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Party Time on the San Francisco Peninsula

Wende Schoof ~ WendeByTheBay.com 650.504.0219 ~ San Francisco Peninsula (Keller Williams Realty)

Wende By The Bay's Tailgate photo

Stanford football on the San Francisco Peninsula, gave me the perfect time to say thank you to my clients and some of the folks who help me keep my clients well cared for. Nearly 4 dozen of my guests enjoyed a delicious meal provided by ABC Bar-B-Que and a winning performance by our home team Cardinal. Relaxing at tables spread under eucalyptus trees in Arboretum Grove provided an ideal venue for our tailgate and an easy walk to Stanford Stadium to watch the Cardinal battle the visiting Oregon State Beavers.

The day was “California at its autumn best”. With snow falling in the Sierra Nevada mountains not all that far away, we sat outside in light sweaters under mostly sunny skies.

One of the many attractions of living on the San Francisco Peninsula is Stanford University and all its offerings to our local communities – sports to watch and teams to root for, like the currently 14^th ranked football team, the Cantor Arts Center and Rodin Garden, the hiking trails of the “Dish,” the picturesque college campus and of course, the world renowned Stanford Hospital.

San Francisco Peninsula Map

With such a wealth of activities to enjoy and places to visit, it’s no wonder the San Francisco Peninsula is the prime destination for so many home buyers in California. Moderate climate (average November temperatures are lows around 42 F and highs around 63 F with 2.44” of rain), less than an hour to the beaches, under 4 hours to snow sports, service by 2 international airports and within a 45 minute drive to the cultural center of San Francisco, one of the world’s 10 most loved cities (CNN Go) are some of the leading enticements of living “by the bay.” Oh, and the proximity of professional sports teams like the 49ers and 2-time World Series Champions San Francisco Giants is for some, the icing on the cake.

Wende's Go Stanford Rally Towel photo

Whether you’re looking for an invitation to a tailgate bar-b-que before rooting on a local team or a new home that will place you in the heart of one of the best places to live in the Untied States, the San Francisco Peninsula, give me a call. I’m Wende By The Bay, and I’m always happy to help!

For Real Estate Today, It's Wende By The Bay

Wende Schoof is a Keller Williams agent ready to help you with your residential real estate needs in the heart of the San Francisco Peninsula.

Primary locales: Redwood City, Menlo Park, Atherton, Woodside, Portola Valley, San Carlos and surrounding cities

visit my website www.WendeByTheBay.com
call me direct at (650) 504-0219

keller williams realty

The Next Big Thing? :: Pinterest :: What Is It?

George Fanucci :: Internet♦Technology ♦Business♦Solutions℠ (CoreFact.com)

IF you are a real estate professional using Pinterest, or have any tips or questions, please check-in via the comments. (Add links? Yes!)

What is Pinterest ?!

A VISUAL tool ...

trying to describe Pinterest is like trying to tell someone what a strawberry tastes like, just try it!

It may take just a bit to wrap your mind around it, but as soon you begin to use it, it becomes very easy, yet very powerful, as a visual tool for collecting, saving, storing, organizing, curating, sharing, and discovering stuff you see and like on the web.

You may or may not have heard of Pinterest. If not, you soon will. I just discovered Pinterest this week.. I'd been hearing (or reading) it mentioned for awhile, for a few months or so ... but never took the time to look into it, until this week, Wednesday. Now, It's only Friday, and I am so very impressed, and infected, I had to share this on ActiveRain!

Pinterest users have skyrocketed from 50,000 (December 2010) to 1 million (in August 2011) to 12 million (in February, 2012.) WOW! It could be the next big thing? Pinterest is growing a rate of more than a million new users per month... as of mid-February, 2012. Not bad, for a start-up. Pinterest is based in Palo Alto, CA.

"Nearly 6 out of 10 users are women aged 25 to 44," Mashable reports. So, it's not just for geeks, or high school & college students... unlike the beginnings of some other social networking tools.

Ian Shafer writes: "Pinterest’s growth rate recently has been staggering, according to a recent post from Hitwise. And it’s referring a ton of traffic to retailers — even more than Google Plus and Twitter."

Why use Pinterest?

I've been exploring Twitter, Tumblr, Posterous, Imgur, Opez, and other micro blogging, and simple sharing, social website tools, for personal and small business use, over the past year or two. Choosing one new tool every few months to discover, experience, dissect, evaluate, and understand. Finding the competitive advantages, disadvantages, and best uses for real estate agents, small local business professionals, or family photo sharing and social network use is my goal.

Pinterest may be the newest, simplest, most elegant, yet powerful and useful tool of them all... for organizing and displaying and annotating and sharing visual things, visually.

Yes, there are some themes for Tumblr that could make something a bit like Pinterest, but they are not nearly so easy and so powerful — Pinterest itself is going VIRAL, now.

OK, what is Pinterest, & how to use it?

Pinterest is a new way to organize/ store/ post your bookmarks to web-pages, and to share them. Also, to discover stuff others like that are similar to your likes. Because of the social sharing, and the Likes, it becomes a tool that may also be used for marketing.

