This morning I was looking at the latest blog posts people have made about ActiveRain using bloglines, one the many blog searches out there, and saw this post by Greg Swann of Bloodhound Realty (by the way he has a pretty good blog).  In it he says on first investigation ActiveRain is "seemingly a toe-in-the-water experience for technologically-timid Realtors. My initial take, reported back to Jim, was this: "ActiveRain is the AOL of real estate weblogging...""

At first I was a little taken back being compared to AOL. They're the ones responsible for sending out millions of those CD's that were only good for microwaving and frisby, for "dumbing down the Internet" and of course that annoying "You've got mail" voice that will forever be etched into your mind.  But once I got over the initial part of it, I realized, he's right.  In a way that's what we're trying to do and we should take it as a complement that we are succeeding. 

AOL was responsible for introducing countless non-technically savvy people to the online world.  This is in the same way we hope to help introduce many real estate professionals to blogging and open up a whole new world of real estate resources online.  We don't claim to be the best solution for everyone but we try to make it a solution that everyone can be part of.  Instead of building a solution full of features and customizability we're opting for ease of use and adoption.

While most of our initial user base has been significantly more technically savvy than your typical realtor, they are the ones that can see a clear benefit to what we're offering.  We've had many members that the network has been an eye opening experience as far as the benefits of blogging.  As they enjoy the successes with the network we hope that they will suggest ActiveRain to their peers as their first step to getting an online presence. 

And we promise not to mail you any CDs...