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The Virtual Real Estate Brokerage and Office - WEB 3.0

Sat, 12 Dec 2009 01:20:51 GMT

The Virtual Real Estate Brokerage and Office of the Future Today! - WEB 3.0

What does the future Real Estate Brokerage and Office really look like? If you decide to read on, it may change your perception of what the "Virtual Real Estate World" could look like in the future. While Secondlife is the Internets largest user-created, 3D virtual world community, and used primarily for Social Networking, eXp Realty has taken this same concept, and created a Business Model where the Real Estate Brokerage and Office is 100% Virtual. They are using the invisible walls of the Internet as their "Brick and Morter" office.

Their Business Model is defined as "The Worlds First Fully Immersive WEB 3.0. Real Estate Brokerage."

Last month, while at REBarCamp in San Diego, I got to meet and spend some time with Dale Kreiser, eXp REalty's Washington State Broker. He shared what their company was doing, and how well it was working for them. When I returned to the office, I did some research on their company and their site. I was "Blown Away" at what Glenn Sanford - Founder and CEO and their team have created! Could this really be the Real Estate Office and Business Model of the Future for Brokerages and even the smaller Mom & Pop offices?

Here's a video clip from a discussion held at that REBarCamp in San Diego. The topic? What does the Real Estate Brokerage of the future look like? It's an interesting discussion with Tom Ferry, Stefan Swanepoel, Wendy Forsythe, Sherry Chris, Dale Kreiser and others. What is the "New" strategy or tactic? Here's a hint of what you're about to see; The future is HERE now!

I've a strong suspicion that these guys may be onto something here....

So I called Dale and asked him for a "Virtual Tour" of their "Virtual Office." He and Glenn agreed to let me share that tour with you via this recorded video. For me personally, this was really the next best thing to actually being there. I felt like I was there. Now anyone that knows me well, also knows that I love all the new technology that is being introduced to our Industry, but I am also a practical person and want to be certain that this stuff really works. Don't just tell me it does....SHOW ME!!

This video is a bit longer than I wanted, but I edited out over 40 minutes of some really great stuff I wish I could have shared with you all, maybe another time. I would encourage you to watch the entire thing, I'd hate for you to miss any of this one. Sit back in that comfy chair of yours, relax, and enjoy this first ever virtual office tour...

Is this the way some Real Estate Company's and Brokerages will operate in the future? Yes, here's one already. Are these guys way ahead of their time? Maybe, but after today's tour, I realized that just talking with them about it, and then visiting their website was no comparison and nothing like "virtually being there!" I had no clue how well this was all put together. It was nothing short of interesting, fascinating, and awesome!

The Virtual Real Estate Brokerage and Office - WEB 3.0 So tell me what you're thinking at this moment...

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RainCamp™ Platinum Access Passes & Upcoming Dates

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 15:38:05 GMT

First, I want to extend a sincere and heartfelt thanks to ALL of you who made the Seattle and SF RainCamps™ a total success. Without the support and participation from you, none of these events would have been possible. Bob, Ben and I, (and the AR staff) are humbled by the many comments, emails, and even calls we've received, Thank you!! It looks like our next stop will be in New York City, with Inman Connect. We're very excited to be coming out to the East Coast. Are You Ready??

"I am usually skeptical about the "seminars." I was not sure i wanted to be pummeled by vendors. Who does? RainCamp was not a seminar but a super workshop where we were never bombarded with "buy this" or "for just $199..." A hardy thank you for the straight forward, down to earth, hands on approach of RainCamp SF. My head is spinning from the great material and the call to look forward to change and embrace social media." Jeff Pereyda

The RainCamp™ Annual Platinum Access Pass

We are introducing the 'Platinum Access Pass' a level of participation that will give those willing to pay full price for RainCamp™ increased access and benefits during the event and for ALL future RainCamp™ events throughout the year. We will be offering the 'Platinum' access passes for $179/person. This means you could attend each and every event for the price of a single admission. The pass will also include additional values and benefits to "pass" holders.

We will continue to offer a limited amount of "donation based" tickets as the ActiveRain culture has always been inclusive in nature. Donation tickets are based what you can afford, but will also be limited to certain seating arrangements and other restrictions. Our number one goal at these events is to give back to the industry, and to promote cutting edge technology and best business practices.

(Platinum Access passes available now, Donation tickets become available as each event is announced)

"Raincamp was phenomenal from start to finish. The room was packed full of eager participants and outstanding presenters. There wasn't a moment the entire day that they lost my attention - not even after lunch! I highly recommend that that you attend the RainCamp nearest you in 2010." Anna "Banana" Kruchten

Annual Platinum Access Pass Includes:

VIP Entry to any and all RainCamp™ Events in 2010
Receive the Platinum RainCamp™ Supporter Badge at RainCamp
Hosted VIP Lunch at RainCamp™ w/ActiveRain CEO Jonathan Washburn & RainCamp™ Speakers
Get Reserved Platinum seating in the front of the room with table, wi-fi, and power (if available at venue)
Sport your RainCamp™ T-shirt (exclusive for Platinum supporters)
Receive your Premium RainCamp™ tote with "surprise giveaways" (no cracker jack toys)
SHIFT: How Top Real Estate Agents Tackle Tough Times - Limited Edition HardCover Book by Gary Keller
First right to be part of an exclusive "30 Day Accountability" follow-up program by Local Coordinators
A Personal Invitation to VIP after party, including Drink Ticket and Appetizer, for each event
Get the Latest cutting edge social media instruction e-book by Ben Kinney and Jay Papasan
Earn the Platinum RainCamp™ Supporter Badge for your profile or Blog

"RAINCAMP... The best ROI EVER Received from a one day conference!" Valesca Bogard

Read more RainCamp™ Comments Here: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=raincamp

RainCamp™ UpComing Tour Dates and Locations

January 12th - New York
January 27th - Orange County
February 4th - Dallas
March 2-4 - Las Vegas (date to be confirmed)
March 18th - Chicago
March 22nd - Orlando
April 8th - San Diego
May 11th - Washington DC

We'll announce the locations of each event once venues are confirmed and secured.

RainCamp™ - "Because the way we do business has changed!" Find Out More at RainCamp.com

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Blogging and Time Management

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 03:11:44 GMT

One of the common concerns I hear from people about Blogging, is that they just don't have the time. Seriously though, we live in a world where Starbucks offers drive-thru coffee for those who don't even have time to sit and enjoy it. Everything in life seems to be go-go-go! So maybe Blogging and Time Management really is a valid concern and important topic for many!?! I just Googled Blogging and Time Management, there really wasn't much out there. So maybe there is no answer? If you did find the answer, would it be right for you?

Defining Blogging - Is Blogging just writing an article, banking on search engines, waiting for comments, hoping for calls and emails, and wishing to close on the sale of your product or service? I think Blogging encompasses much more than that. Sure, creating a great post loaded with valuable content and information is important, but Blogging ends up becoming more, a part of life, and a part of you. Blogging includes reading, commenting on posts, learning, sharing, connecting with others, engaging in conversations, exploring tools, researching technology, meeting new people, discovering new ways... etc. Much like what we already do in the off-line world.

We learn quickly that Time Management is important. I've also learned that Blogging and Social Media Networking are really one in the same. Your Blog IS your Social Network. Having an acceptable "liveable" balance of time on your computer vs the time you spend having a life is crucial to both your Business and Personal success. For me personally, it has helped me define and refine my daily actions and activities, my time, and my focus. Thankfully, some time management strategies have assisted me in reaching some of my desired goals, and in less time.

So what is the "Best Blogging Time Management" skill-set? Will it work for you? How many hours a day, week, or month does it take for you to be a successful Blogger and to be an effective Social Networker? Will you still have the time and balance to seek your other business and personal goals? Is there a Time Management manual, program, or a person out there that can define the Best Time Management program for you? NO. I mean YES, but it's YOU! You have to create it. Everything you do, your experiences, and your rewards and successes WILL BE UNIQUE to you, and will happen because of YOUR own personal time management system or strategy!

You've learned to Manage your email and VM, your Blog is no different. Somehow, we find a way!

