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Initially, I was Uneasy
I remember a certain sense of uneasiness as I sat in the meeting room in Kirkland the day it was announced to us internally that Trulia would be purchasing Market Leader (and thereby ActiveRain). Most of it stemmed from the uncertainty of what they had planned.
The reality is, ActiveRain was an afterthought (if it was thought of at all) in the purchase of Market Leader. That was fine with me as long as Trulia didn't plan on jumping in and giving directives of how ActiveRain should operate.
Within the month, I had the opportunity to see Pete Flint, Trulia's CEO and Co-Founder, at the Trulia party at the Inman Connect Conference in San Francisco. That exchange went something like this (I'm recalling from memory, which is to say this is the gist of the conversation):
Me: Pete, Hi, Bob Stewart with ActiveRain. Good to meet you again. It's been years.
Pete: (with a ridiculously cool British accent....at least I think it's British, he went to Oxford) Ah, Bob. Nice to see you. Glad you could make it to the party.
Me: Thanks. So now that Trulia owns ActiveRain, what do you have in mind for the future of ActiveRain?
I'm sure that was the last thing he was expecting given that we were off the clock and enjoying ourselves among our many friends and colleagues in the industry. In hindsight, it was probably too forward. It literally went down like that. No small talk. No, "thanks for the great party". Really, no manners at all. My mother would have been ashamed. But since that day in the meeting room, it had been weighing on my mind heavily. Pete's answer, at the time, seemed to be the answer any good politician would have given. With almost a year to reflect, Pete couldn't have been more true to his word.
Pete: I think it would be a serious mistake for us to set the direction for the future of ActiveRain without the input of the people that have brought ActiveRain to this point. We're going to look to you guys, the team that understands the community the best, to drive the vision for the future of ActiveRain.
He added a few compliments about the community and basically wrapped up his response to my blind siding of him by saying that he believes there is tremendous value in ActiveRain as a community and as an outlet for agents to learn, connect with consumers and their peers, and share the experience of being a real estate agent.
How That Unease Turned to Excitement
So with almost a year to reflect upon Pete's response to my question. I thought I would share a few things I've seen in the last year that confirms that Pete's not just a politician, but is in fact someone looking to draw upon the experience of the people in our organization to make Trulia, Market Leader and ActiveRain even better partners with the members, subscribers, users and/or customers of our products.
1. We have Direct Access to Amazing SEO Specialists
For me, this was huge. I knew Trulia had been climbing it's way up in organic search, since the day they launched, which to me, means they know SEO. I was giddy at the thought of being able to get their eyes on ActiveRain to see what we could be doing better. Since day 1, Mark, the head of SEO at Trulia has made himself 100% available to every dumb question, wondering inquiry and off the wall suggestion I've tossed his way. In every update to ActiveRain we've made since we joined the Trulia family, we've been making small tweaks to the structure of ActiveRain to enhance the SEO
Mark has freely invited me up to the office in San Francisco on more than one occasion to discuss SEO on both ActiveRain and Trulia.
2. Trulia Has Allowed Us to Continue to Own the ActiveRain Development Road Map
Before we became a part of the Trulia family, we had a plan for what we hoped to develop (and fix) on ActiveRain that took us all the way through the end of 2014. True to Pete's word, our small team here at ActiveRain has been able to retain control over what we want to work on, and what things we want to try on the site. Even when the domain migration took place (moving ActiveRain.com to ActiveRain.Trulia.com) the folks at Trulia let us have major input (like demanding that all previous outbound links which were being followed for SEO, remain follow links).
I'm really excited by some of the stuff we have coming down the pipeline. Expect some pretty cool enhancements to the comment section coming soon!
3. Trulia has extended their best offer ever to our members
Just this week, Trulia extended an offer to ActiveRain members to get a Trulia Pro account for $10/month for six months. This offer is the lowest price at which this product has ever been offered. In fact, after we rolled it out, I've heard some of the folks on the sales team wanted to know if they could offer the same deal. Nope, sorry. Only available to members of ActiveRain.
I've just started digging in on some of the cool ways a member could use a Trulia Pro account and I'll be sharing some of those ways in our webinar next week, Generate More Leads with Your Listings.
In digging in, my friend Katrina Benton let me access her Trulia Pro account.....and wow, her listings are getting some great exposure (seriously, this one listing you see above has been viewed 51,282 times on Trulia! Time for a price drop?). For $10/month, it could be worth a try.
4. Trulia has Dedicated Additional Development Resources to ActiveRain
Since joining the fam, we've gotten some extra development resources (read: developers). We have a very talented team. We've been able to add to that team, which has allowed us, simulatenously, to work on more projects, fix more bugs, and shore up the infrastructure on a site, that at times in the past, has had performance issues.
Looking Forward to Working Closer with the Team
I'm excited. I'm excited at what the future has in store for ActiveRain as a member of the Trulia family! I'm also grateful that Pete has been true to his word and empowered our team here at ActiveRain to continue to determine exactly what that future looks like.
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