Real Estate & the Social Web from a Berkeley Real Estate Agent

It Looks Like Google Just Laid the Smackdown on Squidoo

Andy Kaufman, East Bay Sales & Investments (Keller Williams Realty) — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 14:44:01 -0500

Bad news for Squidoo.

It looks like Google has penalized Seth Godin's venture because of excessive spamming.

From yesterday's TechCrunch post.

"The reports indicate that some Squidoo pages have seen a 75% drop in traffic, and in other cases have either been removed from high ranking positions on Google, or removed all together."

I'm sure the folks at Squidoo saw this coming and recently began new spam fighting initiative to attempt to avoid this move by Google, but it looks like it might be a case of too little, too late.

While it seems like a stiff penalty. I think this move will force Squidoo to clean up their lenses and will ultimately help in the long run.

If anybody has any input on the ramifications of this move by Google, I'd love to hear them.

Killing Two Birds With One Social Network

Andy Kaufman, East Bay Sales & Investments (Keller Williams Realty) — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 00:48:26 -0500

Earlier today I finally cracked the 10,000 point mark here on Active Rain. I've been stuck in the 9900's for a while with a wicked case writer's block and I've been thinking of how I was going to celebrate breaking 10k for a while now.

Like all active members eventually realize, I get that AR isn't about the points, it's about the connections and the conversations. That's why it was cool that I cracked the milestone while sitting in Mike Mueller's blogging class and leaving a comment on a post that he created during the class.

Which brings me to the second milestone.

Meeting Mike in person today marked the first time that I've made a real life connection directly from ActiveRain. A few weeks ago, Mike contacted me and offered to teach his beginning blog class to our Keller Williams office and together we made it happen.

In case you're wondering, Mike's as genuine as he seems and his class is full of dynamite info and taught in a way that's non threatening to an agent who is new to the social web.

So in closing, I'd like to thank Mike and everyone else that I've connected with through ActiveRain. You all are what makes this place special. I look forward to meeting more of you "in real life".

106 Ways to Improve Your Connector Skills

Andy Kaufman, East Bay Sales & Investments (Keller Williams Realty) — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 18:45:32 -0500

I recently stumbled upon a great blog post which featured a list of 106 Tips to Become a Master Connector.

After reading through the list a few times, I found that some of the items really resonated with me and I thought I'd share my thoughts on a few of them.

Make friends
Those who are best at it don’t network - they make friends. A widening circle of influence is an unintended result, not a calculated aim.

People do business with people they like. After a particularly bad experiences last year working with a client whom I didn't like, I decided to collaborate or do business with people whom I'd like to be friends with. It just works out so much better this way.

Connect with super-connectors
Some people know many, many more people than the rest of us. Such people should be the cornerstones to any flourishing network. Once you become friendly with a super-connector, you’re only two degrees away from thousands of different people.

My friend Chris Heuer, founder of the Social Media Club, is a great example for both of the last two tips. We've been friends since we met at an unconference that he put together in 2005 and he's a super-connector. I've met so many people and have been exposed to many great ideas through him and his fiance Kristie Wells.

Don’t try to balance your professional and personal life
Balance is a myth. Real connecting insists that you bring the same values to every relationship. As such, dividing your life between professional and personal spheres no longer made sense.

Whether we like it or not, this convergence is happening. Coincidentally, I just joined a facebook group that deals with this.

Be informed about whom you meet
If you are informed enough to step comfortably into their world and talk knowledgeably, their appreciation will be tangible. The idea is to find a point of common ground that is deep and rich. Then you’ll have an opportunity to bond and impress.

When I read this one, I thought of when I met Matt Mullenweg at a party a few years ago. I was still fairly new to the tech scene at the time and I had no idea he was the man responsible for Wordpress. When he introduced himself, I knew I had heard his name before but I just couldn't place it. I remember asking him quite loudly if he was the guy who created memeorandum. All of a sudden, it was like one of those moments when everything seems to freeze; you know...phones stop ringing, crickets stop chirping and all the attention focuses on you. He humbly corrected me and a connection was made. OK, maybe it's not that funny, but I still chuckle when I think of that moment.

Ironically, when I met Gabe Rivera, the man behind memeorandum & Techmeme, it was at Wordcamp, the Wordpress convention. It's kind of funny how things work out sometime.