Having had the chance to moderate Blogging panels, interact with AR members all day everyday, and read thousands of Blog posts all over the country, I've managed to learn a great deal about some of the things that make a successful Blogger "tick" (pun intended). We'll define "Successful" in another post, but I think we can all agree that success is "to each his own." Well, so is "Time Management."

Here's a few of the things I've learned and heard suggested...

TIPS & TRICKS:

Understand and agree that your Time Management and others Time Management will not be the same.
What works for you as a Blogger, may or may not work for other Bloggers with the same rewards.
Your Goals and Dreams are unique to you, so your Time Management and efforts will be unique also.
Except the fact that you will never learn or know it all. "Focus and Willpower" are critical.
Realize time is precious and valuable and it should be spent focused on items related to your goals.
Don't let others try to convince you of what is the "right" or the "wrong" way to do something.
Believe in yourself, be passionate about the things that work and that bring you desired results.
Find a mentor or someone who has like-minded goals, see how they manage and achieve them.
Resist the temptation from every invitation that comes your way to be on every social network created.
Create a "Blogging and Social Networking" Commitment in your Business Plan, then stick to it!

IDEA & SUGGESTIONS

Set aside 1-2 hours everyday to utilize Social Networking and Blogging.
Consider using your Blog to respond to questions and consumer emails.
Write a variety of content, just like a newspaper, cover a "rainbow" of topics.
Create 2-3 posts per week, then build or reduce the amount based on results.
Look into your email sent folder for topics and ideas to write about and share.
Set aside time to research tools and sites that SAVE time, and money.
Automate your daily tasks and utilize technology that's gives you a ROI.
Analyze what sites you're on that just consume time and deliver no value.
Use mobile technology to maximize your Social Networking and Blogging during down times.
Watch less news and TV, write and create more of your own. Localize through your eyes.

Your Blog over time can and will become a great library of content, and will also be one of your greatest resources. Blogging will actually save you time in the future. What you Blog about today can be used again tomorrow without the time spent recreating it. So what is the best Blogging Time Manager? It's you! It's your time, and it's your life, no one can tell you what or how to spend it. It's really up to YOU. Time is the greatest gift one can ever give to another, so manage and use it wisely with no regrets.

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Tis The Season for Giving - Feed It Forward

Sun, 06 Dec 2009 11:55:04 GMT

One of our ActiveRain members just sent me a $10.00 gift certificate to go to any restaurant of my choice in my area. What a nice gesture and what an impression it just made on me. It's not the gift so much as it was the thought that really did count. Now the fact that the gift was for food REALLY counted because I LOVE FOOD!!

Keeping with the tradition of giving during the Holidays, I want to Pay It Forward "Feed It Forward" to any of you who would like to do this for one of your favorite AR members. Maybe even a past client or family member, it's your choice. It only takes a minute and will really make someones day, at least it did mine.

Here's the deal:

You can give away up to (30) gift certificates each day up until Christmas Day. Each Gift certificate is worth up to $10.00 each. You can give them to anyone you choose. All you need to do is send them an email. The email comes from you with a personal message, and then all they have to do is register, search for a restaurant of their choice in their area, then print out their certificate and go eat! Sound to good to be true? This time it is!!

Feed It Forward is something Restaurants.com is doing during the Holiday Season and I commend them for doing this, especially in a time when the Country's economy has gone through some major changes. It's also a really nice way to keep the "giving" spirit alive and well. Check it out, send a $10.00 gift certificate to someone and then don't look back. It will "Make A Difference" in someones life, maybe yours!

This all reminds me of the time when I paid a $3.00 Bridge Toll for the car driving behind me (a complete stranger) then she ended up paying for the car behind her since she already had her money out, then they paid for the car behind them and so on and so on. This went on for about 10-15 cars before someone finally broke the chain and put their money back in their pocket, said thank you, and then drove on.

The very next day, as I drove through the toll booth again, the toll booth attendant looked at me and shouted, "Have you any idea what you caused yesterday?" For a second, I was shocked, I thought I was in trouble or something.. I had forgotten about paying for the car behind me the day before, and that's when he told me the story about all the people paying each others Bridge Tolls behind me. He said, "You really made an impression on me yesterday, it's something that will live in my heart forever!" Nothing feels better than that folks! Nothing!

It feels good to give! Give to family. Give to friends. Give to neighbors. Give to anyone who has touched your life, but most of all, just give! Who knows, you might be the next one getting an email "meal" from me!?!

Feed It Forward
Happy Holidays Friends! :-)

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How To Create and Use iFrames and Tables on Your Blog

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 20:43:20 GMT

How To Create and Use iFrames and Tables on Your Blog

Last week I promised to create a post explaining how to add iFrames and tables to your Blog posts. Instead of making this a long drawn out technical "How To" tutorial, I decided to make it really easy for those of you interested in using this feature. It is HTML based and does require a little HTML skill, but I think the way I'm about to show you will totally simplify the process and keep you from losing your sanity! lol~

The hardest thing you'll have to do is switch the tabs at the top of your New Blog Post from "WYSIWYG" to "HTML" then you'll just need to copy the code onto the HTML page where you want your iFrame to appear, then save it. Can't make it much easier than that. So let's start with the iFrame. The purpose of Adding an iFrame to a Blog post is so that you can share a large amount of information in a very small (customized) space. Maybe a website, or an interactive page, or even an entire Blog for example.

Here's an iframe of a site I'm sure you'll all recognize. :-)

The size, color, width, height, URL, etc. can all be customized. Now for all you advanced HTML users and Bloggers, this is probably easy stuff, but for many of our members and friends, learning this type of stuff has been known to cause overdoses of Tylenol and in some extreme cases, even alcohol. So here's a way for you to preserve your anxiety and stress for something a little more worthy.... I hope.

HTML Basics has setup what they call an iFrame generator. You just enter in the information, and it creates the iFrame for you, then just copy and paste the code into the HTML tab of your new Blog post. It looks like this:

Just enter the URL of ANY page you want to appear in your iFrame, never make it wider than 550pixels if you don't want to Blow Out your Blogs sidebar, select any height you want, give it a name, set the alignment, maybe add a border with some color, setup how you want it to scroll, and generate the code for your Blog post. This is much easier than trying to explain the HTML which you're about to see once you generate the code anyway. Once you become familiar with the iframe code, you won't need the generator anymore. Now try it yourself.

I added this iFrame to the Real Estate RainCamp SF so you can see who's coming

Suggestions: Try using your MLS page, your IDX page, your Website, one of your Blog posts, maybe your AR Outside Blog, any page that's on the internet will work as long as you have the URL or website address. You can use iFrames to add some additional value to your Blog if this is something you're interested in. Now just be creative and imagine all the ways your clients, visitors, and subscribers might benefit from your using custom iFrames in your Blog posts.

Are you ready for tables now? Here's a link to a table generator, you'll be a pro in no time at all! :-)

Some Table Scraps	RE Video	RETechWorld
Goal Planner	ActiveBrads Blog	iDomain
TechKnowBabble	AR Manual	The REBlogger

HTML Tables

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How To Use ScribeFire to Enhance Your ActiveRain Blog Posts

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:26:58 GMT

How To Use ScribeFire to Enhance Your ActiveRain Blog Posts

Scribefire.com is a great 3rd party add-on to the Mozilla Firefox Browser. Lately, the emails and calls have been coming in about how to setup AR Blogs, get API's, and how to use Scribefire with ActiveRain Blog posts. First off, the reason I mention Scribefire is that it is one of the few third party apps I have found that works well and doesn't conflict with the AR Network HTML format.

Really Important

Some members on AR use MS Word, Publisher, Front Page and other sources which often times (but not always) has hidden HTML codes, tables, and formatting that is incompatible with ActiveRain. You've seen them, you know the ones, these are the posts that show funky looking codes, push the sidebar half way down the page, and make Blogs look like "you know what" when they load on your computer screen.

Why Use Scribefire?

Though the AR Blog Post editor may seem somewhat simplified and to some, a bit archaic, it still does a great job for creating great text content, adding images, photos and links, and producing search engine friendly creations. However there are many who want to customize and create larger fonts, add color to their fonts, use a different style of font etc. This is where Scribefire does a great job and works well with AR.

