It's always Raining.........'ActiveRain'

If it was anyone else but Teresa.......

Bob Stewart - ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 18:53:26 -0600

.......I probably wouldn't do it. But I don't want to run into her in a dark bar in New York during Real Estate Connect and have to explain why I ignored her meme. If you've never seen Teresa in a dark bar in NY, lucky you........haha.

She also asked that we immediately ban all future meme's from ActiveRain. I am seriously considering it (again, the whole dark bar and running into Teresa thing again).

So the rules of this meme:

Grab the nearest book
Open the book to page 56
Find the fifth sentence
Post the text of the next two to five sentences
Dont dig for your favorite book, the cool book or the intellectual one. Pick the Closest.
Tag five people to do the same

**The one book that this can not be is the Bible**

I have been flying more than normal lately. Jon always gives us books to read. If Seth Godin has a new book out, you can be assured it will show up on my desk from the book fairy with a request that I read it. So the combo of lots of flying and book reading assignments make for a great pair. So when I got this email from Teresa saying I was tagged, I leaned over and opened the zipper on my bag and out pops a little Seth Godin book, Tribes.

There is another (WOW, I have no idea how I was going to finish that sentence. I just got off a 30 minute phone call with a person that we suspended for copyright violation. I don't know how many times I have to say the same thing over and over to get the message through. I must have tried to say the same thing ten different ways. I am seriously patting myself on the back for keeping my cool......very frustrating.)

Let me start over........

There is another book in my bag, but it was buried a little deeper, so Tribes was the first one I saw. I normally read historical fiction books for relaxing and 'The Alexandria Link' by Steve Berry was just underneath. Great book but like about ten other books on my shelf right now, I haven't actually finished it. Two hour plane rides never allow me to finish the whole book and I always forget them on the next trip. The airport book store LOVES ME! Ok so Page 56 then......fifth sentence......Tribes:

"First, they're not going to do the local leadership required when tribe members interact. They're going to be so busy following the playbook that they'll hesitate about engaging in the interactions that make a tight tribe such a vibrant organization. People don't engage merely to remind on another of the status quo. Instead they eagerly engage when they want something to improve. This microleadership is essential to the health of your organization."

So there you have it. I am 99.999999999% (maybe even higher) sure that Seth Godin would not try to come after me if I posted a picture of the cover of his book, (in fact, he would probably welcome it) but with all the crap I am dealing with around copyright and trademark violations, I am just not going to post a picture, short of Seth himself stopping by and saying it's ok. (Believe it or not, my blog was recently audited by a member who I was dealing with regarding copyright violations and she went through EVERY post I have ever written to make sure my blog didn't have copyrighted or trademarked images........I had to erase one post that was questionable.)

In the spirit of outlawing meme's on ActiveRain, I am not going to tag anyone further. Is that a fair enough trade-off Teresa?

Growth Leader Marketing Program - Anyone want to play?

Bob Stewart - ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 03:15:09 -0600

(This one is long, but you may be glad you read the whole thing)

Over the next couple of months, I will be embarking on a project here at ActiveRain. Some of my time will be spent helping introduce our network, and the real estate industry to a new product. When Jon first approached me about doing this, my first response was...."I am not going to push a product on our members that sucks" (I'm pretty forward with Jon, I may have used a more choice word than "sucks"). Jon also reminded me that I'm not pushing it, I'm simply putting it in our members hands and asking for open and honest feedback.

I've been through Growth Leader and ladies and Gentlemen, it doesn't suck. In fact, just the opposite. It's very powerful.

So what is Growth Leader? (Here's the official version, I'll give you my version in the next paragraphs)

Growth Leader enables real estate agents seeking a competitive edge to generate a steady stream of prospects, and provides them with a powerful contact management solution that helps convert these prospects into clients.

Integrated response-generating website that is search engine optimized with direct MLS integration.
Powerful combination of TV, search engine & other real estate advertising to help you attract prospects looking for homes and real estate info in your area.
Industry leading contact management solution with lead notification, automated follow-up, email, mobile access.
Prospect monitoring tools that allow you to know what your prospects are thinking every step of the process, showing which ones are most active: how often they visit and which properties, prices and neighborhoods they're interested in.

Sounds like the next best thing since sliced bread, right? Well as Brian Brady would say, there is no 'magic purple pill', but Growth Leader is a powerful way to generate prospects and convert them to clients, and that folks, is the name of the game.

Growth leader has two parts. The first part is the integrated website and contact management solution called Vision. The second part is an advertising component that drives traffic to your site. Depending on your market, the cost of driving traffic will vary, but the traffic is exclusive to you and you control how much traffic you want your site to get.

Vision is powerful. The corporate speak above is not B.S.. The back-end monitoring of your prospect's and client's behavior gives you great insight into where they are at in the process. Every agent should have something like this on the back end of their home search site.

OK, enough about the product for right now, just believe me that it's great.......why would you believe me? Because Market Leader is going to let selected members demo the product in exchange for their feedback on the product.

This is where I come in. I'll be selecting and working with many of our members over the next 6 months and engaging them to use the product, give feedback, help develop best practices and CLOSE TRANSACTIONS (remember folks, that's the name of the game).

We have started the project and are in the beginning stages. Some members are up and running and some are in the provisioning stage getting ready to start. I want to get this product in the hands of members who will use it and implement it in their business plan, this will be the first criteria when selecting participants. I also want it in the hands of people who are going to write about it so that the word spreads. In order to achieve this, I will be selecting members that have consistently blogged on our network for an extended period of time. Since we are asking participants to write about the product once a week, I need to know that the members testing it are dedicated bloggers. A third component will be how many subscribers a member has. If all you do is blog about your listings and no one ever reads, sorry, but that isn't going to help spread the word.

Right now it's available in about 25 markets. There will be more coming and when they launch, I'll update this post. If you are interested in participating, please see if your market is below and leave a comment or respond to me directly via email (bob at activerain dot com). I will apologize in advance, because not everyone will be able to participate. If you are selected, I will send you additional information about what you will agree to do for me in order to get your hands on this great product for free for a few months.

Markets:

Miami, FL - Southeast FL Regional MLS and Miami-Dade
Phoenix, AZ - ARMLS
Tallahassee, FL - Tallahassee Area MLS
Atlanta, GA - Georgia MLS
Boston, MA - MLS PIN (aka Bay State MLS)
Houston, TX - Houston Assoc. of Realtors
Portland, OR - RMLS
San Diego, CA - Sandicor MLS
Tampa, FL - Mid-Florida Regional
Dallas, TX - North Texas R.E. Info Sys
Jacksonville, FL - NE Florida MLS
Orlando, FL - Mid-Florida Regional MLS
Washington, DC - MRIS
Austin, TX - ACTRIS - Austin BOR
Fort Meyers, FL - Punta Gorda MLS (Now Mid-Florida MLS)
Los Angeles, CA - Southern California MLS and Multi-Regional MLS
Seattle, WA - NWMLS
West Palm Beach, FL - RMLS Florida Regional
Baltimore, MD - MRIS
Chicago, IL - Midwest Real Estate Data

Please note that just because your specific city doesn't show up, doesn't mean you wouldn't be able to participate. If your MLS is represented, there's a pretty good chance you will be able to participate. Also, if your market is there, but you use a different MLS, contact me directly as there are some additional MLS's coming on board.

Make sure to check the box to receive updates if you comment as I will update the markets on this post as they come online and you will be notified that I have updated the post.

(this button below will direct you to a Market Leader Account Rep, not raise your hand to show interest in our marketing program)

ActiveRain Gathering in Orlando for NAR, November 8th @ 8pm

Bob Stewart - ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 22:33:56 -0600

Katerina first brought this up to me way back in January. She (and many others, but she was first) offered to help coordinate things so that it was certain we would have the opportunity to have an ActiveRain party gathering. In typical fashion, Jon and I dragged our feet on getting everything set up. Katerina was relentless (bless her heart) in making sure we got everything in order. She succeeded!!

Katerina first let the cat out of the bag in her blog on Oct. 23rd. Only she didn't let the whole cat out.......

We will be hosting an ActiveRain gathering. The gathering will be this Saturday, November 8th from 8pm-12am. Where you ask? We'll that's the tail of the cat still stuck in the bag.

In true social media fashion, you are going to have to tune in and catch the word the day of the party. On Saturday morning we will start spreading word of the location across the internet. We'll certainly use ActiveRain (most likely in the form of a comment here and on Katerina's post). We will also be using Twitter and Facebook.

(Brad Andersohn is our resident expert on Social Media. He belongs to more sites then just about anyone I know. The list of places Brad will be dropping the word will probably be longer than I would EVER care to type)

So if you will be in Orlando attending the NAR convention and you would like to come join us for the ActiveRain party gathering, make sure you get yourself hooked in somehow (at the very least, find a friend who knows how to hook in and get the word from them). I have attended a number of these parties gatherings and they are a BLAST! The thing that always amazes me about them is how it feels like a party gathering with a bunch of old friends. I never cease to be amazed when it's hugs not handshakes that are being exchanged by our members. It's a true testament to the power of ActiveRain in creating real-life, meaningful friendships.