Make warm calls
Use these four rules for warm calling:
1. Convey credibility: mention a familiar person or institution.
2. State your value proposition: what can you do for them?
3. Impart urgency and convenience: in most instances, the sole objective of the cold call is to get an appointment.
4. Be prepared to offer a compromise: go big at the outset, leaving room for compromise.

I'm not really big on talking on the phone. I'd rather use social networking tools like Facebook, Upcoming and Twitter to stay in touch and then connect in person, but I realize that I'm limiting myself and my network by excluding those who aren't using those same tools. To help remedy this, I've committed to making one warm call a day. Wish me luck ;)

Ping all the time
80 percent of building and maintaining relationships is just staying in touch (or “pinging”). Pinging takes effort. You have to keep pinging and pinging and pinging and never stop. You have to feed the fire of your network or it will wither or die.

This is why I like services like Twitter. Through Twitter my friends and I post little updates and interesting tidbits throughout the day to stay in touch.

Do your first follow up soon
Give yourself between 12 and 24 hours after you meet someone to follow up. E-mail is a fine tool for dropping a quick note.

I'm great at this one

Don’t forget to do your second follow-up
In a month’s time, drop the person another e-mail, just to keep in touch.

But I'm not so great at this one.

Always remember the other person’s name
Nothing is sweeter to someone’s ears than their own name.

Another thing that I can improve on. I don't know why this is so hard for me. Quite often, I forget someone's name before they're finished introducing themselves. Hopefully these tips will help me with this one.

Finally. Here's an actionable item that I'm looking forward to working on.

Create a Relationship Action Plan
There is a process involved in building a network. Your Relationship Action Plan consist of three sections:
1. Your goals up to three years from now in three months increments.
2. Names of people that could help you reach each goal.
3. Strategies to reach the people you list in point 2.
Once you have your plan, post it in a place where you will see it on regular basis.

So, there you have it. I encourage you to take a look at the list and I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Mahalo, the Human Powered Search Engine Launches it's Alpha

Andy Kaufman, East Bay Sales & Investments (Keller Williams Realty) — Wed, 30 May 2007 20:18:55 -0500

Big news in the world of search today!

Former Weblogs Inc. founder and serial entrepreneur Jason Calacanis launched Mahalo.com, a human-powered search engine, at the Wall Street Journal's D Conference.

The site is currently being launched in Alpha with the Internet's 4,000 most popular search terms completed and hopes to reach 10,000 search terms by the end of the year. At that point it will enter Beta, and launch shortly thereafter.

From the press release:

The site is focused on the top English-language search terms, including verticals such as travel, products, news, entertainment, sports, food, and health. "Google's mission is to index the world's information; our mission is to curate that wonderful index," said Calacanis. "It's my belief that humans can play a significant role in the development of search results and we're going to try to figure out exactly what that role is over the next couple of years. I am really looking forward to hearing what people think of the Alpha," he added.

Supposedly they have already closed two rounds of funding and have enough capital to last 4 years without revenue. Also, the investor list reads like a who's who of VC and includes Sequoia Capital, Elon Musk and NewsCorp. Additional investors include CBS Corporation, Hubert Burda Media, Allen & Co., David Bradley, Gigi Brisson, Sandy Climan, Mark Cuban, Matt Coffin, Ted Leonsis, Jonathan Miller, Mark Pincus, Ryan Scott, and Fred Wilson.

This is going to be one to keep your eye on. Given Calacanis's disdain for SEO and SEM, one can only imagine the implications if Mahalo, and human enabled search, takes off.

I'm going to play around with it tonight and report back tomorrow. I'd love to hear what others think.

It's Time to Start Paying Serious Attention to Facebook

Andy Kaufman, East Bay Sales & Investments (Keller Williams Realty) — Fri, 25 May 2007 02:27:00 -0500

The world of tech is buzzing from today's big news that Facebook, the sixth most trafficked site on the internet is opening it's API and transforming itself from merely a social network into a technology platform on which anyone can build applications for social computing.

Facebook is growing rapidly right now. They already have 24 million members and growing at about 150,000 per day and the fastest growing demographic is the 25 and up age group. Active users have doubled since Facebook expanded registration in Sept 2006.

Supposedly, anyone will have access to Facebook's so-called "markup language," which is intended to be usable even by those with basic programming skills. Not only am I excited to see what companies like Trulia, Zillow & Move end up developing for this platform, I'm also itching to see what I'll be able to build myself.

