The site that goes by the title of this post is bidding for the future to be just like the past, but with more up-to-date buzzwords. Think Web 2.0 and blogs.

The real estate industry needs to start blogging, according to this site, to avoid missing out on leads.

There's a very real possibility that an avalanche of junk blogs will make online real estate journals as useless for readers as agent Web sites have become.

Here's a novel twist. Lisa Maysonet, a New York broker with Prudential Douglas Elliman, is posting open houses hosted by FSBOs (for sale by owners) on her blog each week.

Seems like a great way to get both buyers and owners paying attention to Lisa's blog - and developing a relationship with Lisa.

I was just reading a post on a totally different subject: the sale of Knight-Ridder's newspapers.

The writer, Lou Alexander, makes a point that has high relevance for real estate agents who might be considering writing an online journal. I'll paraphrase what he had to say.

His message: if you show people that you know a little bit about a subject, some people think you know everything about it.

Alexander thought that put him in a dangerous position: it created expectations that he couldn't satisfy.

A real estate agent posting on a subject might be exposed to similar danger, but would also be in a position of great opportunity. Buyers and sellers want to know a lot about a lot of things, and they have very few trustworthy sources. Whoever gives them some of what they want has the beginning of a relationship that might result in a business transaction.

New York-based The Real Deal has an overview of some of the local real estate blogs, and a preliminary take on what they might mean to real estate brokers.

The real estate blogging scene in Chicago has been much slower to develop.