A web-bookmark is now a Pin. A folder is a Board. Each web-page MUST have a noteworthy image: photo, diagram, video, etc. to use as a visual label.

You can create your very own Pin-Boards, with your own topics, or titles, like labels on boxes or albums of photos.

Then, you Pin things (using a photo as a key link) from any web-page, or your own image files, for photo sharing!

{Other users can browse your Boards, your Pins, and then like or re-pin them on their boards... Like shared, visual, Social Bookmarks.}

Click on a board to see its items, click on an item (aka Pin) to see more details, and then click on the pic to go to the original source, hopefully. (If you don't get the source, you can always try tineye.com to help find it.)

Each board has a subject category (from a list of about 30 or more built-in topics, such as: Architecture, Art, DIY-Crafts, Travel, Products, Men's Apparel, Women's Apparel, Science & Nature, or Other, etc....)

You assign your own titles to each of your boards, which you put it into one of those built-in categories.

Boards can be like Projects, Locale-Lists, Wish-Lists, Photo albums, Book-lists, Movie-lists, Topic-logs, Food/ Drink/Recipes, or an "electronic junk drawer" for a bunch of your favorite web links, indexed by a memorable thumbnail image from a web-page, each under a topic-title-heading that you make.

Whatever you like, or want to put into a grouping, Pin-It!

You must also put a caption, or some brief notes (a few characters, a word, or up to a few hundred characters) under each Pin. Also, you can type @username to mention other users in the caption. When you Re-Pin something you see on Pinterest that you like, you may use the old title from the last user, or enter your own, or edit/add to theirs. It's up to you. It's your pin.

You can choose to share your PinBoards on your Facebook timeline (wall) or not.

You can choose to share your Pins on your Twitter blog, or not.

When you sign up, Pinterest may use your Facebook or your Twitter profile picture, automatically. You can change it later, if you want. The profile picture is also your thumbnail/ icon/ avatar image label. Pinterest joins you with your friends who are already on Pinterest, automatically.

How to Begin to Explore Pinterest?

Start out by exploring two or three of your favorite categories, here is a partial list, click a few links:

... those show you Pins which are indexed by the category assigned by users to their boards where they put the Pins.

Or, to see what's popular, right now, on Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/popular/

.... also Popular Videos: http://pinterest.com/videos/

Or, check out what someone has pinned on their boards, to see how it's actually used: (stats below are as of 2/15/2012.)

My daughter has made some Pinterest Boards: Here is the link to Amara's Pinterest (Pin-Boards) pinterest.com/afanucci/	::	Amara Fanucci 175 followers, 111 following 15 Boards · 325 Pins · 8 Likes
... and mine... which I just started this week pinterest.com/gfanucci/	::	George Fanucci 2 followers, 25 following 14 Boards · 30 Pins · 7 Likes
... and one of the Pinterest founders: pinterest.com/sharp/	::	Evan Sharp 810548 followers, 1173 following 95 Boards · 3100 Pins · 6837 Likes
... and the other Pinterest founder: pinterest.com/ben/	::	Ben Silbermann 883412 followers, 1377 following 70 Boards · 3769 Pins · 4208 Likes

Want to get started?

You need an invitation to join Pinterest. If you request one from Pinterest, there is a long waiting list. If you are invited, you can get in as soon as you accept the invitation. Tip: Ask a friend to invite you.

Your Pinterest LOGIN is your EMAIL address (or your USERNAME) Usually, you choose your user name as your own name or your company name, for branding. The URL for all your Pinterest Pinboards will contain your UserName, such as you can see above. It must be unique among Pinterest users.

You MUST link your Pinterest account with either your Facebook or your Twitter account. They are trying to make sure that only REAL people are enrolling, and to facilitate sharing outside of Pinterest, to bring in more new and returning users.

For a business, you can use your logo as your avatar/ icon/ profile pic. Profile pics are from about 100x100 px to about 180 x 240 px (scaled) ??? Pinterest seems to use the top part as a small square icon-avatar-image-tag for your posts.

Lastly, you need to install the Pin-It bookmarklet into your web-browser bookmarks bar ... the magic button that will Pin a web-page onto one of your Pin-Boards with any large-enough image from the page, into your Pinterest account.

W A R N I N G : Pinterest can become very addicting...

Also, be willing to explore outside your circle of friends and immediate interests. The danger in these social network sharing tools is we can become isolated (marooned?) unto our own small island, one we create for ourselves. Step outside your territory...

Guideline: "Try not to use Pinterest purely as a tool for self-promotion." So, you can make a board for each town or locale, or listing, and also make boards for your other personal interests. Express anything you care about.

Pinterest = Home & Hearth, and therefore Real Estate?

Who uses Pinterest? — According to Experian Hitwise:

"Boomers and Boomerangs are the group most likely to visit, particularly the Pinterest website (comprising over 10% of visits). This group of consumers is characterized as baby boomers and young adults who are heavy web users who spend time on house and garden, sports and fitness, and family-oriented websites. This information is useful to companies who wish to target their content to be “pinned” by Pinterest users."

