And you do a GREAT job of it. This post is evidence of your message. I see good people do bad things with social media, I think… because it’s what they feel is appropriate. Not only Real Estate, but many, many business minded people are espousing the benefits of using the social web to sell. You can find great big yellow pools of pee all over the web. I’ve all but left Twitter out of pure exhaustion with noise. It may or may not be true that I could re-build, filter, or whatever a genuinely valuable network there again, but for now I’m bitter. Boo hoo

Facebook has become much more sacred of a place, I’m sorry to say that I’ve un-friended a mass of people that I should have never let into my social space. It’s a much happier and sane place for me to connect being more private.

What I’ve learned, I guess for me is that the only filter I need is that one that takes requests to my email inbox, right into the trash. Friend requests from business logos as avatars or peeks at Facebook walls with nothing but disingenuous “networking” are in my rear-view.

More public facing sites like Foursquare and Yelp have their work cut out for them. I often wonder what everyday people think after looking at some of these networks. What I come up with is … like you said: “That would turn me off to the whole service.”

Which is unfortunate since we all know how powerful social “media” can be.

I’m thankful that I was lucky enough to get in early and create relationships with some really smart & personable people in the past few years by being authentic and I’ve found that even though the platforms, tools & channels have changed, the connections are still there and those relationships are still growing.

And I could use a bit of Nanking myself, buddy.

BTW – SFAR Membership day is this Friday. Too bad you’re not coming up. I’m jones’n for some Nanking.

I loathe the idea that one should be thinking about how to “brand, sell, market, or whatever… for their business” every time they log in to a social site. Loathe.

STOP with the doing social media and just be social already.

Now, if they were checking into another open house nearby…

And, of course – it’s catching on. The next great marketing strategy seems to be – go to the party, drink too much, puke all over everyone and everything.

I think it should be a requirement to read Cluetrain Manifesto before anyone tries to use social applications or platforms to “advertise”.

Thanks for being vocal on this…this really pisses me off.