THE MAIN REASON FOR POSTING THIS

Where most of our members get hung up is when downloading Scribefire as their Firefox add-on. Somewhere in the process, Scribefire asks for your Blog URL, API, and other information that IS NOT NECESSARY to begin using the Scribefire tools on ActiveRain. The requested and "perceived as required" information is ONLY for use on Blogging Platforms where you plan to use ScribeFire as the total replacement tool for creating your Blog posts. IE: Wordpress, Blogger, Self-Hosted Blogs etc. NOT ON ACTIVERAIN.

Here's the Scoop on How It Works

Go to Scribefire.com, download it and add to your Firefox Browser. BYPASS all the additional questions and other stuff they want you to enter. (unless you are using scribefire on another blogging platform) To begin using the Scribefire tools and options, just press the "hotkeys" FUNCTION + F8 while in the edit mode of a Blog post, and the Scribefire Window (shown below) will open up in the lower section of your computer screen. Now you will have two areas to work in, your AR Blog post, and the Scribefire editing window.

Create your text, change your font color, select a larger sized font, use a variety of different style fonts, have a field day, and when you're done, just highlight the section you've created in the Scribefire window, copy it (CTRL+C) and then paste it into your AR Blog post body (CTRL+V) You can do this using the ActiveRain WYSIWYG tab. Save your post in "draft" mode to be sure everything looks just as you want it, then make the necessary changes you want before making your post public.

DISCLAIMER.. I mean Warning.. NO... A QUICK TIP!

One thing to be careful of is that you don't go CRAZY with Font Colors and sizes. Sometimes the colored fonts and multiple sized text can make your Blog Post hard to read and unpleasing to the eye. Yellow font colors are difficult to read, Big Fonts can take away from the message in the little fonts, and multi-colored Blog post (for some) can and will cause nausea. (IMO)

SUMMARY and PURPOSE

The Scribefire add-on tools will allow you to enhance your AR Blog posts to your liking, give you a bit more versatility, and keep the AR network and your Blog clean of those Hidden and incompatible HTML codes. Many of these outside third party apps can and will make Blogs on AR look like "you know what" and frustrate AR members beyond your wildest imagination. I'm not kidding, you should see and hear some of the emails and calls I get. lol~ NOT!! :-)

Scribefire

For my next trick, we'll look at how to insert iFrames and tables into your Blog post without completely blowing out your Blog. This is one of the more common errors I see on ActiveRain by members that not only affects your AR Blog, but does even worse things to your Localism and Outside Blogs.

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Google Chrome Evolves - A Computer Operating System?

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 11:14:28 GMT

Google Chrome Evolves - A Computer Operating System ...and it makes a whole lotta sense!!

It's been an adventure watching Internet Browsers evolve into what they are today. I started with Internet Explorer, then realized that Mozilla Firefox was much faster and more forgiving, now I am seriously checking out Google Chrome. I will still use the others, but just like this video explains, the world, and the computers in it are changing rapidly.

Can a browser really make a difference in the time it saves you or the frustration it can create? What about your computer operating system? Google felt strongly enough that yes, it can, so much so, that they have created and are now introducing an entire new operating system for computers. This video was released on November 18th, 2009 and makes some very interesting points about how we use the Internet today and why they've jumped into this arena.

Once you've watched it, you'll most likely agree that Google is really honing in on "What The Internet Consumer" needs, and how they can deliver the tools and products to make life on the Internet simpler, faster and more efficient. Now they're going to try and do the same with your computer operating system. The Google Browser and Operating System may very well be the dominating tools of the Internet and PC's in the very near future. I'm just sayin....

For the MAC users like myself, Google Chrome is still in development, and the operating system will probably not be a replacement for the MAC OS anytime soon. My MAC is already "screamin" fast!

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What Is RainCamp™

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 21:06:36 GMT

What Is Real Estate RainCamp™

Real Estate RainCamp™ is a full day Conference/Seminar that is packed with valuable content, presentations, and some of the most useful and applicable ideas and processes that you can implement immediately into your Social Media, Networking, Blogging Strategy, and Business Plan. RainCamp™ was created and developed for anyone in the Real Estate Industry looking for successful methods and tools to maximize and grow their online business in today's Modern Day Real Estate Market. RainCamp™ is a National Event now touring the Country.

Modern Day Real Estate Marketing

How do you stack up in the modern Real Estate Market

Find out where you rank before we kick off the day. How does your social profile rate against your neighbor? How can you expand that presence and create connections that are meaningful in a professional manner? Understanding where you are is the only way to figure out where you need to go.

Search Engine Marketing

Learn how to target consumers that are MUCH closer to buying than an average Internet lead

Advertising is undergoing a radical transformation. As advertising dollars make an exodus from print to online marketing, do you know how to position your advertising budget to get the most impact out of each dollar? As most of your potential clients go online to make purchase decisions, knowing how to target them in the places they reside will be instrumental in ensuring they do business with you.

Converting Leads Into Closings

"Ten Days of Pain" lead conversion method - allows you to convert Internet leads efficiently

Understand Pay-Per-Click advertising and how you can get leads cheap and effectively. It's one thing to learn how to drive traffic to your site, it's entirely different to actually convert that traffic into a commission. Learn the regiment required to get industry leading conversions with the prospects on your website. There is no reason the leads on your site should be treated like the rest of the industry treats theirs. Resolve to do something different.

Social Media Networking and Marketing

Discover what works and what doesn't work using the New Social Media Movement

Learn how to use Social Media to obtain a competitive edge in your market place. Gain an understanding of sites like FaceBook, Twitter, and others, and how you can incorporate them into your business plan to connect with and earn more clients.

Real World Social Media Success Stories - LOCAL PANEL

Listen to pros that are utilizing what they preach and have outstanding success doing it

Listen to real agents on the street who are using Social media to enhance their business. Let them tell you how they did it. Not every story is the same but the critical component is this: They took the leap and the rewards are well worth the effort.

30 Technologies You Don't Know About But Should

Discover 30 technology tools that can be seamlessly integrated into your business

Does this really need an explanation? Yes it does, so you'll need to come and hear it.

Becoming the Online Mayor of Your Community

Understand what it means to be the "Online Mayor of your Community"

The end game of all real estate social media strategies. Learn how to put yourself at the online center of your real community. This is market area "farming" and done by the cutting edge elite. Take full advantage of the resources available and create a plan to put yourself in the middle of the flow of information in your market.

Hyper-local Blogging for Business and SEO

Learn how to use Hyper-Local Blogging to land you on the first page of GOOGLE

What is Hyper-local? Why does it matter? How does focusing on hyper-local content give you more qualified leads that are ready to act quicker? Find out how to target your next client by providing the information they are looking for when they are really getting close to buying. Learn the methodology of a newer agent who has leveraged the Internet to become a Mega Producer.

RainCamp™ - "Because the way we do Business has changed!"

About The Speakers:

Ben Kinney, Mega Producer, Keller Williams

Featured: 2008 Realtor Magazines annual "30 under 30", RIS Media "Power Team" report, WCAR Realtor of the Year and Quarter

Bob Stewart, Director of Social Media Strategy, ActiveRain

Bob is responsible for growing and maintaining ActiveRain's vibrant community of real estate professionals. He has been actively involved as a member of ActiveRain from inception. Prior to ActiveRain, Bob was COO of Brio Realty and during his tenure he increased sales volume from zero to over $100 million a year.

Brad Andersohn, Community Manager, ActiveRain

Brad is the all around tech and member support services guru. His focus and goal is to make sure members are getting the most out of the network and community. He spends a great deal of time introducing new products, tools, and services with explanations and tutorials on how to best apply them to your business plans and growth strategies.

Special Guest Speakers, to be announced at each local event.

"You'll walk away from RainCamp™ with successfully tested tools and concepts that you can apply and put into action immediately to increase your business!"

