The Official ActiveRain Blog

Free Social Media Marketing Training for Real Estate Professionals

ActiveRain Corp. — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:35:39 -0500

The anchor of any good social media strategy is your blog. Sites like Facebook and Twitter extend your reach to a significant number of people, but what you deliver to them once you have their attention is still key to marketing success.

ActiveRain has recently invested in a pilot program with a mission of improving the real estate industry through one-on-one personal training. Register below and let us show you how to build the blog that will help expand your business. Our hope is that if you find the training valuable, you will pass on what you learn to your associates.

Sign up for Non-Rainmaker Account Training

ActiveRain Corp. — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 23:58:15 -0500

ActiveRain Announces Automatic Signatures on Your Blog

ActiveRain Corp. — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 13:06:27 -0500

Via Jeremy Blanton (ActiveRain Corp.):

Today is an exciting day for ActiveRain as we release a great new feature. As of today, you now have the ability to add a signature line to all of your blog posts automatically! Many of our members have the same tagline or image that they like to use on each & every blog post. With this new feature, you are able to create your own custom signature line that will automatically appear on every post you write.

How It Works

You will write your signature/tagline/footer once & save it. Then whenever you post something new to your blog, it will appear at the bottom of that post. You can place all of your about me information as well as any other buttons, icons, or custom signature pictures that you may use into this block. It will save you lots of time.

Before, to add your custom signature, you would have to copy & paste the signature from an old post into the new one. And if you used something containing HTML, the process was even more laborious. All of that work has been simplified into one easy step now.

How to Set Up Your Signature

Start by logging into your account. Then, click on the Settings tab along the left side. You will then scroll down to the signature box that will look similar to this:

Fill in the signature box with whatever information you wish to have shown in your signature. Remember, whatever information you place in this box will be shown on ALL of your posts. So take that into consideration when placing the information in this box. You do not want to put something like "for more information on this listing, contact me" because all your blog posts are not listings. This box allows you to insert HTML codes, images, & links along with your content, so be sure to take full advantage of these.

On the other hand, DO NOT ABUSE THE SIGNATURE! If you place too many graphics & videos & paragraphs upon paragraphs of information with links, you will slow down the loading speed of your blog. Also, if your signature lines are 3 times the length of your posts, then consumers will be turned off. They visit your blog for information & quality content. If instead of finding bunches of content they only find small bits followed by giant signatures, they will lose interest in your blog & move onto someone else.

Once you have filled in the signature box with the information, be sure to click the update button below. If not, your new signature masterpiece will not be saved & will not show up when you visit your blog to preview.

The Final Result?

After clicking update, visit your blog & see your new work of art. I hope that our members are as excited about this new feature as I am! Please do me a favor, after setting up your own custom signature, stop back by this post & leave a comment witha link to yours so we can all view the new masterpieces.

Here is mine:

How To Backup and Export Your Blog Posts - ActiveRain NEW Feature

ActiveRain Corp. — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 13:05:53 -0500

Via Brad Andersohn ~ Community Builder (ActiveRain):

How To Backup and Export Your Blog Posts - ActiveRain NEW Feature

On August 18 @ noon CST, we launched the ability for members to export all of their blog entries to a single, compressed XML file. Its open nature will allow for the development of third-party import tools.

Exporting your posts from ActiveRain has been a long awaited feature that is now available to all members. The format is XML and can be manipulated in many different ways which I'll demonstrate in future posts. Special thanks to our tech team for making this possible. This new feature will allow you to backup and export your Blog posts with a single click.

The first thing you are probably asking yourself is what the heck is XML? Read more at XML.com

Here are the simple steps to download your ActiveRain Blog File

Step 1:
Log in to ActiveRain

Step 2:
Click on your "My Home" link in the upper right hand corner of your screen

Step 3:
Scroll to the bottom of the screen and click on the link "Export Blog Entries"

Note: Depending on what computer you are running (IE: Mac, PC) and what operating system, the next window that pops up may appear slightly different, but it will be the same principle. You are saving a file to a specified location on your computer.

Step 4:
The pop-up window below will appear. Select "Save File" to your desktop, and click OK.

