active rain: I Love You, Baby…
- 12/06/15 11:56 AM
When I go to my Home page, I am always thrilled when I see that someone has chosen to follow me. I never had a lot of followers, and each new is valued a lot. I noticed that after AR added those likes, where you can sort of participate without doing much more than clicking “like”, the number of followers started growing. I probably got about a hundred of new followers in the last year alone, if not more...
Majority of my new subscribers are very different from the subscribers of the “before”. They decided to follow, but I have never seen … (3 comments)
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active rain: Do You Know What AR Will Be?
- 06/20/15 09:40 AM
I guess by now everyone is aware of the changes to AR. One post by Zillow, and the other by Ben Kinney.
When I am reading comments to both, they sound as if AR problem was in Trulia or Zillow.
No, folks. It is AR problem. AR, which lost its identity and became a compendium of endless Market reports and listings. Zillow has nothing to do with what AR has become.
It is obvious now that Zillow does not see any value in Active Rain. But how could Zillow see the value where we do not see it?
We can’t blame them for … (115 comments)
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active rain: Back in Time…
- 08/12/14 11:39 AM
My childhood was in the 50s … War was only one game all boys were playing. We carved guns out of piece of wood, but if we did not have one, a stick or a finger worked fine, too. We were shooting the Nazi and we were heroically dying, like in all those movies about the war that we loved to watch so much. Actually, practically all movies were about the war...
We were born too late for the glory. The war was over and we missed our chance to become heroes. Soviet Union has won, and the routine of … (34 comments)
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active rain: Trulia, Zillow...My Head Is Spinning
- 07/28/14 02:11 AM
The first mention about Zillow gobbling Trulia was days ago, as well as the first discussion on AR, and wow, it is now pretty much official.
It is simply hilarious. For AR with its adversarial attitude towards aggregators, Trulia, and Zillow, first AR was gobbled by Trulia, and now it is becoming Zillow.
The greatest thing happening for AR stockholders, as they got a huge increase of value for practically nothing. No offense here, but who would buy AR today for any meaningful money? Nobody. But as a spillover from Trulia, this is a very different story. And in this … (12 comments)
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active rain: Crowning the Queen
- 06/23/14 11:31 AM
Since I have reached 1 Mil points, I relaxed and stopped worrying about points. For me the race was over. I stopped going to leaderboard, which used to be one of my most popular pages on AR before.
And, of course, I started sliding down the popularity page, and from under 30 moved to the end of the page. I should have done it earlier, but the magic of this 1 Million points kept me running.
I went to leaderboard today, simply because it is now on the navigation, and I believe it wasn’t there before, so I clicked.
Oh, wow. … (12 comments)
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active rain: The Nature Of The Beast Called Blogging
- 06/23/14 01:03 AM
Sequels on AR?
I mean those posts like “Selling your house. Part 1. Preparing your house for sale”. Then #2, #3, etc. There is nothing wrong with writing about preparing the house for sale. However, the author has wrong expectations. Betting on readers (customers) devouring them in certain succession is what I call wrong expectation.
It is simply the nature of the beast called blogging.
When you blog, do not expect, that your readers would be making those connections to you previous blog posts, even if you insert the links for their convenience, unless this is something extraordinary, tempting and … (61 comments)
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active rain: You Love Nature?
- 06/22/14 01:12 AM
About Nature Loving
I am a true nature lover. And it is the easiest thing to be. So, what do I do for the sake of Nature? Well… I do nothing.
I simply love nature.
I enjoy it, I watch it, but this is the extent of it.
I do not bring bread and give it to seagulls, or feed the hummingbirds (read William Jonson’s last blog)… I do nothing.
I commend myself for not interfering with nature. I do not “help”, or change it, or adjust it. I am not trying to make it more human... which is actually the … (22 comments)
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active rain: Belly Button of Universe
- 06/20/14 02:51 AM
Of course, the place where we live is the most important place in the world. It is the belly button of our Universe. And we blog about it to the world. But this wonderful World often has no clue where our town/city actually is.
If I am retiring and are looking where to either move, or I am simply looking for a vacation place, I want to know whether this place is in Southern California or South Florida. And I don't. I see are beautiful palm trees, so I know it is not New York.
- Oh, but I write for … (14 comments)
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active rain: Questioning My English
- 06/10/14 05:48 AM
As an immigrant, I always question my English. Sometimes I am absolutely sure how it should be, and I am right, and sometimes I am wrong. But I, probably, hesitate more than many of you when it comes to a situation, where I believe it is wrong…
Surfing our MLS today, I run into the following description of a condominium building:
“Each unit is equipped with private balconies and laundry”. It sounds to me as a rough phrase and I stumble into it as into a sharp knife. There is more here than simply the word “equipped” that bothers … (19 comments)
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active rain: If I Have Wings, Should I Fly Or Not?
- 05/31/14 02:28 AM
What to do if you have wings? That’s easy. If you have wings, then fly… But first try to wake up.
Actually, the question I often see on AR is not what to do with the wings, but what to do with the writer’s block. The answer is easy. Wake up, remind yourself that you are not a professional writer, calm down and go back to sleep. You do not have to do anything about the condition, which you do not have.
- Yeah, but I am sitting at the computer and do not know what to write about.
So … (52 comments)
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active rain: It Is A Sad Day...
