ActiveRain - The Early Days (July 11-15)

This is week two of our stroll through ActiveRain's Blog Archives...

Above are some of the "Faces of ActiveRain" that make up the community, contribute and share their knowledge!  (Hover over each thumbnail photo to see their name.  Each one is mentioned in this post.)

7/11/06 -

After being inspired by a post Kristal Kraft wrote in which she mentions the mistake some blogging newbies make in stuffing keywords into the tags section, technology strategist Jason Ungos wrote a post on "Blogging and Tagging Effectively" -- well worth reading, as was his follow up post the next day, "Effective Blog Tagging".  He also has a great real estate technology blog outside of ActiveRain filled with good information.

Ben Wiseley, the somewhat camera shy ActiveRain programmer, provides two links to great articles on social software that make for interesting reading... even if only to skim through.  That I'm aware of, the mysterious Ben hasn't stuck his head out from behind his book yet, but I'm hoping he'll make a showing someday... unlike Wilson, the neighbor on the TV show 'Home Improvement' who never allowed viewers to see his mouth.

Doug and Kathie Whitehouse asked a question that was undoubtedly on many ActiveRainer's minds... What are the long term goals of the site?

Charles (another camera shy member), who writes on behalf of his wife, Jacqulyn Richey, provides some good information about "Real Estate Websites and Copyright Infringement".

Kim Hughes, a virtual assistant to some well known top producers throughout the country and one of the first VA's to join ActiveRain helps you answer the question "Do You Need a Real Estate Virtual Assistant?" and if your answer is 'yes', read her list of "What to Look for In a Virtual Assistant".  If you're looking for one, there are almost 90 real estate virtual assistants here on ActiveRain.

7/12/06 -

Bryant Tutas (a.k.a. Broker Bryant) wrote about range pricing.  This post is still generating comments long after it was published!

If you read blog posts on ActiveRain regularly, you're bound to notice that every so often a theme appears around the same subject.  The first of these "themes" seems to have appeared less than two weeks after the introduction of blogging on ActiveRain. Doug and Kathie Whitehouse wrote "Photos vs. No Photos" and Kristal Kraft further validates their stance in her post, "Photos are of Utmost Importance" while Ben Kakimoto follows up the next day with "Speaking of Listing Photos...".  This theme conveniently offers me the opportunity for a shameless plug for the ActiveRain MLS Issues group, which I founded.  If you have written any post(s) dealing with the MLS or MLS-related issues, I hope you will join the group and add your post to our collection.

R.J. Paperman wrote a series of posts titled "Learn How To Better Utilize Your Computer" where some members may find useful information relating to e-mails, Internet security and search engine placement. Here are Part 2a, Part 2b and Part 3 in the series.

7/13/06 -

Mollie Wasserman tries to provide some perspective to today's home sellers in "Pricing Your Home to Sell in a Softer Market".  Some of you may recognize Mollie as the author of "The Real Estate Internet Warning" which you can view about midway down her homepage and use as long as you give her credit (see bottom of homepage). 

Angus Woodbury (a.k.a. "Moo") obtained his Accredited Staging Professional (ASP) designation so he can mooove his listings faster and for more money.  Did you know that over 200 home stagers are members of ActiveRain?

7/14/06 -

Mark Flanders, one of many loan officers on ActiveRain, offers up a great list of "Do's and Don'ts While Your Loan is in Progress".  

Donna Harris (another Realtor with the ASP designation) asks "How many homes is too many to view at a time?" and gets a variety of answers.

7/15/06 -

For anyone who desires to increase the amount of comments on their blog, Bill French suggests you listen to the "voice of the customer" and provides some good resources.

Paul Sullins offers up some good advice on "Improving Your Blog Entries".  Paul passed away unexpectedly on August 2nd (at age 45) while going beyond the call of duty on behalf of a customer, which is what makes his last blog entry (written the day before he died) a bit prophetic and makes me wish he'd taken the last sentence of it ("Stay COOL!") to heart.  It came as no surprise to me when I read that at the time of his death, Paul was the current "Realtor of the Year" for the Wilmington Regional Association of Realtors.

By mid-July, the number of consumer-oriented blog posts had increased quite a bit.  If ActiveRainers want to see an example of a consumer-oriented blog filled with lots of local content, a visit to Lawrence Yerkes' blog, titled "For the Southern New Jersey Region and Beyond!" is a must.  Another good example is Linda Slocum's "Santa Clarita Real Estate News and Updates".

That's it for this edition.  If you missed the first edition of "ActiveRain - The Early Days", I invite you to read that one, too.  Please remember that if I did not include you/your post here, it's very possible you may find you/your post will be mentioned in an upcoming edition. 

...and if you are not a member of ActiveRain yet, what are you waiting for?...

Click here to sign up today!  Membership has it's privileges!