website: A New Video Resource... Video Connector
- 04/04/10 02:26 PM
I recently subscribed to the Video Connector. It is a cool new service from MY video provider. Tara Jones and TJ Hedges, the folks behind the Video Connector, are friends of mine. they are also the folks I turn to in order to provide video for my listings.
Reel Productions has grown to be one of the best real estate video companies in the country. They have travelled coast to coast for big national brokerages. They have had agents fly them all over and charter helicopters for them to do property or neighborhood profiles. They have presented at major conferances ranging … (0 comments)
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website: Joomla Content Helpers... (WordPress, too)
- 01/18/10 03:22 AM
As mentioned last time in WordPress and Joomla and Active Rain… oh my!, dynamic websites are the direction the web is going. In order to live in the dynamic website world, you need to produce content.
That is the first problem. Good, engaging content doesn't create itself. Readers want to see pictures and video. They want interaction.
Image via Wikipedia
Image via CrunchBase I'm AT LEAST as guilty as anyone else of not serving it up sometimes. One one of my blogs I don't have any access to a plug-in called Zemanta, and I have to jump through hoops to use … (7 comments)
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website: WordPress and Joomla and Active Rain... oh my!
- 01/13/10 04:20 AM
It is obvious to everyone in the real estate business by now that the future of marketing revolves around the internet... and websites. And the "Yester-tech" of a static website isn't going to cut it. The days of "My broker provides me with a website at www.myname.brokerage.com" are gone. And honestly, the days of a site coded purely in html are pretty toasted as well... The new paradigm is what are referred to as Dynamic Websites. Dynamic sites are exemplified by blogs, web magazines and other sites that are continually updated and interactive.
Back in "the day", a website was little … (19 comments)
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website: Lane's 10 Best Posts for 2009...
- 12/30/09 01:02 PM
'tis the season for 10 Best Posts. They are everywhere. Here two... Maybe I could even do a "10 Best of the 10 Bests" post... (that might be going too far)
I think these are my 10 Best Favorite Posts for 2009...
From LaneBailey.com
Think you have time to mull over that house buying decision for weeks? Cheap Sex and Real Estate... My home is worth what? Can a $29,000 Home be overpriced? Where in the World is Lilburn, GA? And from ActiveRain/GwinnettGarageGuy.com
The best agent to use is the one that tells me the highest price I turned down … (6 comments)
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website: My List of Indispensible WordPress Plugins...
- 12/08/09 03:15 PM
And I'm going to start off with two that aren't for WordPress, but that I use ALL of the time...
Zemanta - This is one of my "blogging assistants". Zemanta searches for relavent photos for posts, while I am writing them. It is a FireFox plugin, and functions on all of the WordPress blogs without installing a WP plugin. I also have it installed on my Joomla sites... I did have to install a Joomla plugin...
ScribeFire - Another of my "blogging assistants" ... and a commenting assitant, too. ScribeFire lets me format posts or comments, even adding video to … (18 comments)
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website: Gwinnett Market Reports for November
- 12/02/09 03:20 PM
We have just introduced a new format for our Gwinnett County Market Reports. In addition to the traditional report covering the entire county, we have added reports for several of the cities in Gwinnett. They are viewable here:
Lilburn, GALawrenceville, GADuluth, GASuwanee, GASugar Hill, GABuford, GANorcross, GA
Of course, market stats can get kind of dry, so there are a lot of types of information on each city's page.
Zillow Market Value Graph (with a lot of interesting data...) Photos from Flickr A short history An interpretation of the market data Selection of recently sold homes in the city Links to … (3 comments)
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website: Get Posterous-ized...
- 11/25/09 01:09 PM
Let's get the first part out of the way... It is pronounced pa-stir-us... like in preposterous... which would be "life before Posterous."
Posterous is a blogging site... and if you are playing in social media, you really need to get onto it if you aren't already. In fact, I will be including it in the future when I talk about the places that agents MUST have a presence. It is THAT important...
It isn't because of the audience, nor is it because of the name. It is because of the integration capability. It is one of the coolest options for syndicating … (13 comments)
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website: What about WordPress MU?
- 11/24/09 02:49 PM
I was wandering around the control panel for my webhost (I use BlueHost - affiliate link) and noticed that I had 12 blogs I was administering. Don't panic, that includes my wife's websites for her company, as well as a family blog and the blog for my son's Flat Stanley.
But still... Keeping up with plug-in updates, WordPress updates and other stuff can take a little time. Not to mention that I have to go to a bunch of different sites in order to write posts or deal with comments... Whatever. A BUNCH of sites.
So I started thinking about WPMU, … (9 comments)
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website: 'Cuz Brad and Bobby SAID SO...
- 11/20/09 11:41 AM
A while back, Brad and/or Bobby Carroll made a VERY valid point about online identity... specifically, having a cohesive design theme throughout your sites.
I've crunched this over for a few months... looking at a few options... and finally started down the path of making several of my sites more complimentary in their design. Now I haven't built myself to the Mike Mueller level of FaceBook Fan Page design, nor the Dakno level of Posterous themeology, but my blog and my site are now almost seamless in their themes.
Posterous is presenting a little more of a problem for me. I … (8 comments)
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website: Edit, Edit, Edit...
- 11/14/09 11:24 AM
I'm making some modifications to another one of my websites... This is when it would be really nice to have a staff like the AR folks to design scripts to convert terms and so forth with the theme change.
But the end product will be worth it.
And yes, this is a tease... Here are some of the ingredients...