Step 5:
You will have a zipped or compressed file on your desktop containing the XML file with all your Blog entries.

(if file is not on desktop, check the location you saved it to, often times it will default to your "Downloads" folder located in your "My Computer" folder.)

Step 6:
When you "Double Click" on the zipped file, it will extract the .XML file to your desktop

Step 7:
To open and view this file, or to use with any XML compatible formats and programs, right click your mouse on it and select the program you wish to open it in. For this example, I am going to use a simple text editor application on my computer called TEXT EDIT.

Step 8:
You can now see the XML format of your entire ActiveRain Blog.

Now don't go passing out on me (LOL~) understand that XML formats are a complex and more complicated format than most of us are used to working with or seeing, however, there will be a multitude of ways that this data can be used by other programs and sources. You cannot hurt your ActiveRain Blog by messing around and experimenting with this file. It is already exported from AR to your computer and will not affect your AR blog in any way. You have now successfully downloaded and backed up your entire ActiveRain Blog and every post in it.

I'll try and post some more advanced information on ways this can be used in the near future, but for now, at least you know how to access and download it to your computer. Baby steps, just baby steps before we show you how to run the 100 yard dash with it. I'm sure there will be many questions, and ideas generated by this post, so please feel free to leave your comments and thoughts. I'll do my best to get your questions answered in an accurate and timely manner.

Link to be added to all posts going to an outside blog

ActiveRain Corp. — Fri, 22 May 2009 17:21:40 -0500

Starting today at 12pm Pacific Time, every time you post a blog on ActiveRain and you also send it to your Raindexed Blog (outside blog), a link will be attached to the bottom of the blog post. The link will say 'Originally posted on (name of blog): (title of post)'

This is designed to show the Search engines the authority source of your content, that being the post on your custom domain Raindex Blog. This will help the search engines start to move from indexing the post on your ActiveRain blog and give a higher probability they will index it on your Raindex Blog (if you have one and you posted your post out there of course)

It's also just a great link out to your Raindexed (outside) blog for all posts on ActiveRain that have been syndicated there.

Points System Patches & Changes

ActiveRain Corp. — Tue, 12 May 2009 16:25:31 -0500

After a few weeks of glitches in our points system, we have finally been able to repair most of the major glitches. Points should now be working close to 100%. There still is one minor issue that we are aware of and need your assistance in correcting. It appears that if you go back and edit posts that have previously been published that the system is deducting points from your total. We are working hard to correct this issue but need detailed examples to get this issue fully solved. If you have an exact example please post in the comment section below in detail to assist our developers in correcting this issue.

The major loophole that was allowing some people to post more than 10 posts in a week and receive points for all posts has been closed. It is now back to 10 posts per week, 10 comments per day with 200 points awarded for posts and an additional 25 points if you put it in a channel and 25 points per comment left.

One major change that has taken place is the schedule for posts. The posting week now starts at Monday at 12:00:00am and ends Sunday at 11:59:59pm.

If you are experiencing the glitch above please post in the comment section below. Also, please do not flood this post with amount of points you have lost over the past few weeks. Those comments will be deleted to keep this post as clean as possible for our developers to track the issue and resolve. If you did experience the loss of points, use the Contact ActiveRain at the bottom of this post. Please be patient if you submit a ticket regarding lost points and condense your list to one ticket. If multiple tickets are submitted it will slow down the response time for not only this issue but other crucial parts of the network.

Thanks to everyone for your patience during this time and continued great contributions to ActiveRain!

Happy April Fools Day

ActiveRain Corp. — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 22:45:55 -0500

How many times did you end up here?

more than once I hope......hahaha!

A Moment of Silence in the Rain: Community Member dies in tragic auto accident

ActiveRain Corp. — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 00:30:10 -0600

Earlier today we received the sobering news that one of our community members has recently died in a tragic auto accident.

Mohamed Mekhimar, an agent with RE/MAX Commonwealth in Richmond VA died early Monday, Jan. 19, in an automobile crash on Pole Green Road, near the Mechanicsville Turnpike.