Upcoming RainCamps™

San Francisco - New York

Platinum RainCamp™ Sponsor: Market Leader

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The Best of NAR 2009 Expo - Real Estate Technology

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 23:23:59 GMT

The Best of NAR 2009 Expo - Real Estate Technology

NAR each year is always packed with great sessions, speakers, topics and presenters. There's no way to see and do it all! One of my favorite parts of the Convention is walking around, meeting people in the hallways, hugging old friends and shaking hands with new ones. This year, William Shatner was one of the special guests at NAR, but unfortunately, I didn't get the chance to sign him up on ActiveRain.

My absolute favorite is "cruisin" the EXPO and seeing all the "NEW" stuff that's being displayed. Many of the tools and services presented will have an affect and impact on the ways business will get done now, and in the future.

To See the more than 375 Booths and vendors that were there, here's an interactive floor-plan you can visit.

NAR always brings back some of the same vendors you see year after year, but I still like to stop by and see them, and how their products have changed or improved. Then there's all the new technology stuff I haven't seen or heard of yet. When I found a booth or vendor with a name I didn't recognize, or if they that had something I hadn't heard of, I'd ask them, "In a sentence, tell me who you are, what you do, and what does your company provide?"

So if you were unable to make it to NAR 2009 in San Diego this year, I hope you'll take a moment to let me be your eyes, your ears, and your feet at NAR, and enjoy this condensed version of "A Day with Brad at the NAR EXPO" and see a few of the "highlights" that I thought were some of the "Best of the NAR Expo."

Fujitsu.com * PreListing.com * AlaMode.com * AgentOfficeHQ.com * Txt2Look.com * RealtyPilot.com * TheBoom.com * RealBiz360.com * MarketLeader.com * HomeOnTheTube.com * IDXBroker.com * VisualTour.com * PlanetRE.com * LoneWolf.com * PostYourListings.com * AdWriter.com * ListHub.net * GoPaperless.com * Closing.com * PreviewFirst.com * ForeclosureRadar.com * RealtyLog.com * RealAgile.com * LoopNet.com * HillsideSoftware.com * Boopsie.com

THE NAR 2009 "RAINCAMP" DRAWING WINNER!

We collected Business Cards and had a drawing at NAR for 2 RainCamp tickets and $100.00 American Express Card and the winner was....drumroll...Tamara Dorris from Sacramento, CA. Congratulations Tamara, we're looking forward to seeing you at RainCamp.

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Are You Coming To NAR This Weekend?

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 13:28:19 GMT

If you're coming to NAR in San Diego, I hope you'll stop by and see us. Traditionally in the past, ActiveRain hasn't had a booth on display where we've shared our goods and promoted the Network. This year will be no different, except we will have our own small section of Real Estate at the convention. Sound confusing?

Good, then you'll read on.....

Our friends over at MarketLeader have graciously offered to share their "Large Acreage" lounge with us, and I get to come be the AR mascot for two whole days. Jon and Bob are finally letting me out! lol~ I'll have my laptop with me, so If you don't come by and see me, and I see you, it's likely that I'll be offended and remove points from your ActiveRain account. (just kidding..lol) Seriously, stop by and see us. It will be an informal, comfortable lounge type setting, where you can relax, rest your weary feet, and just chill with us.

We'll be giving away some really cool stuff, answering some questions if you have to ask them, but mostly we'll be there to support NAR and all the wonderful members that we're hoping to see this weekend. We are also going to be doing a joint drawing: Two RainCamp tickets and a $100 American Express card giveaway for some lucky winner to enjoy dinner during a RainCamp event of their choice during the 2010 tour. We'll be there all day Saturday and Sunday. The drawing will occur on Sunday at the end of the show.

MarketLeader will be giving away a 10 day cruise, so you might want to stop by and see what that's all about too? I'm Looking forward to getting out of the office for a couple days, learning a few new things, mingling with some old and new friends, and most of all, creating some great memories in Sunny Southern California. (it will be sunny right?)

So just drop by, say hi, leave us your card, chat for a bit, and we'll do the rest! If you want access to the entire NAR event on your cell phone, you can download the "NAR 2009" app on to your cell phone here How cool is that?

Until then, travel safe, and "Be All You Can Be" you can and DO make a difference in the world! :-)

Our Lounge Booth is #2425 on the main aisle

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ActiveRain Channels - Real Estate Technology and Tools

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:07:20 GMT

ActiveRain Channels - Technology and Tools - It's A "Discovery Channel"

Everyone knows how excited I get about all the new, cool, and useful technology that's available here and out on the web. Turns out, and it's no surprise, that I'm not the only one who loves to share tech tips and tools with others. Many of us create posts on AR, sharing our findings and information with others in hopes that it will be helpful to them in their business. We add them to channel, give them a topic, submit them to our Blog, then we go on about our day.

Today I saw a post by member Jim Lee sharing Wordle, a cloud tagging tool that was very interesting. Then I saw he added his post to the Technology and Tools Channel on ActiveRain. Curiosity always gets the better of me, so I clicked on the Channel and was "Blown Away" at all the members who had written posts about various Technologies and tools they had discovered too. Want some Tech and Tools?

Here's what I discovered, there is a ton of content covering...

Technology | Twitter | Google | Websites | Photography
Video | Facebook | Social Networking | SEO

Each of these links within the Channel will take you even deeper where you'll find even more focused content on each subject matter. There is an alphabetically sorted "Topic" index at the bottom of the Channel that you can search through in detail. There's even a "Most Popular Topics" index on the right hand side of the Channel page. As you click on specific topics, you'll notice a "Top Contributor" section within that Sub-Channel. This Channel Navigation structure applies to EVERY ActiveRain Channel. Did you know this?

Holy Cow! I work here everyday and didn't even realize how much the Channels have grown. It's awesome!!

Just out of curiosity... again, I used the search tool on AR and searched for "TIPS and TOOLS." WOW! More than 800 posts have been written just using these two keywords. For me personally, this will save me a ton of time looking for exactly the kind of stuff I love and that I'm always searching for. Talk about discovering a goldmine, I'm feeling like a 49er today!! lol~

There are so many areas to find great content on ActiveRain: The feature board, the Blogrolls, inside the groups, subscribed bloggers etc., just don't forget to grab your remote control once in a while and skip through some of the ActiveRain Channels. It's just like your television, you never know what you'll discover until you start flipping through some of the channels. Also, make sure that you're adding your content to the proper channels so you'll get additional exposure to those looking for your specific topics.

The Technology and Tools Channel IS My new "Discovery Channel!"

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ActiveRain Statistics - Comments, Views, and Clicks

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 01:21:40 GMT

ActiveRain Statistics - Comments, Views, and Clicks:
Your ActiveRain Statistics page shows an overview of ALL your Blog posts and the activity they are getting. This is a great tool to gage what is happening with each of your Blog posts in real-time.

The first column is the Title and Link to your Blog posts, there's no definition or description needed here.

The Second column is comments. Many members and consumers may be reading your posts but not commenting. Those that do comment are accounted for and shown as a total on your stats page. Don't think for one second that just because you're not getting mega comments that people aren't reading your posts. Out of the more than 1.3 plus million posts on AR, there's not a single post here has not been seen, read, or at least viewed, or clicked by somebody.

The third column is views. This shows how many times your post was viewed in a Blogroll. This includes any Blogroll on ActiveRain. A Blogroll is any place on ActiveRain where a list (called Blogroll) of posts are shown. Click on the "Blogs" link at the top of any AR page to see a sample of a Blogroll. A Blogroll includes groups, subscriptions, and even the feature board. A view simply means that your post appeared on someones computer screen as they were scrolling through the list and looking for a title to click on and read.

The fourth column is Clicks. This is when someone actually clicks on the title of your post, and loads it as the solo post on their computer screen to read. Clicks are accumulated not only within ActiveRain, but outside of the network too. Many clicks on your stats page are coming from Google searches and direct hits by consumers. The longer your post is out there, the more all of these numbers will increase.

