I'm pleased to introduce our latest (and greatest!) theme: Chameleon. It's not much to look at on the surface. But like the crafty creature with whom it shares its namesake, there's far more than meets the eye. A leopard can change its spots, and you can now completely redecorate your Outside Blog — Chameleon supports complete and transformative customization via CSS.
After selecting the Chameleon theme, you'll notice a new "CSS Styling" menu item. This allows you to provide custom CSS which will be used to beautify your existing Outside Blog. As a bonus, you also have access to your uploaded header and sidebar images. Simply use {{ header_image_url }} and {{ sidebar_image_url }} — these special tokens will be automatically converted to URLs.
Is this theme incredibly geeky? Yes. Writing CSS requires a high level of competency in web development. Can you use this theme without knowing anything about CSS? Yes! As people start to develop and share themes, you'll be able to spruce up your Outside Blog without lifting a finger. Know a "tech guy"? Ask for some help tweaking the appearance of your Outside Blog. Looking to go hog wild? Hire a local developer to craft a custom design for you.
Chameleon is still in beta. HTML in overhead bins may shift during the flight. Documentation is non-existent. But a mountain is climbed one step at a time, assuming you don't have a helicopter. You now have the unprecedented ability to harness the incredible power of an Outside Blog while simultaneously maintaining your own unique look and feel. Enjoy!
In an effort to make ActiveRain faster, stronger, and generally more fun to use, commenting and creating blog entries broke for those users browsing with Internet Explorer. We're working to correct the issue; in the interim, posting with Firefox, Google Chrome, or Safari will work.
Most domain registrars offer a free feature called "forwarding" or "framing" or "masking". At first blush, it seems like a quick and easy way to setup a custom domain that displays your content. You don't have to do anything on ActiveRain, you get a cool domain that shows your blog, and everyone wins. Maybe. Let's take a closer look:
(Example HTML code to embed my gorgeous blog in a frame on the fictitious www.jhahnactiverainblog.com)
How does this feature work? It starts with your domain registrar hosting a small html file containing a snippet similar to what you see above. This method of embedding a "page within a page" carries no SEO benefits and could, at worst, hurt your standing with search engines.
Strike One: If you look carefully and know some basic HTML, you'll notice that your domain registrar chooses the title of this page. Instead of your carefully crafted blog title, complete with relevant keywords, you're stuck with a bland URL.
Strike Two: When your content exists within a frame, you lose the powerful links that we so carefully craft on your behalf. For example, you can find this blog post at http://activerain.com/blogsview/901499/The-Great-Frame-Up-or-How-I-Learned-to-Stop-Worrying-and-Trust-ActiveRain. The link is rich with keywords that help boost your content to the top of search results. When you're "framing" content, this benefit is completely lost.
Strike Three: Search engines hate frames. They're a bygone technology from an era long since passed. Most "crawlers" can't (or won't) traverse frames. In my example, Google will not assign any value or PageRank to the domain www.jhahnactiverainblog.com because it has no real content — it just points to ActiveRain!
Strike Four: Tangentially, "framing" content on ActiveRain creates a security problem for our users. Imagine: a member visits my example site at www.jhahnactiverainblog.com. When they click on the login link, they don't see the familiar https://activerain.com/login URL and security padlock — they see my custom domain name. With the proliferation of "phishing" attacks and other online "confidence games", our priority is to keep ActiveRain a safe haven for our users.
Write without reservation and continue sharing your knowledge with the world — we'll take care of the arcane SEO bits.
Even though it's Wednesday, I can't keep quiet. I have a confession – we've been working on more than fixing bugs for the past few weeks! I'm delighted to announce the immediate availability of our new Team and Individual Blogs. These replace the antiquated (and hilariously dilapidated) Outside Blogs.
Eh?! What's this! What happened to my old Outside Blog? Nothing! Your existing Outside Blogs will continue to function normally. If you'd like to upgrade an old Outside Blog to a new Team or Individual Blog, just click on the "Upgrade" link.
Grrr. Why would I want to upgrade? We've put a lot of effort into making this new platform the best (and easiest) way to supercharge your blogging efforts. A few delicious highlights include:
Gorgeous new themes: Find 15 new ways to play dress-up with your blog. And this is just the beginning – we've got a stack of themes waiting in the wings!
SEO-Optimized: We've been around the block a few times when it comes to playing nicely with search engines. You could read books and blogs for hours trying to optimize your site… or you could let us take care of the difficult bits while you concentrate on blogging and making connections.
Hyper-local: Remember the grueling work you did to prepare your posts for Localism? Watch it pay off in spades – your posts are automatically categorized by location, all the way down to the community level. Without being too much of a tease, this is just the beginning; we have several exciting features planned in this space!
Custom Domains: Wave goodbyeto DNS servers, registrars, and hours of confusion. The process for adding a custom domain couldn't be simpler – just provide the domain name you want, and we take care of the rest! Absolutely no technical skill is required.
Amazing! Unprecedented! I'm willing to pay $96,543 per month. But how much does it really cost? Individual Blogs are $19/mo., and Team Blogs are $79/mo.
Pictures, please.
Choosing a theme
Claiming a custom domain… it couldn't be any easier!
A view of contributors to a Team Blog
Your posts… categorized by location! Google will eat this up
Enjoy! I've already upgraded to an Individual Blog (minormissives.com) and can't wait to see how you utilize this new platform!