Plane Ticket to Orlando: $500
Hotel Room for three nights: $276
Bar tab: (sorry, I can't disclose this number)
Getting to meet the people inside your computer: Priceless!!

You can find us on Twitter:

Bob Stewart is @activebob
Rich Jacobson is @activerich,
Brad Andersohn is @bradandersohn,
Jon Washburn is @jonwashburn
Jeff Corbett is @jeffx.
Katerina's is @CoachKaterina.

I don't know how you find us on Facebook but people are finding me every day and I'll bet you are just as capable as they are. Search our name and ActiveRain would be my best guess.

We have room for about 400 people and if we exceed that number.......well then it's going to be one rocking party gathering. We are really looking forward to meeting so many of you and getting the chance to reconnect with others. oh yeah.......one last thing. We are going to be there on Thursday night. On Friday and Saturday our team is going to be out and about in the convention center.......and we'll be packing ActiveRain T-shirts to give away. Make sure you figure out how to find us so you can get that free shirt, it'll serve (hint hint) you well at the Party!

ActiveRain New Hire - Welcome Harlen 'The Copyright Crusader'

Bob Stewart - ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 15:35:14 -0500

Our network is being plagued by cut and paste content! So today we hired a new team member. Let me introduce you to Harlen 'The Copyright Crusader'.

We are a community of PROFESSIONALS! 99% of you understand that. Harlen has been brought on to ensure that the 1% who are bringing the rest of us down are dealt with. He has assured us that his relentless pursuit of justice for the holders of copyright protection will be unmatched. He has guaranteed to crush copyright infringement in 30 days or we don't have to pay him (can't beat that). How you might ask? well............

Every time you submit a post on Activerain you see this:

Some of you choose to ignore it. Some of you think that since you have gotten away with it before, you will continue to get away with it. You will not. Today, on his first day on the job, Harlen suspended the accounts of four members who had previously been warned about this type of behavior. One member had over 150,000 points. That's a lot of time wasted copying content and trying to pass it off as your own. Please, Harlen implores you, do not be the next person this happens to. He will be hunting content to the far and wide reaches of the network and running that content in Google to find the original author.

If you see someone copying content, leave a link to this post in their comment section. Warn them about Harlen and his 'Copyright Crusade'. Because if Harlen sees it before it's pulled down, the first offense will be a two week suspension. No questions asked. (Harlen thinks this is really lenient. Read that image above again.......it says "Posting copyrighted material without permission WILL result in being removed from ActiveRain")

The second time will be a ban from the network. Harlen has guaranteed this garbage will STOP!!! Plagiarism is polluting a network that thousands of people have poured their heart and soul in to making stellar. Harlen promises you that plagiarizers will no longer leave their mark on ActiveRain.

We have something very special here at ActiveRain. Your participation here is not a right, it is a privilege. By abusing that priviledge you are making yourself, and more importantly, the rest of ActiveRain look very unprofessional. Our community guidelines say: ActiveRain is a place where real estate professionals can network with their peers and discuss industry insider topics. It is also a public forum where consumers can pull back the curtain and see what the real estate industry is really about.

Do we really want consumers pulling back that curtain and seeing plagiarism, stealing and dishonest gaming? Harlen does not!!! Harlen believes that we all learned about plagiarism in elementary school. He remembers his fifth grade teacher Mrs. Robinson sending him to the principals office when he copied a passage from Marcus Valerius Martial without citing it:

"Why, simpleton, do you mix your verses with mine? What have you to do, foolish man, with writings that convict you of theft? Why do you attempt to associate foxes with lions, and make owls pass for eagles? Though you had one of Ladas's legs, you would not be able, blockhead, to run with the other leg of wood." - Marcus Valerius Martial

Here is a great resource for what you can and can't do: The wise advice of Lenn Harley

(This is not a joke, even though it is kind of funny)

Listing Router 'Whiteboard Explanation'

Bob Stewart - ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 00:55:51 -0500

Kelan and I take you through the new ActiveRain Listing Router. Watch as I explain how we are going to increase your business and get the traffic looking in your market to your website.

IMPORTANT NOTE

The "Listing Router" will ONLY show up on your pages when LOGGED OUT of ActiveRain.

Update

In response to well-founded member concerns about people 'kicking the tires', testing Listing Router to insure that their campaigns are working correctly and being charged for such:

We've decided to make Listing Router FREE for the first two weeks (until November 11th 2008)

Anyone who has set-up a campaign and has been charged for clicks to be routed to their IDX sites will have their accounts credited back.

You will still receive credits for referring traffic out of your individual markets.

What this means is that there is virtually no risk involved in setting up your Listing Router Campaigns. So everyone go ahead and set-up your campaigns, kick the tires and otherwise have at it!!

How To Setup Your Own Click Campaign

Listing Router How To Opt Out

Official ActiveRain Contest: Leave your mark on ActiveRain - About Us

Bob Stewart - ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 14:17:15 -0500

We have some talented writers here on the staff of ActiveRain (present company excluded). Between the staff, you'd think we would be able to come up with a succinct 'About us' description; something that really nails the essence of the community. Alas, after hundreds of drafts, thousands of red pen marks and way too many hours spent trying to nail the perfect 'About us', we have decided to solicit your help.

At the bottom of every page on ActiveRain is the 'about' link. The introduction on that page gives everyone who ever wanted to learn about our community their first introduction to who we are. You can imagine why it's so hard to nail it. What ActiveRain is about to you may not be the same as the person with whom you are battling for first in your city. In fact, ask twenty different people and you are likely to get 20 different answers.

We need you to help us write the 'about us' language for ActiveRain.

You can find the current 'about us' piece here at the top of that page.

The winning selection will agree to let ActiveRain have the rights to the submission and we will use it not only on the about page, but in lots of stuff we do in the future.

The winning selection also gets:

5000 ActiveRain points
Two ActiveRain T-shirts
A Localism Jacket
Our love and adoration
A free yearlong sponsorship of a community on Localism
A free pass to kick off anyone else on ActiveRain that you choose (OK, this one is a joke.......but too good to resist)

A few things to consider:

All entries must be submitted by Wednesday October 8th at 11:59pm Pacific Time.
We are looking for something between 150-200 words (2 paragraphs). The more succinct the better.
All entries become the property of ActiveRain (I'm not a lawyer, but the idea is we want the right to use the stuff you write)
Entries should be sent to bob at the name of this website or through the contact link on my ActiveRain profile page

Please welcome Jeff Corbett, The X Broker, to the ActiveRain Team

Bob Stewart - ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 16:33:09 -0500

Last week we added Jeff Corbett, known to many of you as 'The X Broker', to the team here at ActiveRain. We are very excited that Jeff accepted our offer to come on board and take over the the Business Development and Operations duties here at ActiveRain.

For those of you not familiar with Jeff, you can read about him and some of his thought provoking opinions on his personal blog, thexbroker.com. Jeff has years of industry knowledge under his belt having previously run his own home building company, mortgage brokerage and real estate brokerage. Most recently Jeff developed a transparent wholesale mortgage rate and pricing engine (there's no short and quick way to explain something that brings this much transparency to an industry that needs it). The most recent project brought him face to face with most of the real estate technology leaders that are shaping the future of technology in this space.

Those of us here at ActiveRain have had the pleasure of getting to know Jeff over the last few years and Jon felt like he was a great fit for our team. In addition to liking Jeff personally, he brings a diverse skill set that compliments our current team as well as fills in some gaps.

On a personal level, all the guys (and Claire) here at ActiveRain get along really well. We hang out together outside of work and we genuinely like each other. Keeping that continuity in tact was important...........the fact him and Jon sport similar hairdos didn't hurt either.

(........I have choosen to forgive Jeff for being a Buffalo Bills fan only because he grew up in Buffalo. We have agreed that he will not mention the shellacking his Bills gave my Seahawks as everyone knows our top four receivers were out and if we got them at full strength we would destroy them)

So stop by Jeff's post and welcome him officially to the ActiveRain staff.

ActiveRain: Using 'no index' tags to drive more traffic

Bob Stewart - ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 15:45:14 -0500

We recently made a change in the architecture of our site. I'm sure you have seen the new channels feature. If not, you can read about it here. In doing so, we also made some decisions about the site structure in order to get better search engine results for the fantastic content you are writing. One thing that we did, that has had a few of our members asking questions, is add 'no follow' tags to the tag links. We have also added 'no index' tags to the tag pages.

Why the heck would we hide the tag pages from the search engines you might ask? To drive more traffic and create a better user experience.