So, what does this mean for real estate professionals? I see it as just another social media tool for us to add to our online arsenal. Not only do we have our own websites and blogs (or a combination of both), we also have ActiveRain, Trulia voices, Zillow, del.icio.us, Twitter (see my earlier post) and now the new Facebook platform.

Social networking is becoming a full time job onto itself; I say this because it pretty much is for me. I spend a majority of my work day using these tools in order to build our network and identify the nodes within that network that our team can provide value to in order to get paid.

I realize that others may not have the amount of time to dedicate to these tools as I do, but here's a few things that you can do.

Sign up on Facebook and build a profile.
Join our ActiveRain group on Facebook.
Start building your network.
Share your experiences as you go.

In the meantime, here are some helpful resources & additional reading:

Rich Schiffer's AR posts- Want a less juvenile version of Myspace? & Using Networking Sites (Myspace, Facebook, ActiveRain, etc.) Effectively

Joel Burslem's- Marketing Real Estate on Facebook (and Other Social Networks)

Exclusive: Facebook's new face

Facebook Getting Spacey?

Facebook Launches Facebook Platform; They are the Anti-MySpace

Bay to Breakers: The Biggest Foot Race/Mobile Party in the World

Andy Kaufman, East Bay Sales & Investments (Keller Williams Realty) — Mon, 21 May 2007 16:08:24 -0500

Yesterday, an estimated 60,000 people and I participated in the 96th annual Bay to Breakers foot race. The 7.46 mile race started in 1912 as an event to lift the spirits of the city after the disastrous 1906 earthquake.

What separates this race from others is that it doubles as San Francisco's biggest and most mobile street party. Many of the racers get dressed up in elaborate costumes and although alcohol and nudity aren't technically allowed, it wasn't hard to find either along the race path.

We ended up having a blast. The weather was perfect and the crowd was lively. It was a pure San Francisco experience and although it was my first Bay to Breakers, it definitely won't be my last.

For more info:

Official website

Bay to Breakers wikipedia entry

Local Developer Solves Berkeley's Budget Deficit in One Fell Swoop

Andy Kaufman, East Bay Sales & Investments (Keller Williams Realty) — Tue, 15 May 2007 18:24:31 -0500

The city of Berkeley got a nice financial boost late last month when local developer Patrick Kennedy sold 7 of his mixed use apartment buildings in the city. Mayor Tom Bates said that the transfer tax will probably make up the entire $2 million budget deficit that the city was facing.

Kennedy has been known to purposely place his buildings near BART stations and major AC transit bus lines in order to reduce tenants' dependence on automobiles. He was also the first developer in Berkeley to incorporate hydraulic lifts in order to double the parking capacity in his buildings garages and the first to have open space on his buildings' rooftops. During the past 10 years, he has built more low-income units than anyone else in Berkeley

One would think that this would earn him points in a left-leaning city like Berkeley, but he has his share of critics who argue that his real motive for doing what he does is so that he can leverage height and zoning concessions in order game the system to his advantage.

Whether you agree with him or not, residents of Berkeley will be enjoying a balanced budget this year thanks to Mr. Kennedy.

My Team Was Internet Famous Once

Andy Kaufman, East Bay Sales & Investments (Keller Williams Realty) — Thu, 10 May 2007 19:33:20 -0500

My fellow team member Kale Inoue and I just got back from an appointment with potential clients Justin Kan and Amanda Huffman. While the showing didn't go as planned (the leasing agent didn't show and wouldn't answer her phone); what made the appointment special is that it was being streamed live on the internet on Justin.tv

You may have read my earlier post about Justin and his roommates getting evicted from their North Beach apartment. As soon as I heard, we got in touch with Justin and started working with them to find somewhere to move and where they could both live and run Justin.tv without any additional hassles.

While we didn't get to see the place, they did get a chance to check out the neighborhood and we hit up one of my favorite local burrito places, Papalote, before dropping them back at their place. We also got a chance to explore a few different options for them and now my team of expert property sleuths are on the case looking for leads.

Stay tuned as my (now semi-internet famous) team and I work to find the next home of Justin.tv

This Week in Life Hacks: 5 Links to Increase Your Performance

Andy Kaufman, East Bay Sales & Investments (Keller Williams Realty) — Wed, 09 May 2007 18:29:00 -0500

Welcome to the first in a series of Life Hack posts where I'll be posting links to the latest and greatest Life Hacks that I've recently come across.

