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ActiveRain week in review #1

I thought that it would be kinda cool to do a little recap of different things that happened on ActiveRain and blog themes that seemed to be running through the week. With so many posts getting made and 10-20 being featured each day A LOT of great posts get missed. I'll try to do a "week in review" for the next couple weeks and then like a blog carnival maybe someone else can do it for a week or two.

The week started out on a pretty scary note, when we had a serious hardware failure on our database server very early Sunday morning. This took the ActiveRain offline for most of Sunday, ruined our weekends, and sent many members into ActiveRain withdrawls. Luckily from then on the rest of the week got better, I couldn't have gotten any worse could it...

The best way to review the week is simply to provide links to many of the posts that made the week what it was.

Blog Carnivals:

This week was the inaugural edition of the Carnival of ActiveRain, a blog carnival to feature top blog posts in various categories by ActiveRain bloggers. Thanks again to Maureen and Dmitry for putting in the effort to get this started.

Best Off Topic/Humor Post - Hosted by Maureen Francis & Dmitry Koublitsky

Best Tips and Tricks/Best ActiveRain Community Submission - Hosted by Maureen and Dmitry + Mary Mcknight

Best Industry News Submission - Hosted by Jay Thompson

Best Lender Submission - Hosted By Brian Brady

Best Real Estate Opinion Submission - Hosted by Colleen Kulikowski

There were also two major offsite blog carnivals to note featuring many fine ActiveRain Bloggers...

Halloween Carnival - Scary Real Estate Stories - Hosted by The Real Estate Tomato (offsite)

Weekly Carnival of Real Estate - Hosted by Jim Duncan (offsite)

Regional Consumer Content:

A little less than two weeks ago we launched a new way to catagorize and display blog posts regionally. This in creating a great resource for consumers to find regional information such as market reports written by our members. We put up several posts about this effort The consumer connection, Categorizing posts for the consumer audience, Reaching Out and Your Towns? Results. There's also been some great regional content written by members this week that is worth highlighting.

Cascade Mountains - By Toby Barnett

Let's go shopping in Miami - By Enrique Garcia & Ines Hegedus-Garcia

"The Boatniks" - Life on the Kitsap Peninsula - By Rich Jacobson

Here's the story on Story, Indiana - Cynthia Sloop

Lake County, Florida (Part 1) - By Jason Price

Worthington Ohio - By Maureen McCabe

Life on a Rock... Part 1 (6 part series) - By Kelly Mitchell

Lexington Oaks in Wesley Chapel - By Jeff and Laura Miller

Reasons why people move to Southern Colorado - By Dena Stevens

Colorado Springs & the Pikes Peak Region… All You Need to Know (and more!) - Derek and Mariana Wagner

ok, there is more but I'm tired of copying and pasting links...

More PR and other good things for ActiveRain

Just to toot our own horn...

Write-up about ActiveRain at realtor.org - By ActiveRain

Inman news article uses ActiveRain as a source (again...) - By Matt Heaton

How we parlayed 2 Sales and 3 listing by using Active Rain as a marketing tool! - By Scott Daniels

New Investor Client Because of ActiveRain - By Donna Harris

Active Rainers and Inman News.. (Thank you Matt) - By Christine Forgione

Thank You Active Rain !!!!!!!!!! - By Jay LaGace

Great educational posts

MIAAOR - REAL ESTATE BLOGGING 101 - By Colleen Kulikowski

Real Estate Blogging 101 - How to Get Started - Defining Your Theme - Joe Bartos

How to Add Pictures in Your Blog - Kristal Kraft

Writing effective blog articles - Barry Hurd

Mary McKnights's whole blog

Some other notable posts

As I was going through the featured posts for this week, here are some others that seemed to stick out for one reason or another...

Fear Not Disintermediation; It's Customer Relevance You Should Focus On - By Bill French (stuck out because of how well written out it was for a tech guy :)

Adventures in 1st Time Home Buying: "Do I Need Money to Buy a House?" - By Rich Jacobson (stuck out because if was some of the best presented consumer content I've seen on ActiveRain)

Another Animal Lost to Extinction - By Lisa Dunn (stuck out because it was a very witty and fun post)

Fixing the Traditional Trick-or-Treating Model - By Jonathan Dalton (stuck out because I'm still laughing)

Authentic Living - By Sara Washburn (stuck out because it was a great first blog post, from an ActiveRain co-founders wife)

"No Brokers Fee" or just the old "Bait and Switch" - By Mitchell Hall (stuck out because Craig Newmark stopped by to comment and set things straight)

The Confusion of Predatory Lending........ - By Jeff Belonger (can't remember exactly why it stuck out but I had it in my bookmarks to include)

Even if you don't feel like doing it. Do it anyway! - By Bryant Tutas (stuck out because it inspired me to do something I was putting off)

I'm still working on this loan application - By Brian Brady (stuck out because it was so wity, I wanted to feature it but had just featured two of his other posts a minute earlier)

Don't Volunteer Information to Prospective Buyer - NAR Legal Update - Stephen Scholl (Stuck out because of how asanine legal issues can seem)

Sorry, but A LOT of great blogs and bloggers didn't get mentioned here. There was ONLY 1,240 blog posts made this week and about 110 featured posts to go through, so if you were writting good stuff and didn't get a mention I'll probably catch you next week.