We have a lot of content on the site. We are constantly trying to find new ways to get your content to rank higher in the search engines. With the advent of Channels and topics, we now have a more direct structure for search engine spiders to find and index your content. Internal site link structure is an important component of search engine optimization. The more focused you can make the internal link structure of the site, the easier it is for the search engines to index content.

Prior to channels and topics, tags were a way that similar content was housed. Our tag pages stunk in the search engine results. There is no other way to put it, they just plain stunk. We have some tag pages that house hundreds of articles about a particular topic and yet never returned search engine results or traffic to the site. In recent tests of certain search terms, your particular blog post on a topic or just your blog page will return results in every instance and the tag pages for the exact terms you were tagging with do not show.

Our tag pages appeared to google and other search engines as search results or a directory of results. Google doesn't like pages that act in this manner. If you were to look at a tag page, you will see that the content is truncated and only snippets of the content are displayed.

The new topic pages act much more like a living blog with fresh, fully displayed content about a particular topic. The structure of the channel and topic pages make a much more fluid path to you content, allowing search engine bots to access and index your content easier. It is our belief that the long tail results for these topics page will far outweigh the traffic driven by the tag pages (which won't be tough, since the tag pages stunk, remember)

At the same time, leaving the existing tag structure in place to be indexed points the search engines in too many directions. We want to focus the traffic and the results to one area; an area that is better able to be indexed.

The tags still serve a purpose for the readers of your blogs. They organize content on your blog in an easy to find format. If you have ten blog posts about the home buying process, you still want all ten of those posts tagged with 'home buying' so that consumers who find your blog will be able to access similar content you have written on subjects.

There is a TON of information out there about search engine optimization. Everyone has an opinion of what works and what doesn't work. This is our opinion. If you don't like it, feel free to leave your comment here.......or better yet, get the heck off my blog, go build your own site and give it your best shot to get the kind of results we are getting for 111,000 people , many of whom don't know SEO from SEC. (That was a joke.......kind of........if you've read this far, my editor (Jon) felt you deserved a joke......and he might have suggested heck over a different word).

Here is a video that talks about 'content categorization for SEO' from the brains behind SEOmoz. If I haven't put you to sleep yet, then Rand does a better job of explaining on the whiteboard some of the thinking behind this concept.

Why I miss TLW!!

Bob Stewart - ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 00:00:53 -0500

As some of you may or may not know, our very own "The Lovely Wife" has been a bit under the weather lately and has been taking a break from the Rain. I have to admit I miss her. I miss her encouraging level headed approach to ActiveRain. Billie is symbolic of what makes ActiveRain great in my never humble opinion.

Many of you may miss her crazy, all-out sense of humor. The sense of humor that thinks it's funny to nail low ball offers to a tree and shoot at them with a shotgun. Some of you may miss her signature ROAR (can I even use this without reprecussions?) that accentuates every well thought out point she makes. Some of you may miss her Crap-o-rama blog posts. Some of you may miss her 'there's a booger hanging from your nose, haha made you look' wisdom. I miss all of those things...........

.......but I really miss is having her steady influence on me as I help guide this mighty ship, the USS AcitveRain. You see, Billie has always been willing to reach out when she could sense that things were getting stressful for me and offer her support and a caring word. I'm sure I have said thank you to her on the many phone conversations and emails that we have shared (I was raised by my mother and have pretty decent manners, no matter what Brad and Rich will tell you) but I want her to know how much it really meant and means to me.

I know I am not the only one that TLW has reached out to in the Rain.

I don't know if it was divine intervention, but I was the first person ever to comment on a post written by TLW. This was long before I was ever on board full time with ActiveRain. I was just like you, a member (who happened to share an office with the founders, but a member nonetheless). Neither of us knew that almost a year later I would be in a position to have an impact on this great community. She wanted to know how she could overcome her addiction to ActiveRain. Haha, her first post was about being addicted. I think she liked my answer because we have had a great relationship ever since.

I don't know if she agrees with everything I say or do, but she always supports the decisions we make because she knows that we truly have the best interests of the members and the community in mind. She knows this because she has gone out of her way to reach out to me when things are rough and even if I didn't take her up on the offer every time she did it, I always know that I have a friend in the rain that I can trust to talk with if I need advice.

This post was inspired by Jeanean Gendron's post. Jeanean had a great idea and we are going to make it a reality. I know that I don't have to bride you with points, but since TLW was always making smart ass remarks about getting her 25 points for commenting, your TLW love fest post is going to get you a whopping 25 points...........because I know she'd be pissed if I gave you more. So get your butt over to Jeanean's post and see what it's all about and let's lift the spirits of a lady who has meant so much to this community............or I'll sick Blogging Bertha on your ass!!

(I was going to hijack a photo of TLW but I just couldn't bring myself to do it......after watching her work that shotgun again, my palms were sweating as I hit the right click button)

PLEASE READ BEFORE YOU COMMENT: This post is not intended for you to leave a canned comment on. This lady really means a lot to me so if you plan on leaving a comment and it's going to be canned crap, just don't.......I will erase it. If you don't know TLW, go read some of her posts because you are missing out big time!

9-11-2001

Bob Stewart - ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 16:07:37 -0500

I've seen some very poignant and heartfelt posts today about 9/11. This is one I wrote 2 years ago before I came on full time with ActiveRain. Reading it today made me remember what I felt like that day. Don't ever forget what you felt like.

Via Brio Realty:

This may end up being a little long, but I'm writing this for me.......not necessarily for you.......I have never really went back and tried to recall how I felt that day. I don't know that I ever wanted to recall it. I have avoided the TV today. But alas the ActiveRain community has shared some of their personal experiences from that day and it has persuaded me to write about it, with a last push from Jonathan.

relatively fresh out of college I had taken my first "real" job with a store planning firm. We did remodels for big box retail stores. On this particular morning our crew of 20 was finishing up a reset in a Lowes Hardware store. We worked nights doing these resets as not to disturb the paying customers. I did this sort of thing during the summer all through college and landed the job rather easily upon graduation. Of course, any job at that point is welcome but working nights has it's toll. It must have been about 5:30am Pacific Time when the first of the daytime Lowes employees started to roll into the store. I was at the front submitting my reports to the Lowes corporate office back in North Wilksboro North Carolina. I would normally fax in the reports then follow up with a phone call. I can remember the face of the employee who was the first one to walk through the door that morning. He looked like a ghost. He had been at home 5 minutes before that watching the news of the first plane that had hit. As not to be late for work he hurried to the store while listening to the radio. Just like most of us, his first impression was that a small plane had hit one of the Trade Towers. I remember him saying "those towers can take anything, remember back when they tried to set the bomb off inside?" The look on his face though belied what he must have been feeling.

At this point it seemed like a relatively minor situation, a case of bad piloting, possibly some lunatic trying to end their own life. Little did I know that it was something so much more sinister. Regardless, since I was in charge of the group doing the remodel, I hastily gathered everyone up and we did the quickest morning clean up we had ever done. And we headed back to our hotel.

Upon getting to the hotel I immediately headed for my room. I skipped the normal morning dinner (or whatever you call the last thing you eat before going to bed when you work nights, I never quite figured that out). Doing a remodel on a store that has been around for ten years, you can imagine the kind of dirt and grime that accumulates on, behind, and under just about everything. Every morning coming home I would be filthy. The first thing I would need is a shower, not this morning. I needed to know what was happening.

This was the first moment that I caught a glimpse of the actual Towers. By the time I had arrived at the hotel, the second plane was moments from hitting. I turned on the TV and listened as the anchor was relaying eyewitness accounts of the first plane hitting. It was in fact a commercial airliner. I remember wrestling with the thoughts of if it was a terrorist act. At this point, the grime got the best of me, I had to wash my hands.......as I made my way to the sink and turned the water on the second plane hit. I didn't see it, I can vaguely recall the newsman on the TV saying something to the effect of "oh my god" as I stood at the sink. I didn't want to look around the corner at the TV again. What could have happened that this newsman would say that after what had already happened?

I was now glued to the TV. When something happens in my life that would normally illicit tears, my dike doesn't break until I talk. My eyes well up and my throat gets the worst lump in it (just like the one I have right now). At this point, it was now all too clear that our great country was the target of an attack. An attack on our own soil that no one alive had seen. This was not the Japanese attacking a military installation. These were terrorists attacking innocent Americans. Why? Who would do this? I have the images of the smoke billowing from both towers burned in my memory. I must have flipped through every channel ten times trying to get the most up to date information. No one had it, no one knew what was going on. There were reports coming in from everywhere.

My mind was so full of thoughts. I remember thinking about the people stranded in the towers above the explosion. As the news gave details of what floors appeared to have been hit, my mind calculated how many stories were above that, how many people were on each of those floors. I was on the math team in high school, it didn't matter, my mind would not, could not add the numbers up. One of the stations showed pictures of people jumping from the floors above. I could not fathom this, yet what other options did they have? Still no tears. That lump in my throat bigger than I have ever felt it.

