A few weeks ago, I was checking my Yahoo! email and spotted a headline about Michelle Obama's outfit at a Kennedy Center function. I'm often an admirer of her fashion choices, so I clicked on the article. After glancing through it, I made the mistake of scrolling down to the comments section. I have rarely ever seen such hateful, racist, awful language – even in fiction. These were not comments about Michelle's politics or her husband's job performance (subjects upon which everyone is entitled to their opinion) – instead, these were vulgar slurs about her physical appearance, specifically her body shape/size and the color of her skin.

What does this have to do with real estate technology? Quite a bit actually. Many agents and brokers have blogs. And, if you're actually getting traffic on your blog, you might be getting comments. And if you're getting comments, you might be getting inappropriate comments. Here's how to deal with it.

1) Require a login.

The people writing the comments about the First Lady were doing so anonymously, with names like Truth Is Out There (who wrote of Ms. Obama in her elegant gown, "I saw something at the zoo like that"). Would they have said these things if their real names were attached to the comments? I certainly hope not.