Baron Briefs

Business 2.0 put real estate on the cover of their November edition which arrived in the mail this week. As with any real estate feature, I dove in immediately. The coverage is good because it doesn’t dwell on the bubble bursting. Rather, opportunity is the focus.

Within seconds, however, my eyes were drawn to a footer on page 85 titled “New Ways to Buy and Sell: The latest real estate websites go beyond just searching the listings”. Occupying one of only eight panels was none other than RealtyBaron.com:

It’s an awesome feeling to see a major business publication take notice of my creation. Thanks, Business 2.0.

First, let me say, surveillance is part of business. You must keep an eye on the competition. This includes visiting their website to read copy, searching news clippings for their name, etc. But when you start posing as a customer, it crosses the line and becomes reconnaissance. I don’t mind surveillance, but recon is an abuse of my time and money.

There’s one competitor in particular who has now performed recon on my system twice and was dumb enough to include their website name in the header…twice. I let it slide last summer, but it happened again this week so I’m calling them out. First offense was fishing for info on RealtyBaron’s ranking system last summer by posing as a real estate agent web merchant who is considering our service affiliate program:

Then, after RealtyBaron’s launch of Buyer Rebate Auctions last week, they again posed as a customer–this time a “home buyer” in Jacksonville:

“Hungry” indeed….hungry for inside scoop on RealtyBaron™. Down, boy…down.