-Matt Heaton (ActiveRain CEO)

Posted by ActiveRain Real Estate Network on 11/06/2006 12:36 PM

Comments (38)

week in review, activerain, blogging

38 Comments on ActiveRain week in review #1

NOV

2006

Thanks for taking the time to write a review. I for one miss alot as I don't have the time to "live" here like I did when I first got started. I missed the carnival for starters. Please keep doing it as I love finding the good stuff and there is a lot here.

Matt,

I really appreciate that you take the time to recognize the contributions of all these folks. And I don't say that just because I'm mentioned along with them. I feel honored to be counted with such esteemed professionals. Thanks for your constant encouragement and support!

yes..thanks for the time. It can't be easy. My head is spinning after reading so many blogs. I just calculated my comments and I am averaging about 17.5 comments a day. lol I think I need to step away from this.... lol

Kristal???/ Kristal??? nah, I don't think it will happen. I wouldn't want KK to lose her bet. lol

Again, thanks for all the hard work that is put into this.

What a great summary of the week's highlights. Thanks!

just curious....not that I am not grateful, but how come I didn't get a "stuck out because....." LOL

Jeff: woops, I gotta think of something wity to add...

NOV

2006

So many blogs, so little time! Thanks for helping to pull out the really great ones so that we can read them. What an addicting pasttime!!!

Matt, what a good idea and thanks for the synposis of all the great posts, I hope this becomes a regular feature, it will be very useful for those busy periods we all go thru, especially with so many new blogs being written each day. Later...

Thanks for the synopsis. It's all too easy to miss some good blogs - for example, I had missed Sara's. It's also good to recap what happening at ActiveRain - where it's mentioned, what changes it's made, where is continuing successes are showing. Thanks for the time to do this for us.

Great post! I hope this is going to be a weekly event.

Wow, Matt! Thanks for pointing us back to some good ones.

The tomato did the choosing in the Off Topic category.

Matt what an effort that was. I guess you just "did it anyway". Excellent summary and you are right there are some very good posts coming out right now. It has definitely stepped up a notch.

Great job everyone. And special thanks to you Matt for taking the time to do this.

Great Review Matt! Sometimes we need to take a step back and look what we are accomplishing.

Wow and I thought I'd paid attention.. I missed some of those and will have to go back and read some. There is a lot of great stuff on Active Rain, lots of good writers, lots of variety.

Matt did an entry back in August that I would love to see updated about traffic stats on Active Rain:

Browsing the traffic statistics
http://activerain.com/blogsview/Browsing-the-traffic-statistics?3841

Thanks for the update. i don't know how you do it. There is so much to read on active rain that I don't know where to start so I start in Minnesota and then move around the country.

Thanks for a great recap of the week! I missed some of those, so will go and find them to read this afternoon. I like having a recap like this.....hope you do it each week! ;-)

Thanks,
Ann Cummings

Thanks for the great information Matt!

We sure appreciate the time you spend and the energy you give to Active Rain. Here is an example of that generosity .THANKS!

Thank you for this weekly review. I bookmarked it for future reference!

Matt-- Great idea! This really is what I need! I have been so busy this week, that I haven't had time to be as good about reading as I want! Now I have some things to review! Once again the evolution here is great! And thanks for the two mentions!!!!!!

Hey guys! Thanks for the Shout Out and thank you or taking the time and effort to compile this!

There is so much good stuff here. I thank everyone for sharing. I wish there was time to read it all. I spend one to two hours a day now.

I think AR is cool. When I talk to other agents I tell them about Ar and ask for their card so I can send them some info.

Jeff B.

Don't feel bad, I didn't get "stuck out because" either.

This is a great idea. It is kind of like the features of the week section. Now, on the weekends I can go back and hit those posts that I may have missed during the week.

Thanks for the great site.

hey Matt..... that wasn't witty....but it was honest.... LOL Thanks

That is without a doubt a collection of great stuff. I like the recap, it makes it easy to catch some of the good ones I may have missed.

Pete Willner
Who Will? Pete Will!

Broker Direct Real Estate
Murrieta, CA.
www.PeteWill.com

NOV

2006

Wow, thanks guys! Actually openend my eyes up to some great new posts as well. Guess I will have to add a few more blogs to my daily required reading.

Is there a way to have a category for these summaries? I can bookmark them, but it would be a nice feature for newbies to use, or another way for me to see blogs I didn't catch the first time around. What a great idea!

Matt, you Rock!!! Thanks for taking the time to put that together!

Matt, you deserve a raise! Great idea, I would have missed some good ones with out your help.

Thanks for the great review. It saved me alot of time looking for the best of the best.

Wow !! Thank you for the Review !! I love to read as much of the blogs as I can...Unfortunately I am not able to keep up with all the blogs.

"By Bill French (stuck out because of how well written out it was for a tech guy :)"

Ha ha - I can't think of a single non-geeky thing to say except thanks, this feels like a huge compliment. ;-)

Thanks for the update Matt...

Very cool update. Lots to catch up on reading..

Nice list, thanks for the update. I like the idea of doing this on a weekly basis. As always keep up the good work!

"Matt"...This is a wonderful idea...My turn to bookmark...I missed a few of these posts...Hard to keep up, I am working on so many projects and the bloggers are typing faster than I can read. BTW, I saw the picture...Can I call you DIVO?...TLW...ROAR!

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