Blogging during the downturn

Some real estate blogs say the downturn has led to a slowdown in readership and advertising, but maintain that their services are in demand and increasingly valuable as the market becomes more difficult. Jonathan Butler, founder of Brownstoner.com, laid off his only employee in December and has gone back to writing the entire site himself because he is afraid profits will start to decline. Curbed.com has not had an increase in page views since September. “Traffic on Curbed has been flat,” said Lockhart Steele, president of Curbed.com, adding that people might be avoiding the Web site because they know they will be reading bad news. The Real Deal’s December issue had a package of stories about how the Internet has changed the real estate business, including an interview with Steele and a piece on brokers who have started blogging.