Announcing Activerain's "MakeoverToTakeover" Event - The Call for Entries!

 Whether your Real Estate career has just begun,

or is in dire needed a complete overhaul,

here's your chance!

Think "Top Chef," less the cooking.

                           Or "Extreme Home Make-Over," but without Ty and his annoying megaphone.
                                           The Biggest Loser, only you're a Winner!

From the same folks that brought you 'Project Blogger" comes the latest reality 'realty' event....

The Contest is simple: We will be selecting up to 15 'Makeover' Teams, comprised of one (1) seasoned real estate veteran (Mentor), and their chosen apprentice. Over the course of the next 8 weeks (leading up to the 2008 SF Inman Connect), the Mentor/Apprentices will face a series of weekly challenges, aimed specifically at developing the apprentice's image/abilities as a top performing real estate agent.

The mentors and apprentices will be chronicling their experiences on the 'MakeoverToTakeover' ActiveRain blog.

Each of the selected teams will receive a free Flip Video Camera to help document/share their progress.

 M2T Team Submissions Deadline:   Monday, May 12th. MakeOver Teams shall submit an application with the following information:

• Names of both Mentor and Apprentice.
• A short description of the why the apprentice feels their business needs to be made over.
• Send email entries to Rich Jacobson (his first name @ activerain.com)

Competition Begins:   Friday, May 16th    

Competition Ends: July 18th. The Winning Team will be announced at Inman's SF Blogger's Connect 2008

 
Judging: Each week the contestants will be given challenges for that week. Two members of the ActiveRain team and one guest judge per week will review the contestants entries for each competition and in true 'reality' show fashion, teams will be eliminated each week.

Scoring: The last three teams standing will be invited to join us at Inman Connect in San Francisco where the winning team will be announced. In addition to the final challenge, the overall body of work will be evaluated to determine the winning team. So if your team doesn't fair well one week, but you avoid being eliminated, you have the ability to bounce back and still make a strong showing toward the final announcement. 

Judging Criteria: Each week, when that weeks challenge is announced, judging criteria for that particular challenge will be spelled out. The overall judging criteria will look at the how far the makeover of the Apprentice has come and how their participation has changed the face of their business. We will talk more about the criteria as the contest unfolds.

Prizes: We will award small weekly prizes to the first place team for each challenge. The grand prize will be a Web2.0 Marketing package worth many 1000's of dollars. You can look forward to prizes from the who's who of online real estate. 

EDITED: The nature of some of the weekly challenges will make it such that it may be an advantage to have the Mentor and the apprentice in the same geographical area. Depending on the number of applicants we get, we may give preference to teams where the Mentor and Apprentice are in close geographic proximity. Having a team that is not in the same geographical area will not completely disqualify you, but it may make the process more challenging. However, some of the veteran members of our community are extremely gifted, technology-wise, and could probably mentor from any location! 

Bugs to be fixed at the stroke of midnight - (A | R to go down for 5 minutes)

After working nearly an all night shift last night releasing a new upgrade for ActiveRain, our development team awoke this morning to a few system bugs and more than a few bewildered Rainers. Fortunately the development team persevered through the day and successfully tracked down the causes of all of the bugs and have programmed the fixes. However, to "debug", we've got to take the site down for a couple minutes to upload the remedies to the main servers. To minimize as much lost work as possible we decided to wait until midnight PST to take ActiveRain down and upload the fixes.

Recap: ActiveRain will go offline at midnight. All unsaved work (including blog posts, comments, etc.) will be lost.  When ActiveRain comes back online - bugs will be fixed and harmony restored... hopefully.

                                                                                                                                ~jon

This Mornings Upgrades.........the Good and the Bad

We did a release to the site early this morning and it looks like there are a few bugs. (I'm a get the bad out of the way first kind of person) We have had people report that they can not upload pictures......the spell check still isn't working (this was suppose to be fixed in the release), one person lost the icon bar on their blog post page and in their comments.

We are aware of these issues. If you have seen other issues, can you let us know. Please include what browser you are using along with the version of that browser. Thank you and sorry for the inconvenience. We hope to have this addresses shortly.

The good news is, we made some serious improvements to the database and you should be able to find these new bugs with much greater speed :-)

Seriously, you should see better site performance and it will only get better over the next few weeks. We have a really solid programming team in place and we'll introduce you to the new guys once they get settled in a little :-) 

EDITED:

The picture upload issue can be resolved if you clear your cache

"ActiveRain Home Tours Video Contest 2008!"

