result will be used in Google Analytics as “goal value”. For example if your net income was $1000 and your blog has 265 subscribers, dividing $1000 by 265 will give you $3.77- when setting your gaol at Google Analytics you will use this amount to indicate your “subscriber goal”.

Setting The (Subscriber) Goal In Google Analytics.Google Analytics Logo

If do not have an account with Google Analytics, you might want to register first and implement the tracking codes in the template of your website.

In order to track your subscriber you need to know who many people had actually clicked the subscription button or link. However, I highly discourage against placing Google Analytics tracking code int the feed of your blog. Also, if you are directing your visitors to your blogs feed at FeedBurner, you may not be able to implement the tracking code even if you advanced in programing.

In order to capture these statistics you will need to implement what is known as a jump page. You can do that by using a simple text editor such ad Notepad. Create a file a name in subscribe.html. Then copy and paste the code below, but make sure to replace few lines of that code with your own info (explained below the code):








<--REPLACE THIS LINE WITH YOUR GOOGLE ANALYTICS CODE HERE-->

Make sure to replace YOURFEEDSURL with actual URL of your blog’s feed and the line that says to replace it with Google Analytics Code.

Upload the file (subscribe.html) into the root directory of your blog. The meta refresh in the “head” of this HTML file will redirect users to your blog’s feed wile Google Analytics will capture necessary data.

Login into your Google Analytics account. In the dashboard area you will see the list of your websites in the table called “Website Profiles”. Then click “Edit” link for the blog you are about to implement a “conversion goal”. You can set up up to 4 different goal for each website. If you followed my instructions in creating the jump page and uploading it to your server, your conversion gaol configuration should look like this:

Configure Goal Vlue and Settings

Note that 3.77 is the result of calculation we did dividing your net income by the number of your existing subscribers.

I know that it sounds some what complicated. But it is not as hard as it looks and the benefit of having these statistics measured should supersede any fear of tackling Google Analytics and a little bit of HTML coding.

Depending on the popularity and traffic to your blog you can see results within day or two. However to have more accurate statistics, you might need to wait longer than just one day.

Here is an example of how this is working for my website:

Per Visit Goal Values

The figures in “Per Visit Goal Value” column offer me clear idea how much I can pay per each visitor and still profit if I were to strike advertising deals with the referring websites and blogs.

Warning: The above describe method should only be used in conjunction with other statistics. It maybe that some visitors may not actually subscribe eve after clicking the subscription button or link. You will also need to factor in unsubscribe rate and never ever use the gross income in calculating the goal value. Being very conservative when assigning the goal value will shorten the range of the error margin. You should also be conservative with your subscribers numbers, it’s better to err on the side of lower number of subscribers.

And The Question Remains… Why?

Since publishing the infamous Cease and Desist notice, I was asked by fellow bloggers few questions that I cannot ignore. But before I start, I need to say this- the publicity may scare the “beast” away, but this sort of publicity is the last thing I am looking for. I just want to do the right thing. Nothing more, nothing less.

This is also a great opportunity to say thank you to other and way more influential bloggers for noticing my story. Greg Swann, Marlow Harris, Jay Thompson, Pat Kitano, SEO Emperor, Wayne Harriman – thank you everyone for your support and advise.

So lets get to it…

Why did I take the posts down?

I wish it was simple. The cease and desist letter sent the chills down my spine. When the original post was getting so many comments I was hoping that some of the other influential bloggers would notice my article. But as Greg Swenn points out this blog is insignificant. There are barely 100 unique daily visitors to my blog. So when I received the lawyer’s letter I knew that I was facing the Goliath all alone. To put it simply, I was scared.

Why am I posting this now?

Since attempting to comply to the demands of the lawyers from WILLOUGHBY, STUART & BENING it not feel right. I basically was admitting that all their false accusations are true. I also felt like I had betrayed all who offered their feedback. Publishing the cease and desist letter was a way for standing up not only for myself but for all who commented on my post.

And finally an extra bonus if you wish: I still believe that idea for the website was good. Way short of brilliant, but good enough to run with it. The execution of the idea was absolutely terrible.

EPerks.com claim to be a part of what we know as Web 2.0 marketing. As such, Web 2.0 is a form of marketing where engagement with those who like you as well as those who criticize you is of great importance. But so is reevaluating your product and improving it.

Many companies of this “Web 2.0 pound” started off by offering free membership to their potential clients and customers knowing that their product is so darn good that 99% of the free members will pay money to continue to use their products. EPerks has chosen a different path, launching their website they charged real estate agents $100+ dollars per month, without a proven record for their product’s effectiveness. I am not saying it was wrong way to launch a website. But if you do so, not listening to the criticism is like shooting yourself in the foot.

I would suggest to go back to the drawing board. Consider all criticism and come back a winner. Of course you can continue the way you go about your business. Continue to send cease and desist notices and even sue small guys like my self. Will any one remember your name a year from now?

Do You Use Twitter? Then You Will Love TwitterFeed!

If you do not know what Twitter is, I have published a video called Twitter in Plain English just few days ago. If you are going to watch the video now, replace every “family” and “friends” with “business” and “clients”. I guarantee that you will think of at least one way you can use Twitter by the time video is over.

Twitter FeedOn of the way I use Twitter very often is to let every one know that I have written something on my blog. In order to do that in the past, I had to login to Twitter and and make an update with the url to my latest post. Here where the Twitter Feed comes in. Every time you update your blog with a new post, Twitter Feed notifies your followers automatically.