According to sources at the Hanover County Sheriff’s Office, Mohamed Mekhimar was killed around 5:50am when his 2005 Honda CRV ran off the right shoulder and struck a utility pole. He was pronounced dead at the scene. No other vehicles were involved in the crash, speed was not a factor, and he was wearing his seat belt.

Mohamed joined ActiveRain in early August of 2006 and quickly achieved the Featured Agent status for Richmond VA.

Our deepest condolences and sympathies go out to his family and friends.

ActiveRain Unveils the New Localism

ActiveRain Corp. — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 02:53:08 -0500

Today, Active Rain unveils the New and totally revamped Localism, "The World's Most Complete Neighborpedia," with new content, features and design!

The New Localism

ActiveRain, real estate's leading online community, has released a dramatically updated version of its Localism neighborhood portal, where local residents, potential residents, and area merchants connect. Billed as the "World's Most Complete Neighborpedia," Localism already contains over 200,000 articles and photos. The site opened up to contributions from ActiveRain members today and will be accepting contributions from other local merchants and consumers beginning in August.

"No one has captured the essence and flavor of local communities online on a large scale," said Jonathan Washburn, CEO of Active Rain. "All the data points, pie charts, graphs and widgets in the world can't tell the complete story of a place. It takes content from the people who live and work there – which we have in abundance – to bring things to life. There are plenty of local review sites out there, but we're going beyond that to capture the full range of things that make communities unique."

The site, which covers the entire United States, allows users to go well beyond the typical city or ZIP code level to explore specific niche communities. Moreover, Localism manages to the avoid the proverbial "chicken and egg" dilemma that many who have attempted to enter this space have faced, due to its vast store of existing content and already impressive search engine performance, which helped deliver over 280,000 visits in June.

Key Attributes

Some of the key attributes to Localism include:

"Top Neighbors". The top content contributors for each neighborhood are ranked and displayed as the "Top Neighbors" for their community.

Unique photographs. Localism features over 100,000 photos of communities that cannot be found on any other site.

Human editorial involvement. ActiveRain editors will manually review every single article to ensure that they add value to their intended community and audience.

Community sponsorships. Real estate professionals and other business people may purchase sponsorships of one or more communities within Localism for a small monthly fee.

"Our growing Active Rain community of over 95,000 real estate professionals knows America's communities down to the last speed bump and corner store," said ActiveRain community evangelist Bob Stewart. "Their collective knowledge provides us with a tremendous jump start in providing relevant, useful information and will be built upon by the contributions of consumers and merchants nationwide."

"Localism converges art and function, consumer and professional, neighbor and seeker," concludes Washburn. "This space has seen its share of failures and we've taken those to heart in creating a destination that includes all the key elements needed for true online community."

About ActiveRain

Active Rain is a real estate technology company based in the Pacific Northwest founded in 2003. The company launched its online community for real estate professionals in June of 2006 and quickly established it as the leading real estate social network. The community currently has over 95,000 members. The company released Localism in beta in 2007. The company, which has just nine employees, secured $2.75 million in funding in December of 2007.

Makeover2Takeover Contest Update

ActiveRain Corp. — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 10:14:42 -0500

If you've just crawled out from underneath a rock, or spent the last 6 weeks living in a cave, then you probably aren't aware of the current ActiveRain Event of the Year - the Makeover2Takeover Team Competition!

Here's a quick refresher course if you haven't been following our Weekly Challenges:

Whether your Real Estate career has just begun, or is in dire needed a complete overhaul, here's your chance!

Think "Top Chef," less the cooking.

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

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

The Contest is simple: We selected 16 'Makeover' Teams, each comprised of one (1) seasoned real estate veteran (Mentor), and their chosen apprentice. Over the course of this 8 week adventure (leading up to the 2008 SF Inman Connect), the Mentor/Apprentices (M2T Teams) are facing a series of weekly challenges, aimed specifically at developing the apprentice's image/abilities as a top performing real estate agent.

The mentors and apprentices are chronicling their experiences on the official 'MakeoverToTakeover' blog.