As a licensed real estate professional in a large military community (Kitsap County WA), many of my clients are active-duty personnel being transferred to our area from out of State.

It's difficult starting the home shopping process remotely. Many of the listings in our MLS have photo galleries that leave much to be desired. And most agents rarely upload anything more sophisticated, like slide shows or virtual tours.

So in the past, I've done my own slide show presentation. I'll run out to the subject property with my handy Canon SureShot 7.2M Pixel Digital and take a boatload of quality photos to my heart's content. Later, I'll format them using Slide.com, and copy the HTML code to a page on my website. My out of State client can then access my website, and view the presentation.

That was then. This is NOW! 

This isn't your Father's real estate anymore. Today's consumer is much more computer literate and tech savvy then ever before. They demand interactivity. They want to experience multimedia tools and resources. As much as possible, we need to offer them the ability to effectively 'walk thru' the prospective home from hundreds of miles away. Or even from just down the street....

~  o  ~  o  ~  o  ~  o  ~  o  ~  o  ~  o  ~  o  ~  o  ~  o  ~  o  ~ o  ~

The ActiveRain Home Tours Video Contest

Here's the scenario:  You have a cash Buyer from out of State that is pressed for time. They've narrowed their choices down to 2 homes, but unfortunately, they don't have the luxury of coming out to preview any properties. They are trusting your instincts and abilities in helping them to make a decision 'sight unseen.'

Your Challenge:    You have to create video presentations for 2 properties.

Details:    Each video must be a minimum of 3 minutes in length.

              All entries shall be received no later than Midnight PST on Sunday, May 25th.

              Entries cannot have been previously published.

              Winners will be announced Tuesday, May 27th.                       

              Members can only submit one (1) entry (2 videos).

              Be as creative as you wish, using as many elements as possible.
 

Judging:   All judging will be provided by ActiveRain Staff. Entries will be graded on:

    1)  Overall Visual Aesthetics

    2)  Content - highlighting the features of the home and neighborhood.

    3)  Degree of Technical Difficulty - the more elements your add, the higher your scoring.

 

Prizes:      1st Place - A professionally produced high-quality Profile Video from Turn Here, Inc.

              2nd Place - One year subscription to ActiveRain Mixpo Video Editing Suite

              3rd Place - 5000 points

How to enter the contest

1. Create a blog post with your videos embedded into the post
2. Tag the post with: ActiveRain Home Tours Video Contest 2008
3. Publish your entry and place a link to your post in the comments section of this article.
   

Scheduled ActiveRain Downtime - Please spread the word

We will taking the site down in the early morning of Friday May 9th from 1am-4am Pacific Time. (4am-7am on the East Coast). The site will be down as we put a build up with some significant performance enhancements.

I could go into the details, but I can't decipher what the Heck Diego and Matt are talking about........so I probably wouldn't get it right anyway. What I do know is that many of the issues around site performance are being addressed in this release so you should see increased performance when the site comes back online Friday morning at 4am Pacific Time.

If you are working on anything at the time the site goes down, your work will be lost........so please help us spread the word to those late night/early morning ActiveRainers you know to frequent the site at these late/early hours.

Thank you everyone! 

"Top Ten Rides!" - The Carnival of Real Estate #89

Most of us remember our first ride at the county fair or at the carny that would pull through town every year. Mine was at the Alameda County Fairgrounds in Pleasanton, California. One of the classic rides back in the day was the "Tilt-A-Whirl!" I recall making the unfortunate mistake of porking out on every conceivable fairground junk food before climbing aboard, mustard-plastered corndog included. What resulted wasn't pretty.

What is is about the people running those rides? No matter how loud you scream "STOP THE RIDE!" at the top of your lungs, they're totally oblivious.

Needless to say, no one on that ride, including my Mother, was very pleased about my generosity in sharing my lunch with them.

So what bearing does this have? None really. I just thought it would be an amusing segue!

Well, without any further adieu....

Welcome to the 89th Edition of the "Carnival of Real Estate!" 

The following 'rides' you're about to read are much more thrilling and enjoyable. And certainly not quite as messy!

There were some really excellent submissions for this week's Carnival, making the selection process all that more challenging. But I think you'll agree, we've got some more great examples of quality content real estate articles!

So hop onboard, strap in tight, and let the "Rides" begin!.... 

~   o   ~   o   ~   o   ~   o   ~   o   ~   o   ~   o   ~   o   ~   o   ~

"Is There Ever A Sure Thing in Real Estate Investing?" by Scott Roemermann of Investing-Secrets.com

Scott offers up some very practical insights on the fears and risks we all face as 'first-time' investors, and explains the benefits of 'bird-dogging.'