The set up for the Twitter Feed is simple and once set you can literally forget it. If you write blog posts frequently I recommend to set your blogs feed to be checked several times a day. Twitter Feed is checking this blog’s feed every 6 hours, which actually is a little too often since I do not post here every day. I hope you find this tool as useful as I do. Happy Twittering!

Chilling Effect: How A Behemoth Company Can Silence A Blogger

The content of this article is a long overdue explanation to my readers about sudden disappearance of posts addressing one particular company, namely ePerks. If you are not familiar with the issue, you probably will be much better off to skip this post, because it is going to be a very long post. If you however interested in Chilling Effects, you might as well stick around. I believe I have a classic example how can a behemoth company silence a blogger.

If you are a regular reader, you may remember several posts on my blog addressing dealings of ePerks. These post have generated over 200+ comments. Majority of those comments were quiet negative to say the least. On February 13, I have received a Cease and Desist (see below) notice from ePerks attorney. The letter contains nothing but untruthful accusations. To write 200+ comments on my own posts would require my presence in 200+ locations across the United States in a span of very short time frame. The accusation that I am financially involved with ePerks competitor(s) is complete lie, because ePerks was the only company that I was financially involved with. In fact they paid me to write a review about their website. The only thing that did not go according to their plan, was the fact that many of my readers are real estate agents. This also taught me a difficult lesson about “paid or sponsored reviews” model of blogging. Needless to say I discourage you to ever write a paid review.

It was not easy decision to take the articles down. It felt like I was betraying all those who commented on my posts. But I simply wanted the issue to go away, because I was also tired of moderating my posts from false testimonies of ePerks fans, who would leave four or more “positive” reviews during just one single visit to my website.

So why am I publishing this post? It appears that many visitors and regular readers are still looking for those posts and I think they deserve an explanation:

Hi! My name is ***** and I am a real estate agent from *******. I have had an absolute horrible time with eperks…disputing unauthorized charges (canceled in Jan but still getting charged) among numerous other complaints! Filed with the BBB also. A link to your blog pops up when I search eperks scam, but I can never actually get to the blog? I was hoping you could help me out…would really like to read it.
Thanks!

I also hope that some of the leading real estate blogs and websites will notice this issue and will stand up for the freedom of speech on the Internet. I also have reasons to be concerned about my and my family’s safety.

So without further ado, here is the letter I received from Ronald J. Cook:

WILLOUGHBY, STUART & BENIN
A Professional Law Corporation
50 West San Fernando, Suite 400
San Jose. CA 85113
Phone 408 289 1972

February 13, 2008

Volodymyr (Vlad) Zablotskyy
Street
City, State Zip

Re: My Client: Eperks.com
Our File: 1805.10806C

Dear Mr. Zablotskyy:

I represent Barbus Ventures Corporation, the parent company for ePERKS.com. You are hereby instructed to terminate your ongoing efforts to unfairly disparage and slander ePERKS.com through the dissemination of false and/or manufactured information. Any resistence to our demands will be met with swift and decisive action.

As you well know, we are referring to your blogs that reference the name ePERKS, including such title as “ePerks- A Scam Or A Gem”; “How Much Does it Take to Take Advantage of a Realtor?”; “ePERKS- Putting The ePerks Saga to Rest”; and “ePerks- Three Critical Mistakes a New Startup Should Avoid”, amongst others. Your blogs create the false impression you are inviting comments from legitimate ePERKS customers, when the truth is your only goal is to cast ePERKS in a negative light for personal gain. In that regard, your blogs deceptively fail to inform the reader that you are motivated by an undisclosed proprietary interest in an ePERKS competitor.

Having researched the content of your blogs, we have come to conclusive proof that a substantial number of your postings are bogus, in that they frequently describe experiences that never happened and people who do not exist. Moreover, you are fully aware of these fals stories, yet posted them anyway. Your complicity of their creation is very serious matter.

Our research also shows that negative remarks are not only invited, but are posted without a challenge. Conversely, favorable remarks are met with hostility and belittlement, including demands that the posting party either prove they are participating agents, or do not work for ePERKS.

We have determined that our damages as a direct result of your activities are in multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars. Such substantial money and brand name damages can no longer be tolerated.

You are hereby instructed to promptly do the following: (1) shutter and prevent access to all blogs with any ePERKS reference or content; (2)remove any record of their existence; (3) terminate any links pointing to any blogs that reference ePERKS; and (4) cease and desist from any and all current and future digital, print, Internet or verbal reference to ePERKS.com or Barbus Venture Corporation. This includes closing down your January 28, 2008 bog that continues to direct readers to your previous remarks and postings. We demand that you complete these actions immediately, and in no event later than five days of this letter. Your failure to comply will result in prompt legal action, including, but not limited to, a claim of money damages and appropriate restraining orders.

We will be closely monitoring your activities. Barbus Ventures Corporation continues to reserve any and all rights under the law, including the right to pursue any and legal remedies against you, your employer, your clients, and/or your web host. Should you have any questions or comments about the contents of this letter, please contact the undersigned.

Respectfully,
WILLOUGHBY, STUART & BENING
Ronald J. Cook

I also would like to say thank you to at least two bloggers for offering their support and help. Although if it only meant to take links to my blog down: Paying bloggers to say nice things and Eperks commercial.