Your comments will always be less than your clicks, and your clicks will always be less than your views. I'll explain. When a post first gets written, it shows up in the Blogrolls of all the groups you've added it to. It also shows on the Main Blogroll, and the "Subscribed" Blogroll meaning those who subscribe to you will see your new post on their "Subscribers" Blogroll. With the hundreds of posts that go up daily, in a very short time, your blog posts will roll off the end of the Blogrolls and into the B.P.C.A. (Blog Post Cyber Archives), only to be found again by someone searching through your Blog, or Google for your specific content.

Focus on "Building Your Blog Library" with quality content. You can always go back and send folks links to your posts. This will create more views, clicks, and comments in the future, and this activity can and will continue for as long as your posts shall live. In the chart below, I wanted to demonstrate how over time, the views and clicks will increase. This is a 30 day graph from oldest to most recent post.

How important is your Blog Post Title? Look at the differentiation between "views" and "clicks" to determine that.

The most important thing to remember. Any Clicks you get on your post after the first couple weeks or so are most likely coming from consumer searches and others that are searching your Blog. Comments, Views, and Clicks stats are a really great way to determine what your readers are liking, what consumers are finding, and what other members like to comment on.

This tool is not meant to be a replacement for a good stats widget or stats tracker, but it is an excellent way to start viewing what's going on with your Blog posts and content now. It will also help and assist you with creating more of "what's working" content in the future. Now don't just view it, you clicked it, so comment. lol~ Have a great week, I hope to see you all at NAR! :-))

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RainCamp is Coming To San Francisco

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 08:23:12 GMT

RainCamp is Coming To San Francisco

The ActiveRain RainCamp Tour is Official! Our first ever RainCamp in Seattle was sold out in just two weeks. Now there's a demand by many of our members and non members to bring RainCamp to cities all across the Country. As you can imagine, this is a huge undertaking for our staff and team. There are so many details that go into setting up this event, but our members and guests are not only worth it, they deserve it.

The "Rainergy" and "Buzz" that comes from a RainCamp is like no other event I've ever experienced. You have to witness it for yourself to understand and grasp the full value and impact it will have on you, your Business, your relationships in your community, and the industry. Here's what a few of the folks from RainCamp Seattle had to say:

RainCamp is coming to San Francisco on December 2nd, 2009 for a full day packed with great content, presentations, and some of the most useful and applicable ideas and processes that you can implement immediately into your Social Media, Networking, and Blogging Business Strategy and Plan. The Location and Venue we've selected is once again a "Top Notch" off the hook spot.

MarketLeader will be our official Platinum Sponsor for the next 6 RainCamps on the tour schedule.

WHAT IS RAINCAMP™

How is RainCamp different from other Conferences?

Assess how you stack up in the modern market.
Listen to people that are practicing what they preach, and having outstanding success doing it.
Learn the methodology of a newer agent who has leveraged the Internet to become a 'Mega Producer'.
Walk away with executables you can put into action immediately.
Hard core real estate technology education. This is not a fluff event!!

What Do You Get?

An Action Packed Day: At a State-of-the-art conference and meeting room is just the beginning of our package at Mission Bay Conference Center at UCSF. They have Gorgeous meeting rooms with City and Bay views. Great layout with plenty of seating, wireless Internet Access, and much more. All the comforts and ammenities of a 5-Star Resort. "This is one of San Francisco's only full-service conference facilities."

San Francisco

Date: December 2nd, 2009

Time: 9:00am - 4:00pm
(registration 8:00am)

Location: Mission Bay Conference Center at UCSF
1675 Owens Street, Suite 251, San Francisco 94143
GOOGLE MAP | Yahoo Map | Mapquest Map | Microsoft Map

Facility: Wireless Internet Access and Power Available

RESERVE YOUR SPOT NOW!

There will be approximately 140 seats setup classroom style (with tables) reserved for attendees with laptops. It is all open seating so those seats are first come first serve the day of event. We are limited to only 500 seats max capacity, so register right away. There will be On-site paid parking available, street parking and/or complimentary shuttles from the BART and Caltrain stations. If you're wanting overnight accommodations, here's the Unique Venues Site.

Platinum RainCamp™ Sponsor: Market Leader

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The ActiveRain Point System

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 20:35:25 GMT

The ActiveRain Point System

ActiveRain awards members points based on participation and their individual involvement within the network and community. While there is a much more complicated and technical explanation of how the point system works, this post is to provide you a general overview of how points are earned and distributed that to ALL ActiveRain members.

ActiveRain points are earned based on a members individual activities and efforts. Points are accumulated over the duration of the Calendar week which "Starts Monday morning at 12:00am Central Time, and Ends Sunday night at 11:59pm Central Time."

The following are some ways you can earn points and move up the "Featured Member" ladder in your Local Area.

200 Points for each Blog Post
(Max 10 per Week) (50 Word Minimum Required)
25 Additional Points when Post is added to Channels with a Topic
400 Points for Featured Post on ActiveRain.com
(Excludes Posts Featured in ActiveRain Groups)
25 Points For Each Comment
(Max 10 Per Day) (Comments on Your Own Posts Excluded)
25 Points for Each Reblogged Post
(Max 10 Per Week - These do not Include Your Own Posts)
ActiveRain Profile Points
(Building Your AR Profile will Build points)
Received Comments on Blog Posts
(No Blog Post to exceed 475 pts.)
100 Points - Logging In To ActiveRain Each Day
(This applies 7 days a week)
250 Points When Someone Accepts Your AR Invitation
(Must Sign Up under Members Invite Code)
10% of Total Points Earned By New Members Invited By You
(IE: Invited Member Earns 1000 pts. - You Earn 100 Pts.)
ActiveRain and Member Approved Contests - Points Will Vary
(These show up as Bonus Points in your Point Summary)
Staff Awarded Bonus Points - These are issued by the AR staff
(Member Humanitarian, Paying It Forward, Helping Others etc.)

Weekly Point Scenario: The potential of points available per week, per member would be as follows: 1750 for max comments, 2000 for max Blog posts, 700 for logging in daily, 250 for adding to Channels/Topics, and 250 for max ReBlogged posts. The Weekly potential of points would be 4950 (this does not include featured posts, comments received, invitation and percentage points, contests, and staff awarded bonus points.)

Point Disclaimer: The Points System created by the ActiveRain Network was developed and implemented to motivate, inspire, and reward members for their participation and involvement within the community. These points are subject to change at the discretion of the ActiveRain Mgmt. Team, with or without cause, warning, or notice.

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Building, Managing, and Protecting Your Online Reputation

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 15:16:33 GMT

How Do You Manage And Protect Your Online Reputation?

A few weeks ago I was reading an article about "BIG Corporate Companies" that were missing the boat by not getting involved in Social Media. "They are missing out on the ability to track and manage their brands, their names, their business and reputations" or something to that effect. It got me thinking about how important it is to connect on-line and know what's going on around you at all times, or at least as much as possible.

"The On-line world is also the Off-line World making them both one in the same. What happens Off-line ends up online, and what happens On-line gets spread quickly Off-line and visa versa. It's known as "viral" in both worlds.

How do you manage and protect your reputation in the off-line world? In order to build, protect, or manage your brand or reputation, you have to interact so you can hear the chatter, the rumors, the buzz, the testimonials, or even the whisper when someones talking about you or your company? No matter what, whether it's good or bad, people do talk. In the social media world, even more-so. Good news travels fast, and often times, bad news travels even faster.

How do you know when someone is talking about you, your company, or your business in the on-line world? What are people saying or whispering on LinkedIn, Twitter, MySpace or FaceBook? What about your past or current clients, your sphere of influence, or even your competitors? Would you even know? I think many of the Larger Companies and Businesses DO know the power of Social Media Marketing and the importance of Networking. I see it more and more, they are wanting to stay close and connected to what's being said about their products, their services, their company and business, or even them as individuals.

Managing and Protecting your online reputation isn't just for the Big Corporate Companies....

...it should also be important to you.

Here's some ideas and suggestions that can help you in the new on-line social media and off-line networking world. Let's start with the simplest and basic of all tools. When was the last time you ran your name or Company using Google? Google Search. This is typically the first thing we learn and try to do regularly to see what shows up in the search engine results. This is a great and basic way to find out how about your online Internet presence. What shows up? I still do this on a weekly basis.