Competition Began: Friday, May 16th

Competition Ends: The 3rd week of July. The Winning Team will be announced at Inman's SF Blogger's Connect 2008

Weekly Challenges: Each week the Teams have been facing difficult elimination challenges designed to develop and hone the Apprentice's professional skills, and to test the Mentor's ability to teach/guide the Apprentice.

ActiveRain Members can view the Weekly Challenge Results on the official 'Makerover2Takeover' blog.

Judging Criteria: Each week, when that weeks challenge is announced, judging criteria will be spelled out. Our panel of distinguished Judges will score each Team based on that criteria.

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

At the end of 5 weeks of competitive elimination challenges, only 8 Teams remain:

The Huntsville Duo - Kimberly Grant & Elizabeth Ramsey Cooper

Team Tex/LA - Liz Carter & Josh Lazaro

The KW Dynamic Divas - Darleen McCullen & Penny Robinson

The DREAMWEAVERS - Debra Brooks & Melissa Grant

Team Manna - Desiree Daniels & Brian Block

The SF Bay Area Duo - Hank Perry & Vickie Nagy

The Next Evolution - Midori Miller & Jeannete Neerpat

Caulk Wood, Bonding for Success - Missy Caulk & Kim Wood

Makeover2Takeover Competition: Week Two Challenge Results

ActiveRain Corp. — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 14:04:43 -0500

Well, another week of heated competition has gone by, and the cream of our Teams is rising to the Top! We had 15 Teams remaining going into last week's Challenge. Today, one Team will be announced the Weekly Winner, and Two Teams will be sent home.

(To find out all the details on the Week Two Challenge, GO HERE)

In a nutshell, our M2T Teams were instructed to create a 'Pre-Listing' package that could be transmitted entirely in digital format by email. Their entries were judged on aesthetics, organization, general content, and creativity/resourcefulness.

Once again, though we find many of the Teams running neck-and-neck, only one can be crowned the Weekly winner.....

~ o ~ o ~ o ~ o ~ o ~

And so, without any further gilding of the Lily....

Let's get the Bad News over with first, shall we?

The Makeover2Takeover Teams to be eliminated from competition this week are the Teams of "MFour" - Maureen Francis & Karen Moorhead, and Dawn Workman & Chelsea Miller. Once again, Ladies, thank you for your participation and effort. We will be awarding each of you points for your involvement, as well as a token of our appreciation to follow later.

~ o ~ o ~ o ~ o ~ o ~

And now, for the winner of the Week One Challenge.....drumroll, please!

The Team to win the Week Two Challenge is the Team "Next Evolution" - Apprentice Jeanette Neerpat and Mentor Midori Miller!

Congratulations, Jeanette and Midori!

And to all the other Team Contestants, congratulations as well. you're onto the Week Three Challenge which will be announced later today!

For all the members of ActiveRain, make sure to voice your words of encouragement and appreciation to all the Makeover2Takeover Teams!

ActiveRain is broken tomorrow!!

ActiveRain Corp. — Thu, 22 May 2008 18:59:36 -0500

Tomorrow morning when you wake up, our site will probably have a bunch of bugs.

Now that we have the bad news out of the way.............how about some great news! The site should be twice as fast because we are going to have twice as much computing power behind it. Tonight, we will be transitioning the site to all new, state-of-the-art servers. This will be the final step of a six month process where we have invested time and resources to bring stability and speed to ActiveRain.

This doesn't mean we are going to stop here because ActiveRain is quickly growing. We will no doubt start our next round of performance enhancements soon as it's a never ending cycle for a rapidly growing site.

The Details:

ActiveRain will be taken offline tonight at Midnight Pacific Standard Time and will be down for at least five hours. This is a MAJOR undertaking and some components are very difficult to test in a staging environment so we do expect a fair amount of bugs.

As you encounter bugs tomorrow, please use the 'Contact ActiveRain' link at the bottom of any page to report the issue. The more thorough you are in reporting the bug, the more quickly we can remedy the situation. In reporting your issue, please include what browser type and version you are using.

We want to apologize in advance for the inconvenience this may cause you.

