Let me preface this by saying that the blog on RentBits is my favorite blog in the rental space and represents the quality that I aspire to when writing my blog. Which is why I was completely shocked to find this posting for a Real Estate Blog Writer in the U.C. Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism job bank.
Previously, I had assumed that the blog was the sole work of Dan Daugherty, the founder of RentBits. I’ve never met Dan, but I’ve heard a ton of great things about him and with a background that includes working for Google, his is an opinion I’d always be interested in hearing. So, I’ve naturally come to value the insights/opinions on the blog assuming that they were coming directly from Dan.
To find out that the blog is actually a collaborative effort of many authors, and might even include posts from grad students who are paid by the post and aren’t even in the rental industry was disappointing. I have noticed a large increase in the number of entries on the blog lately, and their offering to pay by the post would certainly explain that.
Ultimately, I guess that as long as the quality of the content remains at the high caliber that I associate with RentBits that it doesn’t matter. It would be nice though if in the future they identified who was writing each post so that the readers could learn which authors are expressing which opinions.
February 26, 2008 at 10:34 am
Bummer, I was kind of hoping that you like my blog the best.
February 26, 2008 at 10:57 am
February 26, 2008 at 10:57 am
Hi Bill,
Dan here. First I want to thank you for your comments and readership. We appreciate your feedback and are glad you like the blog.
In regard to your question. In October we posted a job posting on various college sites to see if college students would be able to help write on the blog. Initially we thought this would save us (me) some time from having to do multiple posts.
After I began to write more and more posts I fell in love with blogging and sharing my thoughts and ideas on business and the real estate market with our readers. Every single post so far has been done by me and I will continue to write for as long as I can.
Once we have more authors posting on the blog we will definitely identify each author with each post. For now, you will have to suffer through my random thoughts on anything that goes through my crazy brain.
February 26, 2008 at 11:09 am
Hi Dan,
Thanks for stopping by and clearing that up. I really do enjoy your blog for both the business items and even the more random ones. The recent VC Pitch post provided a good laugh for me while sitting in an airport terminal. And since poker is my favorite pastime, I really enjoyed the post about 7 Business Rules Learned From Playing Poker.
February 26, 2008 at 12:56 pm
I have been blogging almost 2 years and it has been a lot of fun.
I am not sure if I have received any direct sales out of it, in fact since I have expressed some negative thoughts regarding NARPM that I might have actually lost sales.
Bill, I am glad you have grown to like my blog.