In case you're unfamiliar with the term, Life Hacks refer to anything that increases productivity or solves an everyday problem in a clever or non-obvious way.

I love this stuff and would love to hear what the other ActiveRainers think.

The 4-Hour Workweek and Timothy Ferriss & Bonus: Tim Ferriss podcast from SXSW2007

Simple Productivity: 10 Ways to Do More by Focusing on the Essentials - lifehack.org

Dave Navarro - 3 Ways To Never Lose Sight Of Why You Rock

18 ways to improve your body language at Personal Development with The Positivity Blog

Do you make these 10 mistakes in a conversation? at Personal Development with The Positivity Blog

Here's to working smarter!

flickr photo credit Dean Terry.

You're Invited to the Berkeley Climate Action Kickoff

Andy Kaufman, East Bay Sales & Investments (Keller Williams Realty) — Tue, 08 May 2007 14:31:58 -0500

Hey Berkeley residents, you're invited to the Berkeley Measure G Climate Action Kick-Off being held this Saturday from 10am-12pm.

Last year, Berkeley residents issued a call to action on global warming by voting overwhelmingly in support of Measure G. Measure G sets an aggressive goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions in Berkeley by 80 percent by 2050 and directs the Mayor to develop a community-based climate action plan by year-end 2007.

All are welcome… it’s free, open to the public, and ADA accessible. At the event you'll hear concrete ideas and resources for reducing your emissions, take a pledge to do your part to meet our community’s emissions reduction goals, brainstorm ideas on how we can meet our Measure G greenhouse gas reduction targets, and take home free stuff like energy-efficient light bulbs and gift certificates!

When: Saturday May 12, 2007 10am-12pm (with a light lunch afterwards)

Where: The Ashby Stage, which is directly across the street from the Ashby BART station at Ashby and Martin Luther King. For directions, please visit: http://www.shotgunplayers.org/directions/directions.cfm

(You're encouraged you to ride your bike, walk or take public transportation to the event, if possible.)

For more info on Measure G, check out the official website.

As space is somewhat limited, please RSVP by emailing mayor@ci.berkeley.ca.us

flickr photo credit: Imran, used under a creative commons license.

Adopting Lead Generation Systems to Break Through My Ceiling

Andy Kaufman, East Bay Sales & Investments (Keller Williams Realty) — Mon, 07 May 2007 16:17:08 -0500

Real Estate is an amazing business, but I can always use more. I had a big a-ha moment last week when I attended a lead generation class led by Rick Geha and thought I'd share.

I've been attending Rick's classes since before I got my license in 2003 and I really enjoy his dynamic presentation style. We used to drive 45 minutes each way every just to attend his classes. In fact, I've probably been to his lead generation class 3 or 4 times before and I always come away with a couple good new pieces of information.

This time I was reminded of the amazingly simple concept that, "Your business is your database". It's so easy that I can't believe that I deviated so far away it.

I'm great at getting out there and meeting people. I'm a high I in the DISC profile and a connector and I love it. I go to real estate events, investment meetings, tech meet ups and have a large group of friends. I blog, I leave comments, I trade emails with all sorts of people. My weakness is with the follow up.

This is why the main message of Rick's class hit home to me.

1. Organize and feed your database.

2. Sort your prospects into mets & have not mets

3. Then communicate with them via the 33 touch, 8x8, and 12 direct systems outlined in the MREA book.

After the class, I decided that enough was enough and found an accountability partner and committed to entering all my contacts into one database by this Friday.

This past weekend, I collected information for everyone that I could find that I would want to put into my updated database. To my surprise, it wasn't so bad and I enjoyed finding business cards of people who I'd love to reconnect with. Now I'm in the middle of entering all the info that I collected into one centralized location and on track to hitting my goal.

You can download a copy of my notes from the class in case anyone is interested in taking a look.

flickr photo credit to carf, used under a creative commons license.

Time to Get Onboard the Twitter Train

Andy Kaufman, East Bay Sales & Investments (Keller Williams Realty) — Fri, 04 May 2007 17:40:29 -0500

"It seems like the conversation always turns to Twitter these days."

I was halfway through this post, when new Twitter friend Bryon Person twittered the above phrase and he's right on the money. Ever since the SXSW festival this past March, Twitter has been growing like wildfire among the early adopters and is now moving into the mainstream.

What is Twitter, you ask?