Next, there are some free and simple tools available to help you get a better handle on what's being said across the WEB. Start with Google Alerts, it's an easy way to setup specific keyword searches. Once those specific words or terms are found and indexed, notifications are emailed directly to you. Setup alerts for your name, your company, employees, your brand etc. Some even setup Google Alerts for their competition or other specific business topics or "interesting" terms and phrases. This is a good start to keeping yourself connected and informed.

Many of you will remember the "viral" video "United Breaks Guitars!?!" I wonder how long before United knew they were famous on Youtube? I bet they have multiple alerts setup now... maybe not... :-O

United Breaks Guitars

www.youtube.com

Full Story: www.davecarrollmusic.com - In the spring ...

Now you can stop reading right here of course, unless you'd like to go a little deeper....

Ok, you're still reading so you must want more. You should consider what happens and what gets said on sites like Twitter and Facebook. Let's be honest here, if someone wants everyone else in the world to know something, they post it on Twitter and Facebook. It's the fastest way to gather and spread information, but at the same time, it's the fastest and easiest way to build or destroy a name or reputation. Look what happened to Wal-Mart and Target last Christmas. A classic example of the "Thrill of Victory" and the "Agony of Defeat."

Search.Twitter.com is a tried and true method of finding out who is talking about you and what they are saying. Twittergrader, and Facebookgrader are a couple of other products you can check out from Hubspot. If you're looking for more of that "visual" display of your online presence, then check out spezify. This one is not only informative, it's fun and entertaining at the same time. Addictomatic is another one you should visit, you'll love the compilation of content it will pull up using various resources to do all the work for you. I always suggest starting with your name or company when visiting and trying these sites. You will be surprised at some of the things you'll find.

Now let's dig really deep for gold! Measuring your online presence and influence. Klout.com and OnlineIDcalculator.com each have devised their own internal way for determining your influential impact in the on-line world. SocialMention which is a similar service will “grade” your results based on your participation in a variety of places. The last site I'll mention is StepRep, this is one I use daily. You can receive daily email updates on the results Steprep finds, and the social networking aspect of it certainly can't hurt when building a positive reputation.

We've all seen what can happen to a company or individual via the Social Networks albeit from a single tweet, a note on a FB wall, a Video on Youtube, a photo on Flickr, or even a Blog post or article on a website. There is great power in the hands of those millions of consumer messages that get transmitted over the cyber-lines each and everyday. No one can protect your good name or business but you. That was until now... there is online help. Sleep better at night knowing you have done your best to manage and protect your business and reputation.

Don't forget your ReBlogged posts, it's good to keep up with what others are saying and adding to them.

These may not be the catch-all, fix-all, but it's a start to "managing and protecting your online reputation."

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The Google Story - A Video Story Book

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 17:10:41 GMT

The Google Story - A Video Story Book

This just came out and was put together by the folks over at Google. A two minute video that I expect will go viral shortly. Takes you back from the beginning before Google, in 1995, when two mathematicians meet for the first time at Stanford. Then you're fast forwarded onto the present "Google Wave!" It's Creative, It's Brilliant... It's Google. :-)

"It's already had over 100 views!!"

Get ready, I think they might be about to "Turn The Page!"

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Top 40 Resources for Information and Education

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 17:38:02 GMT

These are my Top 40 Resources for Real Estate Industry Information and Education

Most of my reading hours are spent right here on ActiveRain. Your Blogs and Posts. Let's face it, one could sit at their computer ALL DAY everyday, and never run out of great material to read and learn from AR members. There is more information, education, inspiration, and entertainment here than you could consume in a lifetime. However, from time to time, I like to head out onto the Blogosphere SUPER-HIGHWAY and explore what else is out there.

When I first started working here at AR, I was reading folks like Seth Godin, The Scobelizer, Chris Brogan, and Guy Kawasaki. Then I discovered other great sites and resources like GeekEstateBlog, where I soon became a contributing author. The list kept growing over time. Now it has grown so large that I barely have enough hours in the day (or night) to try and keep up with all the great content that's available out there. I still try, but my efforts seem futile.

In the spirit of "Paying It Forward" I'm sharing some of these great writers, Blogs, and sites with all of you. The information and education available out there is very powerful and useful if you know where to find it, learn how to use it, and then apply it.

Here are my TOP 40 Favorite Blogs, Sites, Writers and Resources:

ActiveRain - TechCrunch - Mashable - Social Media Today - ProBlogger Blog Tips - ChrisBrogan - Blog World Expo - Social Media Marketing Strategy, Tactics, and Tools - Social Media Marketing - Daily Blog Tips - RE Tech Source - SEOmoz Daily SEO - SEO Book - Learn. Rank. Dominate - Matt Cutts - Transparent Real Estate - Google Official Blog - GeekEstate Blog - 1000Watt Consulting - The Real Estate Bloggers - Rain City Guide - Sellsius Real Estate Marketing - The Real Estate Tomato - RE Tech World - MyTechOpinion - 360Digest - Real Estate Opinion MAG - AgentGenius - About.com Real Estate Business - The Phoenix Real Estate Guy - Future of Real Estate Marketing - Inman News Blog - Realty Times - Copyblogger - Guy Kawasaki - Seth Godin - BloggingTips - BloggingPro - TechKnowBabble - The Scobleizer - Buzz Networker - OnLine Marketing - Realtor.com Blog - SEO Scoop

I'd be thrilled to make this a "Top 100" list, so if I missed any you think should be added, just let me know.

Top 40 Resources For Information & Education

I'm sharing this to try and "Pay it forward" to these sites and writers for all the information and education they've continued to provide me over the years. And to "you" for all that you have shared and contributed here as well. That's what it's all about, people Paying-It-Forward, so thank you. I've created my ALLTOP, where these sites and authors can be accessed from a single page. You can also create your own ALLTOP FAVS page to be shared.

So for those of you who ask me all the time, "Brad, Do You ever sleep" and "Where do you come up with all this stuff?" Well now my secrets have been revealed. Yes I do, and now you know. :-) The key is time management...and of course... a little speed reading. lol~

Hope you Enjoy, I sure have!

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How To Get Your Blog Posts "Viral" Exposure on Twitter and Facebook

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 11:29:32 GMT

How To Get Your Blog Posts Viral Exposure on Twitter and Facebook

As important as Location, Location, Location is to Real Estate, so is the importance of Exposure, Exposure, Exposure to Bloggers. Some Bloggers offer their subscribers, readers, and visitors the ability to "share" their content with others via Twitter or Facebook. ActiveRain has the ReBlog Option, just like Wordpress and Blogger are doing now, but that only works for other AR members. Here's a way to help get your "Voice Heard" and your "Posts Seen" on two of the other Largest Social Networks in the World, and here's how others can help you do it.

"Tweets" and "ReTweets" are quite popular as is "Sharing on FaceBook." I've just discovered a way that you can now do both. I think you're going to like this. It's simple. Just create and add a "Tweet" button, or a custom "Share" graphic, then create a link to it just like you would any other photo or image. You can even use text with a hyper-link. Here's the secret: you just need to replace the "BOLD" URL below with your page that you want shared. You will need to keep the underlined portion of the code below for each button to work.

Tweet Code: http://twitter.com/home?status=http://PlaceYourPageURLHere

For A ReTweet Code: http://twitter.com/home?status=RT%20http://PutYourPageURLHere

Share on FaceBook Code:http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=http://AddYourPageURLHere

Now some of you may be thinking, why not just use the "Sharethis" or "AddThis" widget? Well you still can, and they do have more options, but the millions of Social Networking consumers out there are probably more use to seeing the Tweet, ReTweet, and Share on FaceBook buttons. Familairity may play more of a role here than we think. Not to mention, using this method is quick, easy, and only "one click" away from accomplishing the readers goal. To Share!

So starting right now, you can begin letting the 100 million members that logon to Facebook each day, and the 14,590,000 Twitter accounts (guesstimation) share your great content with others on Facebook and Twitter. Word of Caution: This will not work for "Members Only" and "Associates Only" posts on AR. It will work on any "Public" Blog, Post, or Website.

