Hail Curbed - the national real estate media network
Posted by Pat Kitano at 10/30/2007 9:22 PM 
Categories: New Business Models, Blog networks, Blogging, Social Media
Categories: New Business Models, Blog networks, Blogging, Social Media
With $1.5 million in new financing, real estate blog pioneer Curbed.com now has the blessing to create a national blog network of mini-Curbeds. This is what consumers want - a brand name resource of local hyperlocal content, a lot of it devoted to real estate, served up within a blog network format. Congrats to Lockhart Steele and investors Nick Denton and Brad Inman among others who see the opportunity so clearly. They're media - they understand that a consistent, well produced blog network as "news service" is as comfortable to the consumer as Starbucks or the New York Times.
Blog networks are ideal for consumer readership because they are assuming the role of the daily news. Writers are hand picked so there's quality control, and the set of Curbeds will position themselves as the status quo hyperlocal resources. This media is much bigger than real estate, Curbed can eventually focus on overtaking online local newspapers.
Although Curbed will be creating the media network paradigm for real estate, there will be big opportunities for the development of regional and local blog networks. Why? Real estate will always be hyperlocal down to the neighborhood and street level. Curbed SF can't be in all neighborhoods, and blog networks that can cover the whole Bay Area will gain traction locally in the same way local TV news draws traffic that is different from CNN or national news.
Here's my question of the day - how will Curbed recruit great real estate bloggers to author their local editions?
Curbed investment coverage:
Spicy Real Estate Blog Curbed.com Raises $1.5M; Real Estate Blogging Matures As A Medium - 3Oceans
Inman is lead investor in Curbed - Rain City Guide
- Blogs are attracting VC money - October 21, 2007
- Homescopes and the new local Blog Networks - October 10, 2007
Technorati Tags: curbed, blog network, venture capital, inman, gawker media, new media, hyperlocal
Hmm... a national branded network of local blogs. has me thinking that the local agent will again be helping to build a brand not his own...
Unless there is a reasonable monetary incentive, this may just be sidebar gilding Amigo.
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True Steven, we think a lot alike! That's why my question points to where to find good real estate bloggers to write for Curbed... it's quite possible funding for media networks may augur the return of the old "hire the journalist" model?
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Pat, the key to recruiting great real estate bloggers is an enticing ad revenue sharing scheme and stock options for the eventual big-name media buyout. The other keys are vision and branding. What makes a great real estate blog? Figure that out, get the people who can deliver, give them a stake, watch it grow, sell out and retire to Incline Village, Nevada, and BTW, call me... I'll get you the best deal on Lakeshore Drive.
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