"A Look at the Real Estate Market: Time to Buy?" by the Silicon Valley Blogger of The Digerati Life 

Though not a real estate professional by trade, this California-based software engineer has some pretty astute observations on the current housing market from a clearly savvy consumer's viewpoint. She even recommends consulting with a local real estate professional!

"What Every Remodeler Should Ask Themselves" by Spencer Rascoff, CFO & VP of Marketing at Zillow.com

I've been a big fan of Spencer's writing and enjoy his genuine, 'down-to-earth' style. "I am being ripped off." Classic!

"The 'No-Brainer' Investment" by Joe Manausa of Talahasee Real Estate Blog

Joe touches on a very timely subject near and dear to heart of many of us, "How am I ever going to afford my kid's college expenses?

"Core Values to Help You Survive This Market" by Margaret Woda of RE/MAX Vision, Crofton MD

Margaret serves up some of the best advice for agents on how to navigate today's challenging market, and come out a success!

"Not All Staging Bananas are all Ripe & Ready!" by Craig Schiller of Real Estaging

Leave it to Craig to combine laughter with learning. There's a lot of questionable fruit out there, and Craig helps us to shop wisely!

"Want to Buy a Foreclosure? Read This First".... by Kacey Sides & Andy Hodes of Scenic City Scoop

Besides having a really 'delicious' looking blog, their advice on buying foreclosed properties is extremely helpful. Two scoops or three?

"Another Day, Another Dollar, Another Loonie Listing!" by Lauren Mitchell of LivingintheNeighborhood.com

This Toronto Canada Agent cautions area Sellers on the dangers of sporting the "Dork" Flag! Is that a Canadian thing?

"Ambulance Chasers Attack Realtors" by Gretchen Faber of LifeStyleDenver.com

This friendly rant by Kentwood Companies Broker, Gretchen Faber, is like Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. Nice job for a budding blogger!

"How would 'House' Solve the Current Housing Crisis?" by Kevin Blasi of Universal Funding Partners

Kevin touts the importance of stressing Borrower Education as a primary cure for our housing woes. Can I get a big 'Amen?' 

 ~   o   ~   o   ~   o   ~   o   ~   o   ~   o   ~   o   ~   o   ~   o   ~

So there ya have it! A great cross-section of both seasoned and budding authors from this past week in the Real Estate Blogosphere. Each of our 'Top Ten W-Riders' will receive their own personalized 'Carnival of Real Estate' badge to proudly display on their blog/websites, courtesy of Mark Flanders of SoundBiteBlog.

Visit the 'Carnival of Real Estate' Blog, sponsored by Zillow.com to review all the past carnival winners. 

Rich Jacobson, ActiveRain Community Builder/Social Media Guy 

ActiveRain Hosts "Carnival of Real Estate!"

ActiveRain is excited to be sponsoring the upcoming 89th edition of the "Carnival of Real Estate!" 

What is a Blog Carnival?

Welcome everyone! The Carnival was started by Zillow.com on July 10, 2006 to help bring the real estate blogging community together to share valuable information on trends and news in the industry. It is open to everyone in the real estate industry and we mean everyone! (you can read about how it all got started HERE)

A Blog Carnival is a weekly summary of the best blogging posts that appeared in someone’s blog during the previous week.  A different blog hosts the carnival each week, so it brings together the best RE bloggers from around the globe.  Blog Carnivals are often referred to as another form of viral marketing because it provides participants another way to increase traffic and gain links to their blog.  Learn more about carnivals.

How to Submit a Post

Submitting your post for consideration in the Carnival is an easy process. Simply click on the following link, and follow the steps:

Blog Carnival Submission

Please include:

• – Article URL (permalink)
• – Article title
• – Author name
• – E-mail address
• – Blog URL
• – Brief summary of the post

Common Carnival Questions

Q. What are the requirements for submitting?

A. Ideally, anything that is relevant to real estate can be submitted. It should be original content and has to be a recent post. Also, the post shouldn’t just be a compilation of someone else’s quotes or thoughts – the majority of it should be original content created by the author.

Q. How recent does the post need to be?

A. Less than two weeks old

Q. What topics are allowed?

A. Anything related to the real estate industry.

Q. What is the deadline for submitting?

A. Sunday afternoon, 3 P.M. (EST).  If you are late, it is up to the host’s discretion to review your article for submission.

