Real estate website admits it erred in sending Robin Williams email

An alert from ListedBy broke the news of the comedian and actor’s death. Management realized it had overstepped and issued a mea culpa.

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Imagine my surprise when amid the flood of tweets and Facebook posts and emails about the death of actor Robin Williams, I spotted an alert from real estate auction website ListedBy.com with this headline: “Robin Williams Dies of Apparent Suicide.”

The comedy genius died in his home, but other than that, what does this tragedy have to do with real estate? Absolutely nothing. I was puzzled and disappointed: Was ListedBy.com trying to capitalize on the death of the iconic actor?

Even ListedBy.com‘s email noted the disconnect between real estate and Robin Williams’ death:

This obviously is not directly related to real estate, but sometimes news transcends topics and when something so shocking happens we feel it our duty to report to our hundreds of thousands of members. As a long time Robin Williams fan we grant our sincere condolences to his family and it is a reminder for all of us how important every day is.

Unless you’re CNN or The Huffington Post or TMZ, leave news like this to the news pros. ListedBy.com is not part of that crowd, and should have stood on the sidelines.

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