Quite simply, Twitter is a free micro-blogging and social networking service. With this service, users send "updates" (text-based posts, up to 140 characters long) via SMS, instant messaging, the Twitter website, or an application such as Twitterrific or Twitteroo. These updates are then displayed on the user's profile page and also instantly delivered to other users who have signed up to receive them.

Through Twitter, I can hang around the virtual water cooler where my group of friends and I, along various industry movers and shakers (and even Darth Vader) chime in, or "Tweet" throughout the day.

Before you dismiss it, I invite to you try it out. Like many new technologies, it's hard to grasp the utility without using it yourself.

I started by easing into it. At first I added a few close friends. Then I started checking their contacts to see if there were any other people that I wanted to follow. Over the past few months, I've let it grow organically to where I now have 61 friends and 51 followers and the conversation just flows.

It took a little while, but I've started to see the real estate digerati show up and start participating and I'd love to get a few more up and running.

Here's How to get started:

1. Go to Twitter & sign up for an account.

2. Go to my Twitter url (http://twitter.com/andykaufman)

3. Click add andykaufman

4. Congrats, you're now following your first person. Look at the icons in the right hand toolbar on my page. If you see anybody that you'd like to follow, click on their icon and add them as well.

5. Repeat steps 2-4 with: Jeff Turner, Paul Chaney, Joel Burslem, Pat Kitano, Steve Dalton, and Debbie Ferrari. That should get you started with a stream of incoming tweets.

6. Start sending out updates yourself. Now you're part of the conversation!

7. When you're up and running, leave a comment here with your thoughts along with you twitter URL.

I'm going to resist my urge to gush about the service and keep it simple for now. Expect a follow up post in the near future where I'll elaborate a bit more and offer some analysis, but I want to avoid the "drinking from the firehose" effect that tends to scare people away.

Links:

Twitter's Wikipedia Entry

Notes from Jack Hodgson and Bryan Person's recent presentation on Twitter

Sites that I've tagged with Twitter in Del.icio.us

I Dare You to Find a Better Deal on Postcards

Andy Kaufman, East Bay Sales & Investments (Keller Williams Realty) — Tue, 01 May 2007 18:39:29 -0500

I've found a deal that I need to share with the other direct mailers out there. I've been sending postcards to Alameda County foreclosures for the past few weeks and I've been using postcards from Clubflyers.com.

Since they are all the same design, I ordered 5,000 postcards printed on 14 POINT C2S Cardstock, 4/4 (Full Color Both Sides), and UV Coated. The cards are printed within 24 hours and shipped no later than 48 hours after the order has been placed. The service was great and they cards look awesome.

Now the best part. Guess how much I paid for the 5,000 cards?

$225! Yep, after all the fees & costs of shipping, it came out to a grand total of $225. That works out to 4.5 cents a card.

Can anybody beat that?

WordCamp 2007 is Coming Up in July

Andy Kaufman, East Bay Sales & Investments (Keller Williams Realty) — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 19:55:02 -0500

Hey WordPress fanatics, the second annual WordPress community gathering, WordCamp 2007 is scheduled for July 21-23 in San Francisco's Swedish American Hall.

Thanks to Dustin Luther, who gave me the heads up, I had the chance to attend last year's gathering where we were treated to a "State of the Word" address by founding developer Matt Mullenweg before breaking into different sessions. I sat in as Neil Patel of ProNet advertising lead a session on Wordpress & SEO and then checked out Tantek Celik's session on microformats. It ended up being a great experience and I made some great connections within the WordPress community.

It looks like all the details aren't formalized yet, but I saw it on upcoming and plan on going again this year if I'm in town. If any ActiveRainers think they're going to make it, let me know and let's try to arrange a meetup.

flickr photo credit Craig Cook. Used under a creative commons license.

Will Justin.tv Get Evicted 2.0?

Andy Kaufman, East Bay Sales & Investments (Keller Williams Realty) — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 15:36:16 -0500

Justin Kan, the man behind Justin.tv is in danger of being evicted from his San Francisco apartment.

In case you're unfamiliar with what he's doing, Justin is wearing a camera and broadcasting his life 24/7. He wears it EVERYWHERE, even in the bathroom, even on a date.

Why are they getting evicted? They claim that they have no clue. In San Francisco, rent controlled tenants (most tenants) can only be evicted for certain "just causes."

Is there just cause to evict Justin and his roommates? We'll have to tune in and see. Maybe someone from our team will make an appearance since we've reached out to him to offer our assistance.