- 05/29/14 02:15 PM
I was surfing the dashboard and saw Jason Sardi’s post Rest Still, Uncle Bill. There was a time when I was glued to his blogs and comments, and he never failed to amaze. He is not often on AR now, so, I clicked, expecting to be thrilled, but he came with shocking news of Bill Archambault’s passing.
Jason said Bill was a family to him. I felt pretty much the same way.
Bill is without a question one the brightest minds on AR. His blogs were not the easy reading, and they were so difficult to comment on without turning … (11 comments)
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active rain: It Is Not My Fault... I Swear...
- 05/27/14 02:35 PM
I had one of my site hacked, and had to “kill” it along with the associated email. Even after its "death", huge number of spam was still coming from now a dead site and email, and the IT people were scratching their heads trying to figure how this could be happening…
So, I figured that it would be prudent to go back to my AR blog posts and change some links, that are now broken.
I started with Bella Vista Condos in daytona Beach Shores. I typed “Bella Vista Daytona” in the search field of AR, and it pulled … (19 comments)
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active rain: Can Anybody Spank This Wunderkind?
- 05/17/14 02:16 AM
The Gold Star is back!
I do not know when this happened; I was too long away from active rain after the surgery, so I missed the fanfares.
I am cautious with goodies from Active Rain. Too often they come in one-step-forward-and-two-steps-back way. Did they manage to fight the temptation to make yet another glorious fixing of what ain’t broke? (I am paraphrasing Karen Anne Stone, who wrote here years ago “do not to fix what ain’t broke”)
But fixing what ain’t broke is in the tradition of Active Rain… It is what it does best.
It feels like AR keeps … (16 comments)
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active rain: Thank You!
- 04/16/14 09:20 AM
I owe a big “thank you” to all of my friends on AR for your support. A very big Thank you, indeed.
Life is full of surprises. No surgery in the plans, but how little all our plans mean...
My cardiologist did not like the results of a recent stress test, said they needed to look inside and, probably, add another stent to my collection of 3.
So, I went for catheterization. They found multiple blockages, and did not put another stent. They told me I was getting a quadruple bypass. They tried to calm me down, but I … (71 comments)
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active rain: Do We Know Who We Are?
- 02/26/14 09:06 AM
I am a real estate broker in Florida. In my day-to-day work I deal with agents and brokers. I have no idea whether they are REALTORS or not, nor do I care. Realtors to me are not a protected class to whom ethical behavior is due, while all others are game.
Our license to work and our laws do not come from NAR. They come from our respective States. States license us. So, whether I deal with a person, who pays dues or does not pay dues, does not matter much to me. I deal with a broker or an … (50 comments)
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active rain: The Saga of the Fallen Flag
- 01/22/14 01:33 AM
Kathy Streib wrote an excellent blog post "Ask An Ambassador: Are We There Yet". It is about the changes to AR. I have difficult time with AR "upgrades" as I have yet to see more poorly thought off changes. It is like a weird dance with one step forward and two steps back.
Let's look back. The first victim of better AR was the Flag. "Killing the flag" happened in July 2010. Jonathan Washburn, AR co-creator and CEO at the time, responding to comments, promised a new and much better Flag feature, but we never got one. Every time in a … (17 comments)
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active rain: Why Are You On Active Rain?
- 01/18/14 12:55 AM
I believe that it is common on AR that we read the post, but do not read the comments. And whether you believe me or not, reading comments can be very rewarding.
Not once, not twice I have seen the situation, where one of the comments comes from the authority, be it an attorney, or a tax person, or someone familiar with the issue, and this comment not only clarifies something important, but often shows where the danger is.
And then the very next comment is again: “Great post and very informative”, and other comments follow as if there was no … (90 comments)
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active rain: Links, or The Art of Talking To Spiders
- 01/07/14 12:51 AM
I am reading a blog on AR, and it is riddled with links. It is as if you are reading a Wikipedia, where, if there is a word, which happens to denote an entry in Wikipedia, they would link to it. Adds authority.
However, on AR, why would anyone need tons of outgoing links? I am not even saying that some of these link do not work, or lead you to Google page asking you to sign in… But even if they all worked perfectly, why would anyone want to link to the world from AR?
Another common variation when all … (20 comments)
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active rain: Hey Property, I am Talking To You
- 01/02/14 01:34 PM
I am surfing AR dashboard looking for a post to read and comment upon. Of course, I am going by the title. I am passing market reports, listings, and, to tell you the truth, not much is left.
And then I see something that piques my interest. Good title… Next thing I look at who the author is, and it is Riverbluff Properties (or any other company for that matter). And I pass. I feel stupid to engage in a conversation with Properties. I understand that there are people behind, but for me they are too behind. I like starting a … (49 comments)
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active rain: Merry Christmas!
- 12/24/13 07:01 AM
There are so many things to write about, but at 6 PM on Christmas Eve? I am not affiliated with any religion, and for me Christmas is more a wonderful winter Holiday. Even though winter here is more like summer… Yesterday it was 84F, and we had a long walk on the beach.
It is different today, We only hit 66F, and it is windy, and makes us dream of summer :)
Interestingly, when I read “Christmas” back in the USSR I knew that it was something in the past. It belonged to 19th century. We had New Year, and we … (30 comments)
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When I go to my Home page, I am always thrilled when I see that someone has chosen to follow me. I never had a lot of followers, and each new is valued a lot. I noticed that after AR added those likes, where you can sort of participate without doing much more than clicking “like”, the number of followers started growing. I probably got about a hundred of new followers in the last year alone, if not more...
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