The next thing I remember is that first tower coming down. There were no words for it. Aaron Brown was the anchor on CNN I believe. I remember him from his days on KIRO TV in Seattle. How can someone prepare to televise to the world something this horrific? One can not. As the consumate professional though, he reported it as he saw it. I can't recall a word he said as that tower came down, not one. I don't know that he said a word. What was there to say? We were watching on live TV the most horrific event ever to be televised. Words had no place. They say a picture can say a thousand words.......yet there were none to be spoken.

I've read it from almost everyone else.......it felt surreal. This can not be happening. There was no way to rationalize it. A sane person could not comprehend what they were seeing. There was absolutely no way. To this day I can not comprehend what these terrorists did. I will never be able to comprehend it. How could 16 terrorists take away the safety felt by hundreds of millions? Part of being an American was feeling safe from the kind of extremists that perpetrated this act. Not any longer. They took that away from me. I can remember sitting there thinking this as reports continued to rush in about the state department, the Pentagon, the White House, the Capital building. I imagine for a moment I was looking at this as a "what if". What if this happened, how would I feel.

It felt like almost immediately I turned my thoughts to my family, my girlfriend. It wasn't almost immediately. I sat on that bed playing the "what if" scenarios through my head for an hour. Only it wasn't "what if", it was "what now?"

Now I am from Washington State. Not the most obvious place for a terrorist attack, but in some ways a symbol for the thriving international trade that takes place from our Seattle Tacoma seaports everyday. They wouldn't dare. Would they? As I watched what was unfolding before my eyes, it now appeared they would. How many of these planes were unaccounted for. At one point there were quite a few. 15 planes unaccounted for, 12 planes, 10 planes..........None of my family works in an area that would be an obvious target, but my girlfriend worked in a building right next to the Columbia tower. The Columbia Tower is the tallest building west of the Sears Tower. If they were striking at symbols of our thriving economy surely this would be a target on the west coast. Now at this time I still hadn't talked to anyone. Not a tear shed. I didn't know if I could speak, my throat felt like I had a basketball lodged in it.

"Brenda, are you ok?" I asked as my girlfriend answered. "what are you talking about, you just woke me up, what's the matter?"

I had lost it. I couldn't tell her what was the matter. I didn't know what was the matter. I still hadn't pieced together that nearly 3000 people had lost their lives. I sat there on the phone sobbing as she continued to ask me what was the matter. "Turn on the TV", I said. We sat on the phone for 5 minutes without either of us saying a word. Now she knew what was the matter. My girlfriend was never one for holding back a tear. She would cry if her soup was cold at the deli. But even she couldn't shed a tear over what she was seeing. Not yet anyways. "This is surreal" she would say. "But it's not, baby, it's real and it's happening right now in America". She couldn't fathom what she was seeing. Even when I got off the phone with her, I just sat in my room crying. Greater thinkers than I have written about why tragedies affect us when we are not directly touched, and now a whole new generation of Americans would understand. Not many of us can explain it, but we understand.

I didn't personally know anyone that lost their life that day. I have many friends who knew someone. One of my dear friends lost her uncle that day. But I did lose something that day very personal to me as an American. I lost my sense of safety. I would get it back in the days and months and years to come, but for some the return has not been as swift.

I have flown all over the world and to this day, not once do I complain or gripe when I have to take my shoes off in line at the airport. Not once have I complained when they pull me aside and check my luggage by hand. Not once did I question why they wouldn't let me take my nail clippers on board (ok, maybe once on that one). I understand why. In Asia back in 1999 they would search your bags by hand for everything that you carried on the plane. Men with machine guns would do the searching, I now understund why, but I still don't understand how hate could fester in someone so deeply that they could convince others to do this sort of thing as an answer to what they see wrong in the world.

Since that day, this is the first time I have looked back thinking of myself. It seemed so meaningless, who cares what I was doing when this happened when there were thousands of Americans grieving over the most unimaginable end to so many promising lives. I don't know that I will ever look back again on how I felt that day, but everyday I think about how America has changed. It has, I have to. Thanks ActiveRain for allowing me a forum to recall how I felt that day and God bless America and everyone that came to her defense that day and every day since then.

Bob

Did he really mean that? Or did I jump to the wrong conclusion?

Bob Stewart - ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 15:02:54 -0500

We get a couple thousand posts a day on ActiveRain. You leave tens of thousands of comments every day on each other's posts. It shouldn't shock anyone that every once in a while a comment might be left that could be interpreted in a way other that what the author of the comment meant. I want to share with you a recent comment left by a member that was interpreted very wrong and the potential implications of how it was interpreted.

The comment was left on a post talking about Senator Obama and his choice of running mates this past week. The comment said:

"Seriously, thanks for the welcome... this is very interesting, especially for a guy whose knuckes still scrape when he walks."

Taken out of context it could be thought that the commenter was making a racial slur. A number of members contacted us and suggested as much and said that they were offended. When I first went to review the comment, I immediately thought something different. You see, after doing this job for a while, you start to realize you have to look at things from more than one angle.

So I thought to myself......"self, why did he says 'thanks for the welcome'?" The post wasn't a post welcoming him to AR. And the person who posted the blog had not commented to him directly. Was the commenter new and the person whose post he was commenting on had maybe welcomed him on a different post? I also thought "self, could his knuckles comment mean something else?" Is it possible that he meant that he was technically challenged and was in fact referencing himself with some self depricating humor. Did he mean that he was akin to a Neadrethal since they didn't have computers and this site would have been tough to grasp?

So what did I do? I asked him what he meant. Here is his response.

.....but what I was referring to as interesting was
this site Active Rain, not Obama. XXXX commented to me something about
how interesting this site is and I was just agreeing and that I'm a
dinosaur-technologically speaking, but coming along... something along
that line... I can't retrieve the comment now that he sent me... I'm
really bothered by this. Especially, because of it seeming like a
racist comment. You see, I can't be a racist because I believe we are
all one race. I also respect authority and a Senator trumps a publisher
in my book. I do not throw labels around and tag people with names.
I hope this clarifies a little more.

You can find the entire comments and discussion here, along with an apology from the member, Bob Horning. Mr. Horning was gracious enough to allow me to post about this because I think it's a good lesson in being careful what you write. Bob and I have shared a few emails and something he said was very poignant.

"I didn't realize how many people would be reading these things"

Just remember, lots of people are reading. Thanks again Bob, I really appreciate your allowing me to do this.

Oh my goodness

Bob Stewart - ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 17:25:44 -0500

I was on vacation for the last six days and my inbox is PISSED at me. It appears that there is no end to it. I was even allowed an hour a day to try sort things out while I was gone and pass on the most vital emails.........it didn't work.

So here I am on a saturday, in the office trying to catch up. If you sent me something in the last week and I haven't responded, it's because I didn't care.......haha!

Hopefully I will be able to dig out by Monday or Tuesday. I thought I would be refreshed but apparently Kelan doesn't understand the concept of a relaxing vacation just yet at one year old. He had all new stuff to terrorize and kept us on our feet pretty much the whole week. :-)

In my real life........

Bob Stewart - ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 20:32:22 -0500

(This applies to a very small minority here. But if you see yourself in anything I am writing, then I am talking to you)

I'm not as nice as I have to be here on ActiveRain. I represent our company in everything I do here so I want to make sure people's interactions with me leave a great taste in their mouth. I want them to walk away thinking, "wow, that was great customer service for a free website"

I think that most of the time that's the feeling people get. But in real life, I could never be this nice...........

I have been answering customer support tickets for the last hour and I had to take a break and give you a few thoughts......

Let me give a lesson in asking for assistance:

Typing in all caps is akin to screaming. I'm not a small guy and I can almost guarantee that if you were standing in front of me asking for assistance to get the score in your profile fixed, you WOULD NOT BE SCREAMING AT ME. I can also guarantee that if you were screaming at me, I would be screaming back at you. However, when you type in all caps, I just bite my finger and respond with an answer and thank you for your patience. I promise that wouldn't be my response in real life.

Sending the same ticket in three times in the course of a day getting more and more agitated every time you send it in is not going to get your ticket answered any faster, or any slower. In fact, it's only going to get other people's questions answered slower. We got it the first time and we will attempt to solve it in the order it came in. In real life, if you kept walking in my office and asking when I was going to get to your problem, I would tell you to quit coming in my office. Instead, I just answer the question, move on the next one, answer YOUR question again telling you that I answered it once, but it must be so important that you wrote in twice that it deserves the same answer twice........answer the next......you get the point. Every time, I will probably thank you for your patience.

