Teresa:

"... I am real concerned about companies making blog platforms and communities just for real estate agents.  Once upon a time the same thing happened with real estate web sites which is why they all look the same and are not as good as most other web sites. <<<

Indeed - you are absoltely right about this and your comment is very insightful. I'm not an expert in real estate and have little historical perspective concerning the industry, but I do see that most every real estate website (especially those provided by a service firm) is a cookie-cutter knock off at some level - where's the innovation?

How do you combat this issue?

At MyST we take this aspect of services very seriously and believe that branding (always baked into our services and pricing) is one way to avoid the cookie cutter look. We also [recently] embarked on new services that provide high degrees of custom (active) components that are also baked into our product and unique to each real estate firm's business blogging objectives. Here are some examples...

• example - notice the embedded quotation block. It was created in 5 seconds for this post and automatically links to a contact page for the realtor.
• example - the MLS search component was added, formatted, positioned in the text and links to the MLS search for this blog post in 3 seconds.
• example - positioning and leveraging photos is a big deal for realtors. This example demonstrates how a custom image can be sized, captioned, linked, and formatting in a post in about 10 seconds.
• example - this example is more subtle - note the Featured Real Estate Developments navigation section on the upper right of the blogsite. This section is not created or managed manually - it happens automagically when the author tags a post. This additional meta-data about the real estate development allows this author to shape content services relative to her own real estate offerings. The automatic links achieve many things including better useability for the visitors as well as deeper understanding of the content by search engines. You may have heard of a Blogroll? This is a smart "PropertyRoll" - smart in a sense that it doesn't polute the blogsite with links that are irrelevant and only displays those links when appropriate.

These are just a few of the examples that we believe are important to provide unique services to our customers and necessary to avoid the cookie-cutter solution.

>>> Real estate professionals will sign up becuase they don'e know any better and instead of being leading edge like we are today we will be pathetic like we are today. <<<

There is clear evidence that many real estate blogs are heading in exactly that direction, but you must also accept the fact that not everyone can afford to have a completely customized blogsite. This is one reason our services are considered "expensive". In fact, they aren't, but the perception is that most people can do all this stuff on their own.

But like many other things in business, some business people choose to employ cheaper services - that's not necessarily bad. Some agents drive their clients around in a Lexus - others choose to do that with a first edition Ford Focus (great car - no disrespect intended). Are some of them choosing to transport their prospects in a pathetic automobile? Perhaps - certainly by my standards it's pathetic. ;-) But the same can be said about all technology choices.

Maureen -

Real Living is not using these features because they are still being tested and evaluated with search engines. We have a very small beta test program on these at the moment. However, Real Living is using a different sort of capability that is relevant to the comment - a seamless integration between their blogsite and their press room on their corporate site.

Essentially, automatic blog posts are written for every press release they publish - no humans are involved in that process - just another thing we do to help businesses get more value and greater benefit when they use Real Estate Blogsites. And the value is apparent - notice how their Blogsite and website dominate search results for Onboard LLC (a recent press story). While theior corporate press room doesn't rank for a recent story about podcasts, their blogsite is #2.

bf

Maureen -

I want to thank you for your comments above - your open-mindedness is truly appreciated. We understand and agree that Real Estate Blogsites (REB's solution) is not ideally suited for *every* real estate business, and it's refreshing to be able to engage in debate about what is ideal for specific situations.

While there are many blogging solutions available - some free, others much more expensive - each business must consider the true cost. In my view, there are costs even with free solutions, so you just have to weigh those costs with your business objectives and resource constraints.

Thanks again, bf.