Though you'd never know it, this is my third attempt at this entry. I downloaded Mozilla Firefox this morning to see what everyone's been talking about with tabbed pages, and there's been a minor learning curve to deal with.

I ended up skipping the midway games, the pseudo-meats on a stick and the ever-present cotton candy and sat out this week's Carnival of Real Estate for the first time in more than a month. There were several reasons - every writer goes through lulls where the words don't come nearly as easily as usual; when I was a full-time reporter this was far more a tragedy than now when I'm a writer second and real estate agent first. But the main reason has been a malaise caused by further contemplation on the nature of the blog - this blog, in particular.

The basic question is whether my blog is of interest primarily to consumers at large or to real-estate professionals, and to whom I really want to direct my attention. Along with that is the question of who is in my audience now, and who do I want in my audience as time goes on. Ultimately, I want this to be a center of discussion and education both for the general public and for my peers (clearly without me doing all the teaching) but I am not always sure this is the path I'm on, especially as I read my previous posts. Do the topics appeal to both worlds? I'm not certain.

For example, the discussion surrounding the cost of using a buyers' agent clearly impacts the public. But I'm not sure your average consumer is as concerned with these things as those in the profession seeking a competitive edge through pricing of their services. Likewise, my thoughts on the MLS, what it really is and what its future may be, again may interest my fellow agents more than the public at large even thought I believe it's educational for the average seller to realize the MLS is not some magnificent selling machine.

As you read this week's top Carnival entries at Jim Duncan's Real Central VA, I believe you'll see some similar themes and internal debates over what real estate blogs are today and what they should be in the future.

For example, "transparency advocate" Pat Kitano muses on the current state of real estate blogging and wonders whether the public is seeing the debates that would help them. And this week's Carnival winner, Jim Cronin of the Real Estate Tomato, discusses sharing best practices in general (and mentions his blogging mentors) - a topic which translates easily outside of real estate.

Familar topics also are discussed, including the need for agents to bring more to the table than MLS access.

As for Tobey and I, we'll probably be back in the swing in a day or so. It's an easy formula -- start with some smaller posts, then move on from there. My efforts also will be aided this week as I add to my blogroll and pass along some of the better sites I'm seeing out there.

(c) Jonathan Dalton, 2006 / Jonathan Dalton's Arizona Homes

This week's Carnival of Real Estate has been posted at YoChicago. Top pick of the week was sellsius' coverage of the post-off between Ardell of the searchingseattleblog and Greg's bloodhound blog.

Tobey and I received a mention, which is good enough for us early on a Tuesday morning.

(c) Jonathan Dalton, 2006 / Jonathan Daltons Arizona Homes