Using extra question marks and exclamation points is about the same thing as screaming. If you were to ask me a question in real life, then follow it up with, "right? right? right?" You can expect a smart ass answer from me. At the very least I will tell you that I am not stupid, I heard you the first time you asked the question and to not treat me like I am your kid or your spouse that you don't like. I treat people with respect and nothing will get me more irritated then when someone speaks down to me or insinuates that I don't understand or comprehend what they are saying. When you write, your punctuation matters, don't over use it!!!!!!

If there is an issue on our site, do not expect that you are only one experiencing it and that we are targeting you somehow. 99% of what occurs here is automated and sometimes our code gets a little funky and something gets broken. We really appreciate you letting us know. When you let us know, please don't insinuate that we don't care about your issue. We do immensely. In fact, we probably have a very high paid developer looking into as I am responding to you. However, most of the time things are working correctly and it's not us, it's you.........but we'll still help get it straightened out.

There are a lot of you and only a few of us. This is very important to realize. We are not sitting here at the office playing Wii (until after hours) drinking coronas (although I wish we were) and laughing about your issue. What we are actually doing is busting our asses to try to provide you with an amazing free platform to help build your business.

This was totally off the cuff, I'm not even going to review it before I post it. Should I have put it in draft and come back a little later and taken the edge off? Well in my real life I never get the chance to do that, so I thought I'd just let it fly this time.............

Don't let your fingers get your butt in hot water

Bob Stewart - ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 11:10:41 -0500

Take a look at this little piece of news that just came across my google alert. Make sure that you aren't out making libelous commentary because it could land you in hot water.

Wisconsin man gets 18 months probation in criminal libel case

Where were his libelous comments made? Yep, you guessed it, right here on ActiveRain. The article also mentions that he had his real estate license suspended for a year.

Please be careful what you are writing when posting on ActiveRain. Libel is real and it can cost you your career.

reBlogging: Whoops, there it is!!

Bob Stewart - ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 16:07:44 -0500

Last night, with little fanfare, we launched a concept on ActiveRain called 'reBlog'. In fact, there was such little fanfare I didn't even know it was live until I woke up, reached over, grabbed my iPhone and started reading my emails. (yes, I am addicted to my iPhone, my job, my family and golf). This feature was meant to be tested and have some bugs worked out, but it accidentally slipped through to the live servers. In the first few hours, there were some components that were just not right. We are fixing those right now and the next time you see the 'reBlog' button, things will be in much better working order. Not to mention, we got some GREAT feedback right out of the gate. Sometimes being caught off guard can be a blessing in disguise.

reBlogging on ActiveRain:

According to reBlog.org:

"What is a reBlog?

A reBlog facilitates the process of filtering and republishing relevant content from many other Blogs. reBloggers subscribe to their favorite blogs, preview the content, and select their favorite posts. These posts are automatically published through their favorite blogging software."

This is a feature that will be available for members who have an ActiveRain Outside Blog. When you 'reBlog' an article, the post will be sent to your ActiveRain outside blog and not to your internal ActiveRain blog. Minimal points will be awarded when you reBlog an article. There will be a weekly cap on the amount. And reBlogging for points isn't going to provide your readers with a very valuable experience anyway. However, if your blog post is reBlogged by someone else, you will get 25 points every time up to a maximum of 500 points per post.

Every member will have the option of deciding whether or not they want their content to be available for reBlog. In your 'my settings' page, there will be an ability to opt in or opt out of the reBlog platform. If you choose to opt in, then your posts will automatically be included for reBlog. However, you will be able to opt-out on a post by post basis. If you choose to opt-out, then on each post you will be able to opt-in on a post by post basis. then you will not be able to opt-in on a post by post basis.

When you post a blog and make it available to reBlog, then a little reBlog icon will appear on the post on ActiveRain to any member who is logged in. If someone chooses to reBlog your post, they simply click on the reBlog button and they have the ability to write an introduction to the post. They may choose to write an intro or not, but once they reBlog the post, it sends that post only to their ActiveRain Outside Blog. The post is not reBlogged on their ActiveRain blog or Localism.

Member's only posts will not be available for reBlogging

Duplicate content issue: Any time someone reBlogs your post, there will be a link back to your original blog post. If you fed the post to your outside blog, the link from the reBlogged post will be a link to the original post on your outside blog. If you didn't send it to your outside blog, and the post went to Localism, the link back to the original will be a link to the post on Localism. If you only published the post to your ActiveRain blog, then the link back to the original post will be a link to your ActiveRain blog. Matt Cutts, the Google webmaster on SEO spells out that content syndication is OK if you make it clear to google who the original author was. reBlogging on AR does this by linking back to the original source.

The benefits of reBlogging someone elses post:

According to reBlog.org:

"Why should you reBlog?

reBlogs are useful to individuals who want to maintain a weblog but prefer curating content to writing original posts. They can also enable organizations to tap the contributions of their employees, members, and communities-at-large in order to easily redistribute relevant content."

Successful blogging is all about informing your reader. Over and over you will hear that business blogging is not about you, IT IS ABOUT THE CONSUMER. Providing relevant informative content should be your goal. reBlogging gives you the opportunity to bring the best content to the reader of your ActiveRain Outside Blog. Not everyone can be an expert in everything. However, in the halls of ActiveRain we have experts in just about anything real estate related. Being able to utilize the expertise of other members to inform your readers and your clients will be beneficial for everyone, especially your clients.

Think of this scenario: Little Jimmy Loan Officer is an expert on FHA. He blogs his little heart out about FHA. You just got done taking a client out for the day and they just told you that they don't have the 10% they originally thought they had, they only have 5% down. You think FHA is the way to for them and you want them to read up on FHA mortgages. You tell them to go check out your blog later tonight when they get home. You know that Little Jimmy has the best stuff on the web about FHA mortgages in his AR blog. So you jump in and grab two or three posts Jimmy has written and you add a little message to your client at the top........now your client is on your blog, reading the best info out there from LIttle Jimmy Loan officer about FHA mortgages. Not only does your client appreciate the fact that you are finding the best info on the web about FHA mortgages and delivering it to them, they associate you with Little Jimmy Loan Officer, the expert on FHA.

This could play out for information about staging, home inspections, the escrow process, or even information from a local competitor about market conditions. Delivering solid content to your readers should be the goal. You shouldn't have to know everything about everything......but your readers should be able to have that information at their fingertips......on your blog.

Would I reBlog a blog post written by a competitor in my market? Yes! If it was good information that my clientele would be interested in. Real Estate 2.0 is about client centric thinking. Your clients don't want to work with you because you are the source of original information, but because you are the source of good information that they need when they need it.

The benefits of allowing other's to reblog your posts:

In case you haven't figured this out, the name of the game is DISTRIBUTION!!! How wide of a net can you cast with the content you provide. It's the reason many blog here, so that google will pick you up and your reach will be wider. reBlogging gives the person who is an expert on certain topics an ability to have a much wider reach.

If you are a loan officer, stager, inspector, or anyone who works with agents, THIS IS A NO BRAINER. A great post by someone about FHA mortgages could be reBlogged by 1000 agents. if you don't see the power in that, then I don't know what to tell you.

From a real estate agent perspective: just imagine the power of having a hot new listing reBlogged by all of your local competitors, and don't forget about the SEO power of the backlinks you'll earn. Or imagine writing a post about negotiating contracts. If a couple hundred people picked up the post, you could instantly become a recognized expert on the subject (and get a few hundred backlinks to your outside blog).

IMPORTANT - PLEASE READ:

Some people will never buy into this and that's fine. Those that do will soon see their reach expand much further than they could hope for on their own. If you don't want your blogs reBlogged, simply go to your 'my settings' page when the feature is turned on and turn it off. Initially, all members have their global setting set to opt-in. However, all past posts will be set by default to opt-out of reBlogging regardless of your global setting, however you can go back and retroactively make them available on a post-by-post basis.

Once the feature is live (again) you can go and change your setting to opt-out. You will also have the ability to opt-out on a post by post basis if your global setting is set to opt-in. In the same way, if your global setting is set to opt-out, you can opt-in on a post by post basis.

Off topic: cause I can........My little boy

Bob Stewart - ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 16:43:12 -0500

I don't think I've made a blog post specifically about my son. I have made reference to him on my posts I'm sure and I know I have left comments where I talked about him. He keeps his own blog on ActiveRain and if you haven't read any of it, check it out........he's a talented and gifted writer. I have resisted writing about him on my blog because he gets irritated if I step on his toes. For a 13 month old he can be a little feisty.

However, I wanted to share with you my perspective of our walk in downtown Seattle the other night. We had gone out to dinner with the ActiveRain crew to say goodbye to Jorgen. Jorgen is our lead developer on the Localism project and lives in Lawrence Kansas. We had him in town for a week and he was flying home the next day so we were having dinner to see him off. As 13 month olds often do, my son was getting a little restless in his high chair so i swooped him up and we headed outside to stretch it out a little bit.

