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New blog categories and regional blog display

About 3:00 am PST the proposed blog category changes went into effect. Instead of the previous 5 categories there are two main categories, "For Real Estate Professionals" and "For Consumers" each with a set of sub categories. This new category system is to help people efficiently find the posts they want to read as the amount of posts made by our members grow.

For real estate professionals and sub categories:

For Consumers and sub categories:

It's important to note that you do NOT have to add a post to a category or a sub category for it to be publicly visible on the site. If you don't feel it fits into any of the categories, don't feel obligated to add it to one.

Possibly even a bigger change than simply the new category system, is we've added a way to view the consumer posts easily by region (state/county/city). If you click on one of the states from the main page on ActiveRain.com you will notice a set of links on every state/county/city page that link off to regionally categorized posts about that location. For example take a look at the regional page for Seattle, WA. Most of the sections on the page currently don't have content, but as people add consumer targeted posts for that region these sections will fill up.

These regional pages represent the first step in a large project we are undertaking to better display member content to consumers and will continue to improve over time.

-Matt Heaton (ActiveRain CEO)

Posted by ActiveRain Real Estate Network on 10/21/2006 01:50 PM

Comments (24)

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24 Comments on New blog categories and regional blog display

OCT

2006

nice !

Ray Saenz

Great start for the consumer sites. Thanks!

I have hesitated to post up listings and localized information, fearing that it would clog up the system and further contribute to more meaningful posts being buried.

Am I in error?

Roberta: Please post localized information, just make sure to categorize it properly. Regional information that is meant for buyers and sellers should NOT be added to the category "For Real Estate Professionals" As long as it's properly categorized it's easy to filter out as a viewer.

To The RainGods:

I like this...This is problem solving in action...Big time!

I have one question, should we re-post old posts under the correct category or will that drive everyone crazy?

I would like to place some of my posts in more fitting catergories...Such as the Sunday Series?

TLW "The Lovely Wife"...Kum La Ka Lakka...ROAR!

TLW: If you want to go back and recategorize posts you can, but seems like a lot of work. I'm not going to do it with my own posts. It doesn't effect their ability to be viewed as anything that previously was marked as "For real estate professionals" still is, and still shows up under that category.

Thank you...I will leave well enough alone then.

The MAIN reason for these category changes is we need better ways to sort consumer content. Is this post about living in a certain city where most of the information won't get stale over time vs. a market report where 2 months later the information is out of date.

I'm sure this was a TON of work! Thanks for setting this up this way. I, too, had been a bit reluctant to post more consumer & area info, but I will as I like the new categories better for this. And I really like the regional categories for consumers.

Thanks!

Ann Cummings
www.AnnCummings.com

Great -

Now we have to hope that people will pick the correct catagory when they post!

Thanks!

As a frequent reader and soon to be blogger, I just wanted to say "thanks" Matt for the constant improvements. I've already made some excellent contacts thru Active Rain and will be adding my own contributions as soon as I have time.

With it divided up like that it should make get statistics very easy. Should help quite a bit for seo purposes as well. I'm curious to see what kind of feedback you get and if consumer visits increase. -Charles

I also wondered how to post listings. thanks

OCT

2006

Matt,

Great stuff, as usual. What an amazing ride we're on, and we have you and your staff to thank for it!

Terrific set up! thanks!

I like it! I love the organization. Thanks.

Is there going to be the ability to click multiple radio buttons wersus just one in each section?

OCT

2006

I have posted this on the other blog subject from AR that came out a few minutes after this one. Maybe this is a better location but maybe different people in the community will view it over here and comment/share their ideas about a solution for this.

I would like the option to select all regions or selected regions and not just one region for a post. Sorry if this is a logistical nightmare but we are fairly close to the Missouri border where we are at in Lawrence Kansas so buyers in Kansas City Missouri may be interested in getting out of the city and commuting from Lawrence Kansas. How can we mark multiple regions for situations like this?

I originally posted this blog on the other blog:

Thanks for the great improvement in the categories. I am new to your website so please excuse me if I am missing something.

Is there anything in the works for addressing listings that are in one geographical area but you want investors or buyers from all parts of the globe to know about the listings?

My listings are going to be in Kansas but the buyer may be from California. I don't want to limit the geographical area of the listing by checking the Kansas box since other states and even other counties and cities will miss the post if it is too pigeon-holed to just Kansas or just Lawrence Kansas.

The same goes for my blogs about local financing since a buyer from California who wants to buy a home in Lawrence Kansas should be able to see my posts so they can know what to expect regarding local financing options. For now, I am not using the region boxes until I understand the sorting process better.

NOV

2006

Matt

As usual, stellar job! Like others, I appreciate the efforts to improve the appeal and functioning of the site. Over the last few days, I have been wrestling with a question that I still haven't quite been able to finish completely.

There is a complete range of experience and interest by agents from all over the country. As is evidenced by some of the posts and comments, there is a strong desire to learn and to mentor. I have been trying to figure out a way to make a recommendation that would facilitate this.

The forum offers one frame of reference, but is dominated by specific issues and, only occasionally well written posts. When you follow the threads of the AR featured posts, the posts and comments, in general, have a more considered, interesting read. I, personally and maybe a few others, can't invest the time to track the regular posts and the forum.

What I would like to see is an ability to segregate featured posts into an additional real estate industry experience/subject category where it is also viewed as a training/mentoring tool and allow others to weigh in with additional questions/observations. Perhaps members could self select their posts to go into this pool, but I don't want it to become watered down by 2-liners making their 200 points. There are times when I would like more data on specific topics, say advertising, and would like to be able to easily glean out all featured posts that dwelt on same. I just don't know if there is a meaningful/practical way to do this, but without categorization, many of these featured posts are simply not retrievable in a simple, timely way. They have their moment of a few days of review and then are overcome by the deluge of new posts. Yes, I can bookmark, but I may not have that question at that time.

For the moment (probably a senior one...), I can't think of a better way to do this. In the long run, I think it will attract additional agents to be active on AR.

On another topic, I still think reducing the scored comments to 5 a day was not necessarily helpful. People spend time creating and writing about ideas and issues. The satisfaction of the completed work is good, but not as good as the opportunity to share and exchange views. I agree with your concerns about the limited value comment posts, but havn't come up with any useful suggestions. I don't think AR's are going to spend much time or energy policing or critiquing a short comment post, but with a greater number of scored comment posts, my un-scientific reaction is that more posts were getting read.

Thanks again for the efforts to keep this site moving forward.