Godspeed,

SS ActiveRain

"Makeover2Takeover" Week One Challenge

ActiveRain Corp. — Mon, 19 May 2008 09:03:16 -0500

Let the Games Begin!

Today marks the official start of our 'Makeover2Takeover' Team Contest Event.

To follow all the weekly 'Happenings,' be sure to the join the 'Makeover2Takeover Group.

The field of 16 Teams, comprised of both seasoned Real Estate veterans (Mentors) and their eager Apprentices, will face weekly elimination challenges leading up to the 2008 Inman SF Connect, where only 3 Teams will remain, and the Last Team standing will be crowned the Winner!

It's only been a few days since the list of official Teams were made public, but the fun-spirited boasting and competitive 'taunting' has already begun in earnest. No doubt, the competition promises to be extremely intense and highly entertaining! Top Chef, pack your Knives, because here comes the "Makeover2Takeover" Teams!

~ o ~ o ~ o ~ o ~ o ~

WEEK ONE CHALLENGE

One of the most basic and fundamental elements/tools of a highly successful real estate professional is a database. A well organized and consistently updated database serves to focus our energies, determine our daily tasks, and provide measurable results. Some refer to their database as the SOI (Sphere of Influence), but most see their database as incorporating much, much, more. A good database can make or break your business. It stops you from always being re-active, and instead, makes you pro-active.

It's up to each individual Team to determine how they will organize, categorize, and implement their database. A big part of this competition is for the Mentors/Apprentices to think outside the proverbial box, be resourceful, and creative. We will allow the Teams to determine the full depth and scope of their database.

One good piece of advice in creating your database is to "Begin with the End in Mind." Where will this database, and its implementation take you. Where will you ultimately arrive? What will your life/business look like? And remember, keep your own unique market in mind as you create/organize/implement your database. Who are you reaching now, who do you want to target for the future? How will you do this? You have past and current clients. How do you keep track of them? How do you build them into a referral network?

THE WEEK ONE CHALLENGE WILL REQUIRE OUR TEAMS TO SUCCESSFULLY ACCOMPLISH THE FOLLOWING:

1. Identify/select a database program/software/platform along with a brief explanation why it was selected.

2. Write a typed 2-page thesis (double-spaced) on the value (why) of an agent database and how you plan to utilize it. Be sure to include any research references.

3. Provide an outline of the various fields/channels/categories/events/goals/tasks/that your database will contain. What kind of contacts will you input? What specific information about each contact will you include?

4. Submit a single page copy of one of your database entries.

All assignments/documentation shall be scanned & converted to .pdf file format, and e-mailed to rich@activerain.com

Any problems, issues, or questions, please contact Rich by e-mail or phone at 360.440.4758.

(Food for Thought: Do you Farm? Do you market to a very narrow, specialize niche market? How do you 'touch' them regularly?)

(Word to the Wise: Teams are encouraged to continue working on their databases throughout the competition)

(Stay Out of Jail: Just a reminder, all work and effort must be performed completely by the respective Team members only. Also remember, the fruit of your labor and your positive attitudes will serve as a shining inspiration to those who would follow in your footsteps!)

CLARIFICATION: The Teams will only turn in the required assignments/documentation for the Apprentice ONLY. The Weekly Challenges, while performed by both Mentors & Apprentices collectively, only need to be submitted as they apply to the Apprentice.

The Week One Challenge is due by 3PM (PST) Sunday May 25th. The Teams that will move onto the next Round, as well as the Team who has been eliminated, will be announced at Noon, Monday May 26th (PST) by vLog on the AR Official Blog.

~ Best of Luck to all the Teams! ~

"Makeover2Takeover" Teams Announced!

ActiveRain Corp. — Sun, 18 May 2008 02:18:56 -0500

Okay, so here's the news that you all have been patiently waiting for - the announcement of which Teams have made the cut to compete in the upcoming 'Makeover2Takeover' Contest.

We had some great responses to this event, making the decision of narrowing the field to 16 teams a very challenging task. But we feel confident that these Teams represent the best selections based on the applications that were received.

Drum roll, please!..........