Taking the idea one step further. If you have an AR Outside Blog, make sure that the Link you provide to your "Tweet" and "Share on FaceBook" buttons go to the post on your AR Outside Blog and not to your Internal AR Blog. This will help increase exposure and traffic to your Outside Blogs. All your "outbound" links should always go to your Outside Blog posts. Getting SEO and traffic to your Blogs is a great thing, but letting others share, and making it easy for them may be just as powerful.

Now let's talk about the 35 million members on LinkedIn?!? :-O

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How To Use Your "Existing" Domain Names on AR Outside Blogs

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 09:10:43 GMT

How To Use Your Own "Pre-Purchased" Domain Name on the ActiveRain Outside Blogs
This applies to members with Outside Blogs that want to use an existing domain name purchased elsewhere.

"Each new ActiveRain Outside Blog comes with a free custom domain name. But what if you've already purchased a domain name? Using your own domain with your new blog doesn't have to be a nightmare. Just follow your registrar's instructions for updating your domain's name servers. You'll need to point them at ActiveRain."

Here's a tutorial on how to setup your Outside Blog with your own Domain Name or URL in 5 easy steps. Keep in mind that when using your own previously purchased domain names, there can be nothing attached to it. No information currently residing on it. So for example, I just purchased my AR Outside Blog, I own a domain name BradAndersohn.com, (with nothing on it) and I want this to be the URL for my AR Outside Blog.

In this tutorial, I'll be using the GoDaddy Site since they are one of the Largest Domain Name providers in the world. The process in doing this with your registrar (if other than GoDaddy) should be the same or similar.

STEP 1:

Go to "GoDaddy.com" and Log-in to your GoDaddy Account:

STEP 2:

A list of your Domain names and sites will appear on the main page, click on the "Advanced Details" Link:

STEP 3:

In the GoDaddy Domain Manager, you will need to click on the "Manage" link located in the Nameservers section
(See Highlighted Area Below)

STEP 4:

Now you need to check the button "I host my domains with another provider" and also change the Nameserver settings to "NS1.AGENTSPACES.COM" & "NS2.AGENTSPACES.COM" then click on the "OK" button. (see below)

STEP 5:

Go to your AR Outside Blog and click on the "Domain" link located in the top toolbar. In the Domain Box, enter in the URL or Domain name and click on the "update domain" button. (TIP: Don't add http, or WWW, no spaces, no CAPS, no symbols etc. and include the .com)

You'll be able to access your blog at its new URL in as little as 5 minutes!
(on a bad day, it could take 24-48 hours)

ActiveRain provides you a "Custom Domain" name with ALL your New Outside Blogs if you don't already have one, and it IS included. There is no additional fee or charge for creating your own custom Domain names on AR Outside Blogs. To see what domain names might be available, just go to your Outside Blog, click on the "Domain" link located on the top toolbar, then enter your desired name in box #1. (IE: activebobstewart.com) Then click on the "Check Availability" link to see if your custom domain name is available. If it is, the "Claim Domain" button will become enabled, and you can claim your new Outside Blog domain name right then and there.

THE FINAL STEP:

If any of these steps cause or give you nausea, headaches, diarrhea, vomiting, or any other out of the ordinary daily blogging symptoms, then disconnect from your computer immediately, put your feet up on a lazy boy recliner, take two aspirin, and then call me in the morning. I'd be happy to help you through it if you need! To get your own personalized and customizable Outside Blogs, CLICK HERE. :-))

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NY Daily News Reports From ActiveRain - A BIG Wordless Wednesday

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 20:09:44 GMT

Photo Credit and Source: NYDailyNews.com

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Social Media Buttons and Icons - Is Someone Pushing Your Buttons?

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 13:30:45 GMT

Social Media Buttons and Icons - Is Someone Pushing Your Buttons?

During these past few weeks, since adding the "Signature" option to ActiveRain posts, I've received so many requests, calls, and emails regarding how to add "Social Media Buttons and Icons" to the footers of Blog Posts. You've probably seen many of the various types and styles other members are using on their Blogs which poses the question, "Where Are They Getting These?" Here's some sites I've found that offer you these custom buttons for FREE. This includes for personal and commercial use according to their terms and guidelines.

Here are some Links to Literally Thousands of Buttons and Icons:

My Social Buttons

Royalty FREE Icons and Clip-art

WebTreats - 2000+ Buttons

Brian Brumpton "RainDrops"

DivaGeekDesigns - An Icon Overdose

The Value of A Twitter Search

Open Source Hunter

Instructions For Adding Buttons and Icons to the Signature or Footer of Posts:

Once you've downloaded the Social Media Buttons or Icons of your choice, you can add them to your AR Signature Page (including the appropriate links) by going to your "My Home" page on AR, then select the "Settings" link on the left hand sidebar. Just upload the button or icon into the "Signature" section of the page, add the appropriate link to your image, then click "update" to save. That's it!

One tip I would suggest is to be careful which Icons you select for some of the Social Networking Sites. If the Icon or Button isn't a familiar looking one, then visitors might be less likely to click on it. For example, the cow face, what Social Network or site does that one belong to? Maybe visitors would click on it just to find out? (LOL~) With all these Buttons and Icon styles available, one thing for certain is that your signature can be unique. So have FUN!!

This should give you plenty of options and creative ways to stand out from the rest of the crowd. :-)

Social Media Buttons and Icons - "The Buttons You Want People To Push!"

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Apture - The All In One Tool For Social Media Content

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 13:04:45 GMT

Apture - The All In One Tool For Social Media Content

Apture is a pretty nifty tool that allows you to select and control the start and stop times of Youtube Videos, Embed a real-time Twitter feed of a user or search phrase, Embed Interactive Google Street View Maps, and make your Blog posts and websites come alive with a single player and embed code that includes all the above and more. Apture now has a free online service (Builder) that will allow you to search and capture selected content, then place it into a single window that consolidates space on your Blog or site, and lets users select what they want to see.

In just a few minutes, you can select content from various sources to be displayed in the player, and Apture does the search within their custom builder. Many of my Blog posts are longer than I'd like them to be since I add video, RSS feeds, snippets, podcasts, and photos that take up a lot of space. It also takes me time to place each item in the post correctly so they look somewhat cosmetically attractive. I can see many useful ways Apture could be used for creating and posting Hyper-Local content, Listings and Community information, adding relative multi-media and more without taking up all the space on your Blog post.

Here's a sample of the Apture embed tool using various topics and links. As you explore the content options by clicking on the various windows, you'll see what I mean about saving space, time, and consolidating larger amounts of content into a single resource tool. Once you try Apture yourself, you'll see how easy it is and will most likely want to try it with your own topics, searches, and content. Just imagine how long this post would have been if I had included all these items individually.

Why embed only 1 video or slide show when you can include up to 7 items in a single player?

To see how Apture is best utilized, click on any of the images in the lower area of the window above. Each one will open a new window without leaving your Blog or Website. There will be a link to each item if your visitors want to see more. You can also use a variety of multiple content and topics from various sources. If you want to add custom or specific URLs to Apture, you'll just need to sign up for their FREE membership to do so. For more tips and tricks using Apture, see their Blog HERE.

CEO and Co-Founder of Apture demonstrates (using this tool) how to "Go Inside Congress" and create transparency by connecting tidbits of news, video, articles and information into links embedded into his Blog. Yet another great way to use Apture to create exciting Blog posts loaded with rich and useful multi-media content.

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My 14th Anniversary Surprise from ActiveBrad

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 20:13:33 GMT

Hi everyone, this is Debra Andersohn, Brad's wife. I wanted to sneak into his Blog to write this while he's away. A few weeks ago, Brad told me that he had a surprise for me for our anniversary and asked me to take off three days from work. I was planning on surprising him, but I was happy to just go with it. We left early Tuesday morning and headed for what I thought was Monterey which is our spot where we usually go. Little did I know what an amazing and creative imagination my husband really has.

As we drove, I realized we were not going to Monterey and I couldn't figure out where we might be going. We passed the exit to the airport so we weren't going on an airplane (at least I thought). A couple of exits down the road, we get off the freeway and drive around for a bit then ultimately turned into the park and fly next to the airport. I said to Brad, "Oh my Gosh, we are NOT flying are we?" He said chuckling, "I am tired of the traffic, lets take a plane."