Q. Will any post that is submitted be included in the carnival?

A. No. Only the Top 10-20 posts should be listed.  But, the host can include additional posts if he/she feels they are really well done and deserve to be included.

Q. May I submit more than one entry per week?

A. No, please only submit one entry.

Q. What if my blog has multiple authors and contributors? Can we all pick our best entry and each of us submit one?

A. No, only one post from each blog address should be submitted per week.

"And What do they win, Jay?" 

They're aren't any prizes being awarded for this event. No points, no gift certificates for fancy shoes, no cool cameras. Just the bragging rights that come with being named among some of the 'Best of the Best' in real estate blogging.

Your submissions are due by this coming Sunday, May 4th at 3PM EST, so you all best get busy!

(For any additional questions, please contact Rich Jacobson at rich@activerain.com 

UPDATE:   The winners have just been ANNOUNCED!

Technical Difficulties

We are very sorry for the technical difficulties today. We are replacing all Hamsters with Rats. Rats don't care what we feed them. They will eat anything. Our hamsters have been very picky eaters lately and therefor not running in their wheels like they normally do. We will show those picky hamsters.......in fact, the Rats first meal just might be.........well never mind, I wouldn't want to offend any hamster lovers.......

* One main issue we are addressing is that no one is being notified of comments, not on your 'my home' page (fixed now it would seem) or in your email. So it isn't that no one likes you........they are probably commenting, you'll just have to go check it out.

*Some people are having issues with multiple posts and comments. That will happen if you hit the submit button more than once.  

Again, sorry and we hope to have it all sorted out soon. My advice is to watch the Final Four and take a break!!!

ActiveRain Point Scoring System Update

Ever since the very beginning of this network, the Point Scoring System has been the source of constant discussion and debate. While many of our members embraced the genius of awarding points for their involvment here, an equal number felt it would lead to a degeneration of the quality of published content, and that 'less-than-ethical' types would game the system, and use it to their advantage.

After considerable and lengthy discussion among our staff, and consulting with many of our veteran members, we have decided to eliminate the point scoring system in its entirety.

This change will go into effect on our next update (late Thursday evening/early Friday morning). This update will remove your individual point totals and the Point Summary function on your 'My Home' page. Additionally, there will no longer be 'Featured' members in each geographical location (city, county, or State) on both the ActiveRain platform or on Localism, based on point score ranking. This will be replaced by a continuous random placement function that will change each day.

We appreciate your continued support and involvement here on ActiveRain. Our special thanks to those who participated in the many rounds of discussion, and helped us to reach this rather difficult decision.

For further information and discussion, access the ActiveRain Update Forum.

~ The ActiveRain Staff ~

New Feature - the "Help/FAQ" Tab

If you haven't already noticed, down at the bottom of your ActiveRain screen is a new feature tab/link entitled "Help/FAQ"

This tab actually directs you into a modified group that will be moderated by some ActiveRain heavy hitters - Brad Andersohn, Jeff Turner, Jason Crouch, Mike Muellar, to name a few.

Here is the purpose/vision for this group:

• The purpose of the 'HELP/FAQ' group is to provide our fellow members with helpful advice and answers to commonly asked questions about all things ActiveRain/Localism.

You don't have to be a member to access all the valued articles contained here.

• A number of veteran ActiveRain Members have been selected to help moderate this Group and determine/monitor the content that will be stored here.

If you wish to contribute an article that will benefit our membership and is relevant to the purpose of this Group, join the Group, publish your article to your own blog, and then contact one of the Group Moderators to have your article considered for inclusion.

• Contributors must either pose a meaningful and valid question (FAQ) concerning a function/feature of ActiveRain/Localism, and along with the question, provide a practical and detailed response/answer; or offer a tutorial regarding a feature/function of ActiveRain/Localism.

All posts shall contain the tags: 'help' and 'faq'

• In addition, the following tags will also be used, if applicable:

'tutorial'  'profile'  'blogging'  'how to'  'localism'  'outside blogs'  'referrals'  'groups'

• The submitted posts shall contain only information relevant to the question/answer or tutorial. Any self-promotional information within the body of the post, i.e., links, website, contact or subscribe buttons, shall be kept to a minimum.

Posts submitted to the "HELP/FAQ" Group are subject to review, and may be modified or deleted, as determined by the Group Moderators.

It is our intention to make this modified group THE primary destination for answers to all questions concerning the functions and features of this platform. As always, the input of our membership is welcomed and greatly appreciated.

Rich Jacobson, Community Builder