I am ready to make a change on my WordPress site... Brad and Bobby Carroll (Dakno Marketing) have made a very good point that sites need to carry a brand identity... I have a LOT of content and I would like … (10 comments)
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website: The Blog Post "Circle of Life"
- 10/29/09 02:19 PM
It all starts with a consumer... a consumer that needs to know the answer to a question. Maybe they have emailed... or asked during a listing presentation... maybe even just mentioned it at a party.
But at the heart there is a question... and a consumer.
Lane, shouldn't we list with the agent that gives us the highest price? We don't want to "give away" our house, we want to get what it is worth...
I was asked that question during a listing presentation... and we had a conversation. After that, I was asked the question a few times in … (4 comments)
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website: Do you think THAT is how you can "earn my business"?
- 10/29/09 08:09 AM
I had a website company call me today... They wanted me to buy into their system. Since I have two closings in the next two business days, my time might be called a little crunched...
So, I asked for the quick version...
Two hours later we were approaching the "what is it going to cost?" question. Two hours is the quick version? I'd hate to think of what the full presentation would be like... I had a time share company pitch me in less than two hours. But lat's get back to the beginning...
When he called, he asked me if … (8 comments)
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website: How often do you unplug?
- 10/04/09 04:15 PM
My answer would be almost never... and constantly.
A couple of times per year I try to break away from the machines and enjoy a little real off-time. Not much... just a few days here and there. Heck, I've been known to work through issues while waiting my turn on the Rockin' Roller Coaster at Disney Studios...
At the same time, I also step out of "business mode" all of the time. I play with the kids, get into the garage... generally spend a little of my day acting retired. of course I make up for that with 2:00am blog writing … (11 comments)
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website: 101 Cars I Must Drive... It's a wrap...
- 09/27/09 02:52 PM
I just completed a 101 post series. In fact, I wrapped it up just about an hour ago. I have been working on it for almost a year... When I started, I was going to "dribble" the posts at random times, but I figured out after a few weeks that I needed to schedule the posts. After that, they were mostly posted on Wednesdays and Sundays. In fact, for the last nine months or so, I have been posting these on LaneBailey.com every Wednesday and Sunday... I haven't had to think very hard about what to post on those days, because … (7 comments)
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website: Minor Tweaks... For Now...
- 09/13/09 04:04 PM
A few days ago I wrote about my overwhelming desire to mess with my blog. I get this from time to time... I just can't help it.
As a hot rodder, I like to tweak things. When my wife sees a nice car, truck or Jeep, I see a platform to make something cooler. When she sees a pile of junk, I still see a platform to make something cooler. No matter what... it is a platform to make something cooler...
My blog is the same. I like it. It is functional. It looks good (I think). It does most of … (4 comments)
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website: It's that time of year again... Let's Tweak my Blog...
- 09/08/09 03:32 PM
I can't help it. Each year, as summer wanes towards fall, I get the itch to mess with my blog. I don't know why... I just can't help it. I like it. I think it is pretty cool, but I just want to mix it up again.
So, because I know that I am really bad at avoiding the compulsion, I know that I have to start looking around at WordPress themes for LaneBailey.com. There are tons of cool themes that are free...
Of course, the other problem is that I also want to make some structural changes to GarageHomesUSA.com. That … (7 comments)
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website: 8 Cool Tools... Avoid Analysis Paralysis... #6
- 08/23/09 03:07 PM
Analysis Paralysis...
If you haven't heard the statement, it is summing up the "Ready, Aim Fire, Aim Fire, Aim" menality. Basically, spending forever making the plan, and then never following through and actually "doing" the plan.
And then...
There is the opposite side of the coin... "Ready, Fire, Aim". That doesn't work, either. You can't do the plan before you make the plan...
But in the middle...
There is a balance where we analyze AND act. And this is about the analytics.
We all have our favorites. I personally like Clicky Analytics for my website. I like the way the … (7 comments)
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website: RSS... another of the 8 Tools for the Coolest Real Estate Agents... #5
- 08/21/09 02:45 PM
RSS... Really Simple Syndication. Rich Site Summary.
Most of us know what it is... but few are really leveraging it to help create business or simplify our lives...
For those that don't know, RSS is a news feed. Basically, by subscribing to a website's RSS feed, each time the site is updated, we will get the new material either emailed to us or in a "Feed Reader".
I guess the easiest place to start would be the "making our lives easier" aspect.
I don't know how many different blogs and sites I read... I admit that I don't read all … (17 comments)
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website: 8 Tools #3A "Sweet Embeddable You"... before
- 08/17/09 04:34 PM
Ok, so if you have been following along, you have seen that you really need both a self-hosted WordPress blog and an Active|Rain RainMaker blog.
You say, "OK there Skippy, now what?"
Well bunky, you need content... GREAT, compelling, addictive content. And you need to present it in a great, compelling and addictive way. Venture out from the wall of words and throw so fun at the wall and see if it sticks.
This post is actually what I call a second level post... it is broken up into bite size chunks that are easier to chew than a straight up … (6 comments)
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website: 8 Tools #3B "Sweet Embeddable You"... after
- 08/17/09 04:26 PM
So, just a moment ago I posted the other half of this blog. I worked VERY hard to make it visually unappealing and kind of boring. I did that on purpose. For a purpose.
You see, there are SO many ways to add rich media to your WordPress and Active|Rain posts.
YouTube (and dozens of other video sharing sites) SlideShare (and some other presentation sharing sites) Flickr (and the other photo sharing sites) MagToo (I don't know of any other panorama sharing sites) Pictures Graphics And most of them are free or nearly free. And they are easy to use.
you … (9 comments)
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I recently subscribed to the Video Connector. It is a cool new service from MY video provider. Tara Jones and TJ Hedges, the folks behind the Video Connector, are friends of mine. they are also the folks I turn to in order to provide video for my listings. 
Get great free widgets at 
;)
;)
;)