The ActiveRain team rarely sleeps or vacations. Today, I'm pleased to announce the happy marriage of Listing Router and Localism. Here's how it works:
You sponsor a Localism city or community: You can now login to your Localism account (https://localism.com/account) and assign a "Listing Router URL" for any city or community that you've sponsored. Simply click on a sponsored location in the sidebar (on the right) and scroll down. You'll notice a new component (pictured below, Figure 1). Provide the URL to your IDX site; it'll be displayed prominently on the relevant city or community page (Figure 2).
(Figure 1: The new Listing Router URL box in your "My Account" Localism screen)
You run Listing Router campaigns on ActiveRain: You don't have to do anything! Your existing campaigns will run automatically on Localism, immediately and dramatically increasing your exposure to consumers. The invitation to view homes in the local area is both bold and decisive; see for yourself in Figure 2.
(Figure 2: The striking invitation to consumers looking for a home on the Austin, TX Localism page)
Frequently Asked Questions
I'm sponsoring a city/community in Localism and have assigned a Listing Router URL. Will I have to share clicks with people sponsoring Listing Router campaigns for the same area on ActiveRain?
No — the sponsor of a city or community on Localism will receive all clicks for that area.
Will I be charged per click for traffic generated from my sponsored Localism city/community?
No — the potentially unlimited traffic generated from your sponsored locations is included as part of your monthly fee.
Enjoy! I'm excited about the future of Localism and ActiveRain! (mostly because I have access to the "master" whiteboard that holds the blueprint for these coming months… it's going to be a roller-coaster ride!)
When it rains, it pours. But in this case, that's hardly an apt analogy; perhaps when it ceases to rain, the resulting drought is both immediate and devastating.
The cluster of servers responsible for the magic that is ActiveRain took a collective nosedive early (early!) this morning, leaving activerain.com and localism.com inaccessible for nearly 18 hours. The fact that it happened on a Sunday without any data loss is a very thin silver lining on this black cloud. The disagreeable servers have since been set straight, and all is right with the world again.
A curious thought came upon me during my stay in the eye of the hurricane: What if ActiveRain had never existed? The incredible team that Jon has assembled would be scattered. I'd still be living in Kansas. Some would be grinding away their days at Microsoft. Others would be selling homes. And what of our vast and vibrant community? Fragmented among smaller sites with no place to come together and share their experience and humor. In the parallel universe where ActiveRain was never born, everyone is the poorer.
Enjoy your stay in the rain — we'll try not to turn off the faucet again.
Rich Jacobson, beloved Community Builder and consummate crabber, was rushed to the hospital late last night after a daring raid on an Upper Manhattan condo left him seriously injured. Police have refused to comment, citing the ongoing investigation, but our sources claim he was violently attacked with a set of bongo drums. In an unlikely turn of events, eye witnesses claimed to have seen Matthew McConaughey streaking from the scene.
Federal investigators are still questioning inmates and staff at the facility where Rich was being held. It is thought that he simply walked out after (politely) asking the guard to open the door.
The motive for Rich's late night sortie are unknown, but many industry pundits believe he was seeking the missing Blogs link. A small but vocal minority have also suggested dementia.
This is an ongoing story… stayed tuned for live, late-breaking updates.
Update (10/11/2008 @ 3:01pm PST): Hospital officials have released Rich's condition as stable. Uncorroborated reports are suggesting that Rich's midnight incursion was successful, and that the Blogs link is due to be delivered to ActiveRain headquarters in mere minutes. A substantial crowd has gathered outside his room, waving flags and banging cowbells in celebration.
The dreaded Proxy Error. You've all seen them. Some have lost posts or comments to this scourge. Others have smashed their keyboard in frustration. Almost daily, Bob bellows boldly at me in the office: THE SITE IS DOWN! FIX IT!
What is a Proxy Error? Imagine that you've gotta go – now! You excuse yourself and fly to the restroom — only to find every toilet occupied. You wait a few seconds and do a desperate little dance, but it's too late. Hoping nobody noticed, you flee, face burning with hot shame.
During our peak load times, ActiveRain experiences a similar phenomenon. Our servers would like nothing better than to fulfill your request, but there are already 100 people in front of you. By the time your request reaches the front of the queue, our proxy/load balancer has decided that you (and everyone behind you!) has been waiting too long, and unceremoniously boots you from the line with a… Proxy Error. It doesn't sound fair, but it frees the server to continue processing requests instead of sending constant error messages. Someone with strange ears once said that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
What are we doing about it? In our previous example, imagine that someone was monopolizing a toilet while reading a magazine. You'd be outraged! Some pages on ActiveRain take orders of magnitude longer to generate than others. When enough people (or search engines) visit those pages simultaneously, our servers get tied up and can't process your request. At the highest level, we're identifying and fixing those pages.
Bah! You're just making excuses! ActiveRain is a simple site! I could fix your problems in an hour! When ActiveRain was first being developed, we had no idea that we'd be the leading social network for real estate professionals. We couldn't imagine hitting 111k+ members. Much of our code still works under the assumptions of that quainter, quieter time when we had a mere handful of users. My top priority has been to find and optimize that code. Fun fact: Last week, we deployed performance-related fixes to ActiveRain every night!
To our members: thank you! You've placed us in this enviable position. ActiveRain is too popular. We're a happy victim of success. Work will continue in earnest to stamp out the last of the error messages; already, we're seeing fewer reports, but even one error is too many. Your collective patience and gentle humor have been appreciated, and I'm proud to be a part of this community. Now, unsurprisingly, I'm headed back work!
Disclaimer: ActiveRain Corp. does not necessarily endorse the real estate agents, loan officers and brokers listed on this site. These real estate profiles, blogs and blog entries are provided here as a courtesy to our visitors to help them make an informed decision when buying or selling a house. ActiveRain Corp. takes no responsibility for the content in these profiles, that are written by the members of this community.
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