Words: Ashley Rigg
Published: 9th October 2008
Top blogger wipes £10 billion off share values
Last week we included BBC business editor Robert Peston at number 14 in our list of the most powerful people in global property. He made the list because he covers real estate issues for one of the world’s most powerful websites. His power and influence however extend far beyond the narrow criteria that we used to judge him.
At 7.00am on Tuesday 6th October (UK Time), Peston broke
this story on his blog detailing a request by three of the UK’s leading banks for a £45 billion capital injection from the UK Chancellor, Alistair Darling. The London Stock Exchange opened at 8am. What did the banks’ bosses know that the market didn’t? Cue fear, panic and general hysteria. Nearly
£10 billion was wiped off UK banking shares in a matter of hours.
In the UK, Peston has become the face of the credit crunch, working a seemingly relentless broadcast media schedule. If we had judged him on more conventional criteria, like those used by Inman News in their
100 Most Influential Real Estate Leaders Report (coincidentially published in the same week as
our report), he surely would have come top.
Top 100 lists compared
The Inman News Special Report details the best and the brightest individuals in (mainly US) real estate. “The people on the list embody leadership, innovation, ingenuity, power and persistence,” according to Inman. It’s a comprehensive and well-researched report organised into useful categories like Brokerage, Media Heavyweights and Trade Associations.
Interestingly, nobody appeared on both lists, although there was some cross over at company level. For example, people from Zillow, HomeGain, Trulia, National Association of Realtors, Active Rain, Wall Street Journal and New York Times appear on both.
The contrasting results reflect our different objectives. Ours was to list the most influential writers and bloggers on the internet (we missed a few that are on the Inman list due to our inferior knowledge of the US market) and Inman’s goal was to detail the most powerful people in a more conventional sense.
There’s no arguing that Barack Obama and John McCain deserve a place but surely the exceptional reporting skills of the BBC’s Robert Peston warrant him a position on both?
Brad Inman comes to London
Inman News founder, Brad Inman will be in London on Thursday next week (16th October). The venue is
The Windmill in Mayfair from 6pm. It’s an open invitation for anyone interested to turn up and meet one of the leading entrepreneurs in US real estate. Judging from the coverage received so far from UK property bloggers, it should be a good evening.