The Teams chosen to participate in ActiveRain's 2008 "Makeove2Takeover" Competition are as follows:

Mentor: Maureen Francis of SKBK Sotheby's International Realty, Wayne County, MI

Apprentice: Karen Moorhead of Keller Williams Realty, Ann Arbor, MI

Mentor: Tina Merritt of Long & Foster Oceanfront, Virginia Beach, VA

Apprentice: Myra Spano of Long & Foster Oceanfront, Virginia Beach, VA

Mentor: Kimberly Grant of Exit Leon Crawford Realty, Huntsvilee, AL

Apprentice: Elizabeth Ramsey Cooper of RE/MAX Huntsville/Madison, AL

Mentor: Darleen McCullen of Keller Williams North Raleigh, NC

Apprentice: Penny Robinson of Keller Williams North Raleigh, NC

Mentor: Debra Brooks of Brooks Prime Properties, Huntsville, TX

Apprentice: Melissa Grant of Third Tennessee Realty, Crossville, TN

Mentor: Diane Aurit of RE/MAX at the Lake, Mooresville, NC

Apprentice: Heather Hosegood of RE/MAX at the Lake, Mooresville, NC

Mentor: Catarina Bannier of Evers & Company, Washington, D.C.

Apprentice: Patricia Kennedy of Evers & Company, Washington, D.C.

Mentor: Liz Carter of Liz Carter & Team Realty, Katy, TX

Apprentice: Josh Lazaro of Prudential Gardner Realtors, Metairie, LA

Mentor: Connie Harvey of Prudential Woodmont, Nashville, TN

Apprentice: Emily Lowe of Prudential Woodmont, Nashville, TN

Mentor: Dawn Workman of DPR Realty, Ahwatukee, AZ

Apprentice: Chelsea Miller of DPR Realty, Ahwatukee, AZ

Mentor: Midori Miller of Century 21 Sundance, Daytona Beach, FL

Apprentice: Jeannete Neerpat of London Realty Corp., Coral Springs, FL

Mentor: Hank Perry of Empire Realty Associates, Danville, CA

Apprentice: Vickie Nagy of Empire Realty Associates, Danville, CA

Mentor: Jessica Horton of Brio Realty, Bellevue, WA

Apprentice: Ann Casey of Brio Realty, Bothell, WA

Mentor: Missy Caulk of Keller Williams, Ann Arbor, MI

Apprentice: Kim Wood of RE/MAX Main Line, West Chester, PA

Mentor: Desiree Daniels of RE/MAX Tri-County, Robbinsville, NJ

Apprentice: Brian Block of RE/MAX Allegiance, Alexandria, VA

Mentor: Margaret Woda of RE/MAX Vision, Crofton, MD

Apprentice: Karen Luke of Keller Williams, Stockbridge, GA

The first Team challenge will be announced shortly. Best of Luck to all the Teams!

UPDATE: There was an oversight in our application review. One of the Team entries was misplaced during the selection process. Based upon the merits of their application, they would have easily made the cut. So, rather than drop one of the Teams, out of fairness, we are going to increase the field to 16 Teams. We have added them to our list.

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

ActiveRain Corp. — Sun, 11 May 2008 14:51:20 -0500

Whether your Real Estate career has just begun,

or is in dire needed a complete overhaul,

here's your chance!

Think "Top Chef," less the cooking.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Competition Begins: Friday, May 16th

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

Judging: Each week the contestants will be given challenges for that week. Our panel of judges will review the contestants entries for each competition and in true 'reality' show fashion, teams will be eliminated each week.

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

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

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

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

* * * * * * * * * * * *

UPDATE: We are extending the deadline for Team Submissions until Midnight (PST) Wednesday, May 14th. We have had a good turnout of applications so far, but in talking with a number of our members, we felt additional time was needed to allow some further entries. The competing Teams will be announced later in the week. If anyone is looking for a Mentor or an Apprentice, you can pair up at the Makeover2Takeover Group. Best of Luck!