So, it looks like prospective Buyers and Sellers, especially during DIY, leisure, or hobby time, will be on Pinterest?

How will it evolve? How would curators be monetized? Will there be advertising opportunities? Time will tell.

Reports from retail sector indicates more hits from Pinterest than from some of the big guys... Check the links below.

What could go "viral" on Pinterest? Anything with a high visual appeal.

Read more about ...

Pinterest Etiquette <== Official tips

How to Use Pinterest for Your Small Business <== link to Intuit's Small Business Blog

_________

:: See also, PINTEREST statistics (click the pic below, a link to hitwise) ::

Share and Enjoy! If you want an invite, let me know.

Found these after writing the above. Good links about Pinterest, How-to, and Real Estate Marketing...

Updates:

Brad Andersohn : ActiveBrad "Z" Blog : Posted on 02/12/2012

Pinterest - A Social Cataloging Community - A good visual summary, and good comments... lots of discussion.

Please leave a comment here, before you rush over there! Thanks...

Helpful stuff for Pinterest beginners:

Where is it on Pinterest? Posted by debsanswers in pinterest

San Jose Mercury News, 2012.03.03, front page news:

... more to come ... please check back ... and see comments below, subscribe ...

Found on Pinterest:

From lifehacker.

:-)

George Fanucci

Newly hooked on Pinterest!

2/14/2012

I think the cows at the Dish at Stanford are using Twitter

Marcy Moyer C.D.P.E. (Keller Williams Realty Palo Alto Probate & Trust Specialist)

All the cows at the Dish are lying down

While walking the Dish this morning I noticed that all the cows were lying down. Even though there are hills between the groups of cows so they can not all see each other they were all lying down. I was doing an 8 miler and since I am incredibly slow It took me a while to get up and down the portion from the Dish to Alpine Rd, twice. By the time I started back up the hill the second time the cows started standing. And by the time I reached the Dish again they were all standing.

My conclusion was obvious. they are all using Twitter so they know when to rest, and when to stand up. Cows at the Dish at Stanford standing up

Marcy Moyer Keller Williams Realty Palo Alto, Ca. Specialist in Short Sales and Trust and Probate Sales

Mystery Photo Contest: The Answer and the Winner

Lottie Kendall REALTOR® DRE#01215160 650-465-4547. Serving the SF Peninsula (Today | Sotheby's International Realty)

This month's Mystery Photo Contest brought answers from near and far. For the first time, everyone who answered was correct and knew that this ----

---- is a photo of the Hoover Tower at Stanford University near Palo Alto, California.

Congratulations to Elsie Goss, a newsletter reader whose name was randomly picked from all the entrants. Elsie, I'll be delivering your 2 movie tickets to you today!

Thanks for joining in the fun, everyone. Look for the next contest by the first of July.

--- Just another benefit of living here!

Lottie Kendall, Realtor

Today | Sotheby's International Realty

San Carlos, California, 94070

DRE#01215160; 650-465-4547;

Lottie@LottieKendall.com;

www.LottieKendall.com

Peninsula Living: San Mateo County and Silicon Valley Real Estate

www.SFCondosForMe.com

Holiday Shopping in Fremont

Jeff Pereyda Professional Fremont Real Estate Agent, Jeff Pereyda GRI, SRES Full-Time Professional

It's not a good picture, but behind the small crane operator is a sign that says, "Shop Fremont." It's a nice sign and it shows some artwork of candles surrounded by sparkles, very noel.

I thought about how much Fremont has changed. Vince, my building manager at the Murco Plaza on Capitol and Paseo Padre has a long history of the landscape in Fremont. He remembers that the Western Dental building building on the corner of Paseo and Mowry used to be a chicken ranch. I recall some things too. I watched Target get built on Walnut and Fremont. Before that women used to complain that in order to buy a bra, you had to leave Fremont and go to Newpark Mall.

So, where to shop in Fremont? The Hub has Target, Pier 1, Borders, and Hallmark to name a few. Raleys Shopping Center has some smaller gift shops there, well, like The Gift Shop. but you can get some shopping done in Fremont. I have some links that take you to areas of interest in and near Fremont on the links page on my site.

To me the best shopping experience around here is at the Stanford Mall, just a straight shot over the Dumbarton. I still remember the Saks Fifth Avenue which had no escalator, only an elevator. After all, my Dad was the head fitter (a person who instructs tailors on how to alter the suits) in the Men's Department for around 35 years. It since has closed, consolidated and moved to the San Francisco store many years ago. My Dad went with the move as well. The Barn at Stanford used to be a food buffet and food mall with very high class stuff. I still remember the candy shop that sold solid red and black liquorice cords, honeycombs and more. The Stanford Mall has a great deal more class than say--the Hub. The difference is night and day. Plottage, architecture, vendors, landscaping and the surrounding area being Stanford says it all.

Feel free to shop Fremont, I will. And, don't forget to shop online too, but if you cannot afford a trip to Rockefeller Plaza and the Saks in New York, go to Stanford mall once or twice this year.

My Christmas wish list is posted on my website. Just kidding.

by Jeff Pereyda

Phone: 510 742-3212
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