He's been walking for about 3 months now but still acts like a drunken sailor on occassion. So when we got outside, we are standing on 3rd and Union in downtown Seattle. It's about 9:00pm (way past his bedtime) and I set the little guy down. Right away he takes off down the block. It's the normal hustle and bustle of a downtown street at 9:00pm on a monday evening. There are people walking by themselves, lost in their iPods, there are groups of people walking and laughing and chatting. There is the occasional shady character passing asking for change.........

The thing that struck me as odd is that my son had the exact same reactions to the people on the streets as I was having internally. He wasn't looking at me (so my body language or facial expression wasn't influencing him), he was focused down the street on wherever he thought he was headed. But each time we would pass a group of people, if I was thinking internally that the person looked a little shady, my son would stop, turn to find me, and hug my leg with a look of "you got my back, right dad?"

If the group of people we were passing was a group of three women (or anyone with a chatting and laughing, he would just walk right in front of them and flash a big huge grin, caring less if they planned on stopping or tromping right over the top of him. Of course, in every instance, the people would stop and engage him and he was happy as a clam. (it borders on disgusting......he is such a little attention fiend in public)

How the heck does a 13 month old little boy have the intuition to know what he should and shouldn't be concerned about?

Jon is convinced he is going to grow up to work with the FBI or the CIA.........at the very least, maybe he'll follow in Grandpa's footsteps and become a Seattle Police Officer.

Get the first piece of AR swag ever made

Bob Stewart - ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 13:34:54 -0500

(Is that how you spell swag?)

A few months ago we hired an awesome graphic designer. He was toiling away at the massive compound one mile from our office in Redmond WA where his talents were being sucked from him. (yes, that compound, that company, that Redmond WA). You have seen some of his work on the new localism and the New new localism.

His latest project has been to design a Localism/AR land rush T-shirt. I'm not at liberty to show you the design just yet, as it is TOP Secret. However, I am at liberty to let you know:

Every ActiveRain member that sponsors a minimum of 5 communities/cities on the day their state Land Rush takes place will receive a free Localism/AR T-shirt.

(for members in the states/provinces that went Monday, or Thursday in WA, and may have sponsored one or two more just to get the shirt, you have all day today to get your total to five)

This is the first time we have produced anything like this. What can you do with your new Localism/AR T-shirt? The possibilities are endless..........

You could wear it......I know, I know....how boring.
You could use it as a flag to surrender to the British
You could tie it around your head in the last mile of your marathon to keep the sweat out of your eyes (or like me, in the first 100 yards of your 100 yard dash)
You could send it back to us, have us autograph it, then burn it as a sign of your frustration at not having 'that great post' you wrote get featured
You could cut the sleeves off it, cut a few hole is the back and rip it off in your next backyard wrestling match ala Hulk Hogan (that one was for you Sardi)

I'm serious, the possibiities are endless!!!

Yesterdays Land Rush went better than we anticipated. Our members secured over 1300 of their favorite communities. It was very exciting for us to see there are people out there that are starting to understand our vision for Localism. Jorgen, the lead developer on the project, is now on to programming his butt off to add the cool tools and features that will truly make Localism the World's first Neighborpedia and give you what you need to engage and connect with your communities.

I want to personally thank everyone that participated yesterday and last Thursday. Your support is not lost on us, we appreciate it more than I can put into words. Thank you!!

Localism Sponsorship Tutorial

Bob Stewart - ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 23:38:38 -0500

On the day that your State is available for sponsorship, here is how you will go about claiming your communities/cities.

Step #1 - Login on Localism.com

In order to log in to Localism.com you will go to Localism and then navigate to any state, county, city or community page. You can do this by clicking on a featured city or community or by typing in your state/county/city/community into the search box. Once on a page other than the home page, you will see the 'Log in' link on the top right. You can also go directly to https://localism.com/login

Once you get to the log in page, you will log in with the same user name and password that use to log in on ActiveRain. IMPORTANT: If you use an upper case letter on your ActiveRain user name when you log in, DO NOT use any caps when logging in to Localism. LOCALISM USER NAMES ARE IN ALL LOWER CASE.

Once you are logged in, you will see your picture in the top right hand corner and you will know you are logged in.

Step #2 - Enter the 'Sponsor a community' area

After you are log in, you will be redirected back to the page that you were on when you clicked the 'Log in' link. From there, you will look back up the top right hand corner of the screen and find the 'Sponsor a community' link.

You can also access the sponsor a community area directly by typing in https://localism.com/sponsor after you are logged in.

Step #3 - Drill down on the area you want to sponsor

When you enter the sponsorship screen, you will see a map and three drop down menus. The Map will show you what states are currently available. The first drop down menu is the state level, then the county level, then the city level.

Start by selecting your state from the drop down menu (give it a second or two to load your list of counties), then select your county from the drop down menu. Once you have selected your county, you will see a list of cities appear on the right hand side of the screen.

If you are able to directly sponsor your city. It will say 'claim' next to it. If your city is over the 40,000 population mark according to US Census daya (as outlined here) it will say 'not available', at which point you will need to select it directly from the drop down menu in order to sponsor communities within that city.

Step #4 - Pick your City or Community

Depending on if you intend on sponsoring a city (if you are able to sponsor it directly) or a community will dictate how many of the drop down menus you will need to use in order to get your area to come up on the right hand side. If you can sponsor your city directly, you will simply click the claim button next to the city. Once you click the 'claim' button, the button will turn yellow and now read 'pending'. At the same time, that city will be added to your 'checkout' cart. (in the example, I have claimed 3 cities and they all appear in my 'checkout' cart)

At this point, if you wanted to jump into a particular city and claim communities, you would just select the city from the drop down menu. The cities you have previously selected will remain in your 'checkout' cart. This is IMPORTANT!! You can jump around in the interface and select cities or communities in any area by simply selecting the appropriate drop down menus and maintain whatever you have previously selected from other counties or cities.

**IMPORTANT: Just because the city/community is pending, does not mean you have secured that city/community**

(Please see "Step #6 - Strategy" below for a more detailed description of securing your cities/communities)

Step #5 - Checkout and secure your city/community

Once you have selected the cities and/or communities that you are interested in, you will proceed to the checkout portion, contained on the same page.

At this point, you will enter your payment information and click 'Buy now'. Once the next screen loads, you will have secured the areas you were interested in and be redirected into the 'my account' screen. This screen will have a 'Billing history', your stored 'Account information' and a list of 'Account services' which lists the particular cities/communities you have sponsored.

Now you can click the 'sponsor a community' link at the top right of the screen to go back into the sponsorship interface. You can also begin writing your descriptions by clicking on the 'write a region description' on the right hand side of the screen under 'Sponsored Communities'. I will be writing a more detailed tutorial on writing descriptions shortly and will link to it when it's complete.

Step #6 - Strategy

At the point that you have selected the cities/communities that you are attempting to sponsor but prior to checking out, the button next to those cities will be yellow and say 'pending'. THIS DOES NOT MEAN YOU HAVE SECURED THEM. Once you complete filling in your payment info and click the 'buy now' button you will have secured them.

So.......what happens if you spend ten minutes selecting your areas, have amassed 20 cities/communities and go to check out and someone else was quicker than you, selected only two cities/communities, but they were the two of the same selections you had made, took two minutes and hit the 'buy now' button and checked out? They will have secured those two cities/communities. When you go to check out, you will secure 18 of the 20 you wanted. The other two would go to the other person because they checked out first.

This is where the strategy comes in. I would suggest that you consider what are the most vital cities/communities to you and be prepared to secure those areas quickly, then come back and secure additional areas. The more time you spend before you checkout, the higher probability that someone else could potentially secure a city/community you were interested in.

The second time you come back to make selections, your billing information will have been saved and you will be able to checkout much quicker.

Step #7 - Practice

Right now, you can go to Localism.com and test to make sure you can log in. You can also go the 'sponsor a community' link and play around. Even though Washington is the only state, you can get comfortable with the interface. You can even select some cities/communities to see how that process works. You can select a few, then jump to a different County/city and select a few from there. This will give you a good understanding of what to expect the day your state is available. As long as you don't enter your credit card info, and hit the 'buy now' button, you will be just fine practicing.

To Find out when your state will be available and more specifics on pricing and other information

Go to my previous post by clicking here

Localism Sponsorship Land Rush Schedule

Bob Stewart - ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 14:17:29 -0500

On Thursday we will be kicking off the Localism Sponsorship Land Rush. This will be the official schedule for when you will have access to Sponsor communities/cities on Localism.

Schedule for States/Provinces for Localism Land Rush:

July 31st - Washington State
August 4th - Alaska, Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Washington DC, Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Alberta, British Columbia
August 5th - Florida, Iowa, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maryland, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland
August 6th - Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, North Dakota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Nova Scotia, Nunavat
August 7th - New Jersey, New Mexico, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Quebec
August 8th - South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, US Virgin Islands, Vermont, Wisconsin, West Virginia, Wyoming, Saskatchewan, Yukon

Day of offering schedule:

On the day your State/Province is scheduled, there will be a timeline based on your ActiveRain points to gain access to the sponsorship interface. We are very appreciative of the members who have supported us all along the way and we want to give them a little bit of a head start on claiming the communities they have put so much effort into building.