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

ActiveRain Corp. — Sat, 10 May 2008 02:19:27 -0500

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

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

~jon

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

ActiveRain Corp. — Fri, 09 May 2008 10:56:52 -0500

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

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

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

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

EDITED:

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

Scheduled ActiveRain Downtime - Please spread the word

ActiveRain Corp. — Wed, 07 May 2008 23:26:29 -0500

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

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

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

Thank you everyone!

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

ActiveRain Corp. — Tue, 06 May 2008 00:57:47 -0500

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

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

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

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

Well, without any further adieu....

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rich Jacobson, ActiveRain Community Builder/Social Media Guy

ActiveRain Hosts "Carnival of Real Estate!"

ActiveRain Corp. — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 02:26:25 -0500

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

What is a Blog Carnival?

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

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

How to Submit a Post

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

Blog Carnival Submission

Please include:

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

Common Carnival Questions

Q. What are the requirements for submitting?

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

Q. How recent does the post need to be?

A. Less than two weeks old

Q. What topics are allowed?

A. Anything related to the real estate industry.

Q. What is the deadline for submitting?

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

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

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

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

A. No, please only submit one entry.

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

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

"And What do they win, Jay?"

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

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

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

UPDATE: The winners have just been ANNOUNCED!

Technical Difficulties

ActiveRain Corp. — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 11:06:32 -0500

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

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

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

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

ActiveRain Point Scoring System Update

ActiveRain Corp. — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 03:12:56 -0500

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

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

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

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

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

~ The ActiveRain Staff ~

New Feature - the "Help/FAQ" Tab

ActiveRain Corp. — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 00:53:02 -0500

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

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

Here is the purpose/vision for this group:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rich Jacobson, Community Builder

"What is a Referral?" - Proper Use of the ActiveRain Referral Network

ActiveRain Corp. — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 00:42:19 -0500

Well, it seems as though we've had a 'Failure to Communicate' moment here in the Rain (Gee, fancy that!).

There appears to have been a difference of opinion as to what constitutes a 'referral' in real estate terms.

We've had a significant number of members contact us, voicing their frustration with our 'Referral Exchange' feature. Evidently, people who have been accessing this feature, and responding to their Referral Alerts, discover that the referrals really aren't referrals. Confusing, I know!

For the sake of clarity, to ensure the value/integrity of this feature, and so that everyone using this feature is on the same page, we have recently added the following language to the Referral Exchange Main Page:

"The Referral Exchange is the place for members to effectively pass/share client referrals with one another. A referral is a 'live' client contact, someone who is seriously considering either buying or selling a home in the near future. The Referral Network IS NOT a place to advertise your listings, promote your development, or solicit 'potential' referral partners for some unknown possibility down the road. It is ONLY for members to share/pass actual 'live' clients who need a real estate professional to assist them now."

We hope this serves to adequately dispel any doubts or questions as to the definition of a 'referral.' In the future, anything posted to the Referral Exchange that does not meet this definition will be removed.

As always, we greatly appreciate the valued input of our vested members. This is YOUR community, and it exists to provide meaningful benefit to your business.

Rich Jacobson, ActiveRain Community Builder

Bug in Blog editing

ActiveRain Corp. — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 13:42:48 -0600

Everyone,

We have a tricky little bug in our blog editing function right now. Basically, if you post a blog and assign it to the 'for professionals' and 'for consumer' categories, then try to come back and edit the post, those check marks are stripped off the post.

In addition, you are unable to change the groups to which your post gets submitted. So if you put it in one group (or five) then try to come back and add additional groups or change the existing groups, you will get (or have gotten) an error message.

For those that have been featured, if you attempt to edit a featured post, it will strip your post of the feature.

There is also a bug in uploading pictures to Localism that we have fixed on the staging server and will be releasing the fix on tonight.

I'm very sorry for the inconvenience and we are working on the issues and hope to have a build up tonight that will remedy these. So if you were thinking about editing your post, maybe you should go watch Teresa and Ardell talk about how they use their blog to generate great clients. It's the featured video when you are logged in on the home page right now. It's a little lengthy but it gives you an awesome idea of the potential power of your blog :-)

(hmmm.......is that all of them I know about right now? I think so..........)

Bob