If you’ve been to Notorious ROB before, you will have noticed the design update to the blog. Most of the major changes have been under the hood, but I’m generally satisfied with it. I will likely keep making some design tweaks going forward, but wanted to tell you about two major changes.
Premium Content Changes
First, the premium subscription service has been replaced with The Store. Premium content, instead of being a web page, has been converted into downloadable PDF’s, so you can keep a copy for yourself. All existing subscribers will be emailed a copy of the report they purchased, and Annual Subscribers will be emailed a 100% discount code good for the remainder of 2013. Please look for that next week.
Relatedly, I’ve dramatically increased the price on every Black Paper. For the past few months, I’ve been trying premium content as an experiment of sorts, to see what sort of demand existed for detailed analysis and reporting on four public companies: Zillow, Trulia, Move, and Realogy. I do plan to expand coverage into RE/MAX as well, as it looks likely that they’ll go public. But quite frankly, most of you don’t particularly care. 🙂 Which is fine, as I don’t write the Black Paper series for most people — it’s a very small audience I’m aiming at with those.
So, my take on it is, the elite few of you who care to pay to read my work on those public companies aren’t particularly price sensitive, and my time remains valuable. These reports aren’t fun blogposts; they’re actual work to produce. If you’re that rare reader who really wants access to the Black Papers, but have some reason for financial reticence (e.g., you’re a student, you just quit your job to do a startup, etc.), contact me.
Advertising on Notorious R.O.B.
The other change is that I’ve settled on a program for advertising and sponsorship. Over the years, I’ve had people wanting to advertise to the unique audience that this blog draws. It’s not a big audience, but it is an influential one. You ought to know this, since you’re reading it, and you know who you are.
Plus, I upgraded the hosting to improve speed and I plan to make some further changes to make the site easier to read.
But getting advertisers is no small task. Doing sales calls and bizdev type stuff for my blog is not a focus for me. Plus, there is the matter of trying to put price on such a thing.
The solution: Ebay Auction!
Basically, sponsorship to the blog will be sold on a monthly basis, during which time you are the exclusive and sole sponsor of the finest, most powerful, most influential blog in real estate. (Well, at least according to my mom, it is.)
Whoever wins the auction is the sponsor, and the winning bid is the price. For that month. Every post is covered. The exceptions are static pages and The Store.
For more details, please visit the Sponsorship page.
Okay, that’s the update. We now return to regularly (un)scheduled programming. Thanks!
-rsh