On the day your state/province is scheduled:

ActiveRain Members with 200K + points will have access at 12:00pm Pacific Time (3:00pm Eastern Time)
ActiveRain Members with 100K + points will have access at 12:15pm Pacific Time (3:15pm Eastern Time)
ActiveRain Members with 50K + points will have access at 12:30pm Pacific Time (3:30pm Eastern Time)
ActiveRain Members with 10K + points will have access at 12:45pm Pacific Time (3:45pm Eastern Time)
All ActiveRain Members will have access at 1:00pm Pacific Time (4:00pm Eastern Time)

Sponsorship pricing:

The price to sponsor a community/city will be:

1-10 communities/cities sponsored = $9 per community/city sponsored per month
11-25 communities/cities sponsored = $8 per community/city sponsored per month
26+ communities/cities sponsored = $7 per community/city sponsored per month

Community/City sponsorships will be offered on a month-to-month basis and you can cancel at any time prior to the beginning of the next month.

Payment Options:

Payment will be accepted with credit card. Visa, Mastercard or AMEX.

Why the price drop?

Since we've launched, we've been dilegently reading your comments and concerns. We've taken them back to our brain trust to see what type of solutions we can come up with. What we've come back is nothing short of mind numbing. Jonathan will be creating a post that he will have up tomorrow that gives a sneak preview of the changes that will be up by the end of August, coinciding with the release of Localism to the public......which will highlight some changes to the sponsorship area.

What cities are we able to sponsor directly?

You will be able to sponsor a city directly if the city population is under 40,000 people based on the census data from the 2000 United States Census. All the cities that have populations over 40,000 according to US census data will not have a direct sponsor option.

In the cities with over 40,000 residents, the person that has the most community sponsorships on the first day of the month will get an automatic sponsorship of the city. These automatic sponsorships will start September 1st.

Here is a link to a spreadsheet of Cities over 40,000 people that won't have a direct sponsorship option

Where do I go to sponsor?

(you will need to log in with your AR user name and password. Make sure to use NO CAPS for your user name)

**** The launch for the state of Washington on July 31st will take place for everyone at 12:00pm Pacific Time as we will not have the infrastructure in place to stagger the start times.

Errors on Localism, Let's get them fixed.

Bob Stewart - ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 20:16:48 -0500

If you are a real estate agent, you know that the information in your MLS is ony as accurate as the person that input that info. So I'm sure it comes as no surprise that the info on Localism is only as accurate as the person that input it........sort of.

The cities in Localism are part of a data set that we originally ran with over two years ago when we launched ActiveRain. Every community is something that has been added by our members. So there may be inconsistencies in the data set we originally launched with regarding cities. There are certainly inconsistencies in the communities that have been added since.

Let me tell you how we are going to deal with the errors. If there is an error in city level data in your area, please leave a comment here explaining that error in detail. I'll need the state, the current county it appears in, and the county it should appear in. If the city does not appear currently, then I will only need the details of where it should appear.

Once I have that information, I will work with the programmers to fix any city discrepancies.

The neighborhood data is going to be handled a little differently. If there are inconsistencies in the neighborhood data, they will sort themselves out over time. I know this may drive some of you crazy, but because this content is user generated, we are going to depend on our users to sort it out.

How will this happen you ask?

Currently, when you go to a city on Localism, there is a tag cloud of 'popular communities' on the right hand side. That cloud sorts from top to bottom based on the amount of content being contributed to a certain community. The community with the most content is larger and toward the top. Over time, the neighborhoods/communities that don't have content being contributed to them will atrophy to the point that they will be tiny little tags far removed from anything anyone will see.

Please do not leave any comments on this post that do not directly deal with city issues that need to be rectified. As much as I love your comments, I am going to have to delete any wayward ones so that Jorgen and I can quickly asses each error and move to fix them. If you have a question, please email me directly.

Again, do not post a comment unless it is to specifically address an issue with a city on Localism. Thanks.

100K by Connect

Bob Stewart - ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 23:30:12 -0500

We are going to be down in San Francisco for the next three days attending the Inman Real Estate Connect Conference. We thought it would be cool if we were able to crack the 100,000 member mark while we are down there. We are just over 1000 people away from hitting that milestone right now. In a normal week, this would take us between 4-6 days (we average about 180-200 new members a day). It doesn't take a math major to see that in a normal week, we wouldn't crack 100,000 in the next three days. (here is my shameless plug letting you know I was on the math team in high school and we placed second in state two years in a row......I never pass up an opportunity to tell someone that.......although these days I need my HP48G calculator to add any numbers over double digits, haha)

Here is where you may be able to help us. Jon and I concocted up a little scheme to get you to put the pedal to the metal for the next three days for inviting new members to join ActiveRain in hopes that we can hit the 100K mark before Thursday.

Anyone who invites a member to ActiveRain, that joins the network and confirms their account on the day that we hit 100,000 members will be given some bonus points. The bonus points will coorelate to the day that we hit the mark.

If we hit 100,000 members on Tuesday, July 22nd, anyone who invited someone that joined that day will get 3000 bonus points
If we hit 100,000 members on Wednesday July 23rd, anyone who invited someone that joined that day will get 2000 bonus points
If we hit 100,000 members on Thursday July 24th, anyone who invited someone that joined that day will get 1000 bonus points

The quicker you help us get to 100,000, the more points you are going to get. Is this shameless pandering to break the 100K mark? Yes it is. Are we above shameless pandering so that we can have something fun to talk about while we are at Inman Real Estate Connect? No we are not.

Your call to Action: Get on the phone, remind the people you've already invited, that haven't joined what they are missing out on. Send 12 emails to those in your sphere that aren't taking advantage of the benefits of ActiveRain.

Brad Andersohn also created a great 'Getting Started Tutorial" that you can include in your emails to your friends. It really helps streamline the process of getting started on ActiveRain.

(disclaimer: You will only get the bonus points once. So if you invite 12 people that signed up on July 23rd and we hit 100K on that day, you will only get the 2000 bonus points for that day once.)

Duplicate Content and Outside Blogs

Bob Stewart - ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 17:44:39 -0500

If you don't care to read about all the technical details below, just set up your Outside Blog on a custom domain (ie, jonwashburn.com), not just a sub-domain (jon.activerain.com) and trust us that it's going to kick SEO butt. For those of you who like first hand info, here you go.

In case you haven't heard, we launched outside blogs yesterday, June 25th, 2008. We are really excited to have a platform that our members can utilize to seamlessly syndicate their content across multiple domains, allows for individual branding and at the same time exposes their content to high volumes of traffic. A common question surrounding the release of Outside Blogs centers on the issue of duplicate content, how the search engines handle duplicate content (specifically Google), and how we will structure both your ActiveRain blogs and your outside blogs to provide you the most exposure.

First, let's clear up a little bit of terminology. There are four seperate places that your blog post can show up.

Your ActiveRain blog (activerain.com/blogs/arbob)
Localism
Sub-domain blog (activebob.activerain.com)
Outside Blog (jonwashburn.com)

This part is VERY IMPORTANT and will take care of duplicate content for one of the four. We will be adding no-index tags to all sub-domain blogs. Considering the SEO power of ActiveRain.com, sub-domains will not perform as well as your primary domain for the purposes of search engine placement. With that in mind, it makes little sense to have the content showing up on a sub-domain (i.e., activebob.activerain.com) and have the sub-domain indexed, rather than the content be indexed on the primary domain (activerain.com/arbob). Therefore, the primary purpose of a sub-domain will be strictly for offline branding. But in all cases, a custom, member-owned domain will serve that purpose even better. As such, we really encourage our members to invest the $8 to get your own custom domain set up.

Now we are left with three places that your blog post will show up. There is lots of information about how google handles duplicate content and what it will look at to determine what will show up in the search results. As it relates to what will be happening on ActiveRain/Localism/Outside Blogs we want to look at what Google identifies as the originating source. Here is an excerpt from the Google Webmaster Blog from June 9th of 2008:

In cases when you are syndicating your content but also want to make sure your site is identified as the original source,it's useful to ask your syndication partners to include a link back to your original content.

(There is also a great article written by Vanessa Fox, formerly of Google, about ranking as the original source for content you syndicate.)

We can tell Google what the originating source is. What do you want to be the originating source and what do you want Google to index? It will be up to you. Here is how it will work:

Originating Source is:

ActiveRain: If you don't syndicate your post to your outside blog, and you don't geo-target it so that it shows up on Localism, ActiveRain will get credit as the originating source, because the post won't show up anywhere else.