BTW, how did I find out about his predicament you asked? I saw it on Twitter.

flickr photo credit Scott Beale (Laughing Squid)

UPDATE: We got in touch with Justin and we're working with him to find his next place. Anybody have any nice 5-6 bedroom rentals in the Marina, Cow Hollow, North Beach or Russian Hill that they need to fill?

Help Me Grow From Zero to Hero on my Blackberry (Live Post)

Andy Kaufman, East Bay Sales & Investments (Keller Williams Realty) — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 16:32:27 -0500

Alright, i've got a confession. I've had a Blackberry for almost a year now and the only reason I use it is for talking and sending SMS messages. It's pretty absurd when I think about it. I KNOW that I'm not even scratching the surface of the capabilities of this thing and was hoping that I could get a few tips from the community to help me grow into a crackberry ninja.

I had the email set up at one time, but it just got to be too much. I'm guessing that turning the email on, but filtering the incoming amount is probably the best option.

I have a feeling that I'm not alone, so I'm going to treat this as a live post and I'm going to continue to add to it in hopes of compiling a resource for others who are under-utilizing their powerful and expensive mobile devices.

So ActiveRainers, who wants to share a blackberry tip or two?

flickr photocredit: Laughing Squid. Used under a creative commons license.

Great Video Alert: Explaing RSS in Plain English

Andy Kaufman, East Bay Sales & Investments (Keller Williams Realty) — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 13:47:10 -0500

Maybe you can tell from my last post, but I'm a social media and technology nut.

The moment that I was introduced to RSS a few years ago I knew that the way that I used the internet had been changed forever.

In case you're not familiar with RSS, it's a web format which allows creators to self-publish their updated digital content.

Instead of visiting each individual site to seek out new content; through the magic of RSS, new content was being pushed to my computer. When I opened my aggregator, I had instant access to fresh content from hundreds of sites all in one place.

I was quickly sold on it's utility and tried to spread the word to anyone who would listen. I quickly found out that a majority of the people either didn't care or were set in their ways and didn't want to change their habits.

There were a few people however that were willing to listen. Explaining it to them in plain, non-geek English proved to be a challenge. That's why I get excited when people create things like this short video which I think explains the whole concept in simple terms. It's great for the people who could save time using RSS, but don't know where to start.

I hope you enjoy it and pass it along to those who might find use for it.

<Update 4.25 12:12pst> Looks like the link below to the flash video isn't working. For the time being, you can see the video over on blip.tv & I'll working on fixing the link in the near future.

Click To Play

If you are currently using RSS, I'm curious of what other ActiveRainers are using for an aggregator. I was a hardcore bloglines user for a while, but recently I've found myself migrating over to google reader. What about you?

Where do you Fit on the Participation Ladder?

Andy Kaufman, East Bay Sales & Investments (Keller Williams Realty) — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 20:53:21 -0500

Talk about crazy timing. Minutes after I decided to start participating in ActiveRain and went ahead and published my first post, I came across Steve Rubel's latest post on the participation ladder and thought I'd share.

In case you aren't already familiar, Steve is a senior VP with Edelman and his blog Micro Persuasion is a great read if you're interested in technology and it's effect on marketing and PR. (He's also a prolific Twitterer, but more on that later)

In his post, he offers his thoughts on a recent report by Charlene Li of Forrester which examines online audiences and divides them into different stratas which are depicted in the illustration below.

I'm extremely curious to see where the other ActiveRainers fit into the ladder. Now that I'm back to blogging, I fit into every strata except for the inactives. How about you?

Getting Active on ActiveRain

Andy Kaufman, East Bay Sales & Investments (Keller Williams Realty) — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 18:47:11 -0500

Slowly but surely, ActiveRain has been sucking me in.

Since I live in the Bay Area and I'm actively involved in the tech scene around here, I end up signing up for every promising new service that comes around. Most of those accounts get abandoned after a visit or two, but there are a few that I end up sticking with.

I've had my ActiveRain account for a few months now. To be honest, for the first couple of months, it was just another service that I tried out and abandoned. I'd pop in every now and then and read a cool blog post of two, but for some reason it never clicked. But I must admit that recently I've seen the light and I've come to appreciate the value this site offers to those who participate and I want in.

Therefore I've set a goal for myself, and that is to contribute to this site for the next thirty days. Whether it's creating a new blog post, providing an insightful comment, or contributing to localism; I'm going to create, participate and look forward to seeing where this effort will lead me.