Outside Blog: If you syndicate your post to your outside blog and you do not geo-target it, your outside blog will show up as the originating source. (since the post is not geo-targeted, it will not appear on Localism). Your syndication partner (your ActiveRain blog) will have a link back to your original content (outside blog)

Localism: If you Geo-tag your post, Localism will be credited as the original source; your ActiveRain blog and your outside blog will link back to the post on Localism, indicating to Google that Localism is the original source. (If you've made it this far, you're probably wondering why the heck you would want the current version of Localism as your original source. If you can keep a secret...the new Localism might be coming out the second week in July...but I'll deny it if you tell anyone)

You control it!

Coming from all sides......Finally something about MeMe.......or is that my Final MeMe?

Bob Stewart - ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 18:32:24 -0500

There is a pretty wicked game of blog post meme resonating from the halls of RE.net. Rich Jacobson, Barry Cunningham and Ian Anderson all threw the gauntlett in my direction. I'm really not that exciting so I'm glad this game has rules so that I don't have to just come up with 5 'things' about me off the cuff (like the last time I was meme'd). So without further ado, and because you could probably care less about my ramblings than about what you are about to learn, here goes......

1. Who is your favorite musical artist?

This one isn't easy. The first concert I ever attended was Paula Abdul. Way before she was passing out onstage at American Idol she was fresh off being a Laker Dancer and really put on a show (especially for a fifth grade pubescent boy). I had a country phase, George Straight and Garth Brooks got me to buy a pair of cowboy boots. Being from the Seattle area Pearl Jam and Nirvana were in the rotation quite frequently in the early 90's as I listened on with teen angst. I had a long love affair with Rap music as well. Tupac, Snoop Doggy Dogg, Dr. Dre, Eminem. I just love the way they crafted their words. To me, it was art. If I could only listen to one song the rest of my life, it would be Dylan's Hurricane.

Of course, My all time favorite would be Rich Jacobson. Man, have you ever heard that guy wail? He's like the next John Mayer!

2. Who is your favorite artist?

Say what? I failed an art history class in college. It was the only class I ever failed in my life. It probably has more to do with the fact that it started at 7am, but art is one area where I need some serious cultural enhancement. However, living in the Pacific Northwest I have had multiple occassions to come across the work of Dale Chihuly. What this man can do with glass is nothing short of amazing.

Of course, I saw some pretty good macaroni art hanging on the fridge at Rich Jacobson's house, I'm pretty sure he did it since his kids are all out of elementary school by now, it was really good.

3. Who is your favorite blogger?

I have a lot of people that I subscribe to from all different walks of life. I get even more fed to me reading Jon's favorite posts. I am going to go with Marc Davison. I love the passion that he has for making real estate better for the consumer. The stories he tells of growing up in NY always make me feel like I'm there. The way he relates those stories back to the consumer's experience in real estate always makes me want to do something re-marc-able.

But then, of course, there's Rich Jacobson. The guy is just an amazing writer, and shares such incredible insights concerning real estate and wisdom about life in general.

4. If you could meet anyone (alive or dead), who would it be and what is the most interesting thing about them?

I have never met either of my biological grandfathers. I was raised by my grandpa's but they weren't my biological ones. I'm sure I would learn a lot about myself if I got the chance to meet my biological grandfathers. Before I tried to answer this question, I'd never ONCE in my life thought I wanted to meet them. But now, right as I sit here writing this, I have this really overpowering desire to meet them.........ok, this is weird, I need to move on..........

Of course, had I not met Rich Jacobson already I would have surely answered this question in four words.......Rich Jacobson, nuff said!

5. What did you want to be when you grew up?

I wanted to be a great father and husband. I still want to be a great father and husband. My parents were divorced when I was 8. My mom will be the first one to tell you that my Dad was a really good dad but a horrible husband. I didn't get to have my Dad around for most of my formative years. I want to make sure that I am there for my son. I don't want him to have to learn how to shave on his own. I don't want him to have to learn about girls on his own. I don't want him to ever feel like I am not in the next room so that he can come to me with whatever he needs to talk about. I am lucky, I'm going to get to be what I wanted to be when I grow up (whenever that is).

Of course, if I have to grow up someday, I want to be just like my hero, Rich Jacobson.

6. What is the most interesting piece of trivia you know?

Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king from history: Spades - King David, Clubs - Alexander the Great, Hearts - Charlemagne, Diamonds - Julius Caesar.

Of course, Hoyle, the popular playing card maker has introduced a new line of cards where all the Kings are modeled after Rich Jacobson.....I have a whole case.

7. If you could live in any point in history what would it be and why?

I could see myself living in the time of Western expansion across the US. What is that, early to mid 1800's. The idea of packing up everything you own in a wagon and heading west to make a new life for your family seems strangely alluring to me. I'm sure after a few days I would be longing for my comfy bed, but then again, I wouldn't know what my comfy bed felt like.......

Of course, the leader of our fearless wagon train would have to be Rich Jacobson or we would surely get swept away by the Missouri or high centered on the Rockies.

8. What is the most interesting job you have ever held?

Community builder for ActiveRain. Never a dull day here, that's for sure!! Also, it's kind of surreal to think that my job is watching over an online social network. When I was little if you had given me a million guesses as to what I would be doing at age 30, I guarantee this wouldn't be on the list.

Of course, working along side Rich Jacobson is the best job I've ever had........even though no one asked.

I pick: Jon and Matt and Glin and Claire (yep, she's new) and Nicole and Jerry and Rich and Brad. You know who you are so I won't link. (how many was I suppose to pick?)

I think we could be friends.........

Bob Stewart - ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Wed, 28 May 2008 12:53:58 -0500

I'll overlook the fact that he is from the East coast. I'll overlook the fact that he is a Boston Red Sox fan (although I will rejoice in the fact the Mariners finally got a win against those Red Sox yesterday). I'll overlook the fact that he won the ActiveRain video contest and took my seat at the Seth Godin seminar.

The guy has a great sense of humor; for that alone, I think we could be friends.

Today however, he crossed the line. Waiting in my inbox this morning was a piece of blatant spam from Mr. 'I think we could be friends'. Luckily he has a great sense of humor so I think I can overlook the assault on my inbox (but I am seriously reconsidering the Red Sox thing.....)

Check out this video and you tell me if you think we still have a chance to be friends.

(Vote for him, digg him, support him..........he could be my friend)

ActiveRain Newsletter coming soon

Bob Stewart - ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Fri, 09 May 2008 02:04:56 -0500

Rarely a day goes by that I don't find myself roaming the (cyber)halls of ActiveRain. It's my job. I have never confirmed this with Matt (I don't know if he can confirm it) but you would be hard pressed to find someone that views as many pages or spends as much time on this site as I do. Rich, Brad or Nicole would certainly give me a run for my money but they wouldn't beat me by much. Every now and then I take a break. It usually coincides with a weekend and the chance to spend some time with my family. Sometimes all it takes is two days out of the 'Rain' to make me feel like I have completely missed out on what is going on (My editor said this makes me sound conceited and really doesn't add to the purpose of this post.......so to show him who's boss, I have chosen to leave the content and force you to try to read through the line...hahaha)

For you, our great members, there are probably stretches of time when you don't get the chance to engage here as much as you may like. Some commercial ringing in my head said......"Life Happens" and it couldn't be truer. Business also happens and you have no doubt found yourself with so much on your plate that stopping by and checking on ActiveRain didn't fit into your schedule. However, Once you catch the bug, many members fit ActiveRain into their daily schedule no matter what. Until you figure out the real benefits to you, some members may struggle to fit it into their daily schedule because they can't quantify the benefits.

So we are going to bring ActiveRain to your inbox. We just put the finishing touches on our ActiveRain newsletter (thanks in large part to Glin, our new designer). We plan on doing something daily (five days a week) and I wonder if that would put any undue burden on your inbox? As long as we make the opt-out painless, I would think the burden would be minimal. Since you had no opt-in decision when you first signed up, I'm looking for feedback on how you feel about it.

Here's what the newsletter will look like (image on the left........as if you, my perceptive reader needed to be pointed to only image on the post :-) )

The newsletter will contain a collection of featured posts, tutorials, messages from ActiveRain, featured video content, a featured member of the day/week (someone whose contributions to the network are above and beyond what you would expect of someone.....and there are many of you), a featured group of the week, a few advertisements, and some other goodies stashed in there every so often.

Our goal is to keep our members up to speed when they aren't able to actually visit the site as often as they might like. We also stand to make a few dollars on advertising, but it will be unobtrusive much like the current advertising we run on the site. It will be very easy for you to opt out as well (although we hope the prospect of some great content will keep you involved)

I feel like the benefits to our newer member, and those that have stopped by but never really took the time to get engaged will be immense. We are so excited about the growth and evolution of ActiveRain and we want to share that excitement with all 86,000+ members. So.........let me have it! Where do you stand?