We entered the airport and he went up to the kiosk by himself to get the tickets to keep it a surprise. We went through security, then had a bite to eat. We didn't go up to the actual gate (once AGAIN keep it a surprise) but sat down somewhere nearby. Brad excused himself for a few minutes, then returned only to be called to the gate by name, "Brad and Debra Andersohn, please report to Gate 6." WOW! We walked to the gate and the lady greeted us with "Happy Anniversary."

She pre-boarded us even before the pre-board. We walked onto the plane with another warm greeting from the flight attendant who sat us in the First Class section that we were upgraded to by Alaskan Air. I was completely blown away. She handed us a couple mimosas and said, "Do you have any idea where we are going?" "No" I said. She just winked at Brad. ;-)

The flight attendant and pilot were in on the whole thing. At every announcement, our destination was never divulged. As we flew, it became clear to me that we were headed north, maybe Oregon since out my window I could see the coast and snow capped mountains on the right. Very beautiful. I never knew where we were or going until we got to the rental car, and I saw the signs saying Welcome to Seattle.

The drive to our hotel was wonderful and when we pulled up to the Fairmont Hotel. I was not only speechless, I was stunned. WOW! This is over the top I thought. The complete rock-star, red carpet treatment all the way.

Our room was amazing and already had Champagne, 12 long stem roses, and chocolate covered berries when we walked in!!

Brad then told me that Jon and Bob needed him to be at the AR RainCamp function and that I would be able to spend some time alone the next day and that we would go out to dinner later that night. I was really excited at the prospect of window shopping, enjoying the hotel gym and spa etc.

That night we went to a great sushi dinner at a place called WASABI BISTRO...OH YUMMMMMMMMM!

The next day, Brad took off very early in the morning and told me to be ready about 4:00pm. So, I took the day and started off at the gym. Then I went to the Pike Place Market and window shopped. After that was Borders Book Store where I bought a book and then went to the indoor pool area for some reading. I treated myself to a nice lunch at a French cafe' called Belle Epicurean located in the Faimont downstairs. The day was so very relaxing and peaceful, it was just what I needed. Thanks Sweetheart!!

That afternoon, Brad took me to the "Black Bottle" where a lot of his Active rain friends met for a social. Before going inside, he showed me a video that he had taken at the RainCamp meeting. He said the members had a special message for me. He also said it would make me cry, and it did. (see video below) I met some really great people and was warmly welcomed by all. Some of them even addressing me as "PRINCESS." What great friends and colleagues my husband has the honor of working with!

After the AR social gathering, we headed back to the hotel to get ready for dinner. Brad surprised me and had us picked up in a Lincoln Town-car and taken to a Restaurant called THE PALASADE. Amazing and unbelievable atmosphere, seafood and wine. What a great way to end our 14th Anniversary Celebration Day. Then there was the Hot Tub...and then... (not for public knowledge...hehe) The entire time, my husband spoiled me rotten. Made me truly feel like a Princess. He is a very romantic man, a trait that some men do not possess anymore from what I hear. I've heard his buddies say to him, "THANKS ALOT BRAD" as if he was setting the standard too high! lol. Everywhere we went, I would hear the women say to him, "Can you talk to my boyfriend/husband?" I think ActiveBrad should give seminars on how to romance a woman.

I love my husband with all of my heart and hope he knows how much I appreciate his love for me, and his attention to detail.

I never did have a chance to really do anything for Brad for our anniversary this year because he said no presents, lets just go away together. He stole me away and took care of everything. I decided I would plan next year, and we agreed that we would take turns from now on every year.

I think I had better start planning now!!!! Any ideas? Help!

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ActiveRain RainCamp - Better Than SummerCamp For Kids!

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 17:10:44 GMT

Kids of ALL ages, It's Time To Send Your Parents To RainCamp!

That's right kids, if your Mom or Dad is in the Real Estate Industry, just hanging around the House or Office pouting, pacing, misbehaving, biting their nails, or cussing while sitting at their computers, it's time to send them to Camp. RAINCAMP! We can help your folks become more productive, attentive, and obedient if you send them to us. We'll even bring the "CAMP" close to you! (Watch for RainCamp Calendar Coming Soon!)

If you want to help make life normal again, and see your parents come home with smiles on their faces and doing the Happy Dance, then RainCamp is the answer. Just look at what these kids parents had to say who were among the first to ever attend "The RainCamp!"

Parents Responses Prior To RainCamp:

JoSoss: @BrettTousley raises hand and jumps up and down! Me me me - going to #raincamp

rfleroy: Signed up to RainCamp in Seattle http://raincamp.eventbrite.com Wishing it was called SunCamp or HappyCamp...or better yet, BeerCamp!

BitsyKalkbruner: If you think you're at the cutting edge of real estate technology now, you WILL BE for sure after you attend raincamp.com

JoSoss: hahaha @campingworld is now following me -must be all my tweets about RainCamp! I am not a camper- lol! But I am attending RainCamp #raincamp

todderific: fully aware that my lack of recent tweets will make me a target at #raincamp tomorrow.

benkinney: Packing up for raincamp.com tomorrow in Seattle. I am ready, swine flu, and all.

alltechmortgage: Heading to Raincamp.com tomorrow....Hopefully learning new skills. Can they still teach old dog's new tricks...

JohnPayson: Looking forward to Raincamp today!

Parents Reactions During RainCamp:

mallinawilson: sitting in an active raincamp in Seattle! I should come out brilliant!

victoriarealtor: @CoachKaterina Wish you where Here :O)) Brad and Bob are awesome #raincamp

activebob: @bradandersohn never has a camera more than one foot from his reach #raincamp

pmcmortgages: At Active Rain's Rain Camp-lots of excitement! #raincamp

chrispenner: #raincamp just getting going here with Ben Kinney and Active Rains first ever raincamp. Rock on guys.

DuaneHopper: Sitting in Active Rain "RainCamp" Seattle Bell Harbor Conference center. http://post.ly/7c9v

JordanCoxRE: Just got picked to video RainCamp #raincamp

juliannahind: I accidentally entered the men's bathroom when I went on a much needed break at raincamp!

tara_camp: 67% of peeps are more likely to respond to Twitter, facebook, & linkedin than a email #raincamp via @benkinney

Lizmoras: Sitting at active rains first RAINCAMP in Seattle - with bob Kiney - bob stewart - brad andersohn - hey and scott leaf - amazing!

pmcmortgages: Ben Kinney is on stage-this guy understands social networking! #raincamp

victoriarealtor: Top 10 keywords are 19.8 % of all your search terms http://hittail.com twitter#raincamp

findrebecca: Go for the less commonly searched phrases for your targets to get the 80% of your clients that are not using most seared phrases. #raincamp

depmodechick: Wow, these fancy Aeron chairs at Bell Harbor conference center in Seattle are amazing! :) #raincamp #activerain

victoriarealtor: Wow...250 Realtors are at Rain Camp today!!!

mikelovesrobots: At #raincamp. This place is packed! Also, I've never watched an agent use Activerain before live! #spy http://twitpic.com/km8sv

JohnPayson: http://twitpic.com/kml4j - Panelist at #raincamp

elaineAcook: in the most fantastic workshop...Active Rain, raincamp! Ben is doing great! Fabulous information!

findrebecca: Listening to the Social Media panel with Jim Reppond, Rhonda Porter, Courtney Cooper and JO Soss #raincamp 2009 Seattle.

concentriconlyn: #raincamp Do you promote your blog posts on any social bookmark services such as stumbleupon or del.icio.us?

RealtorSandyN: @BradAndersohn sharing his wealth of knowledge at @ActiveRainCorp #RainCamp.

KitsapAgent: @jososs is one of the better examples of what you can do with social media tools. Her quality content dominates our local market #raincamp

clockhours: #raincamp showing Social media video.. fad or revolution.. always give me goosebumps!

RebeccaChandler: http://bit.ly/OIIs2 (expand) @danielrmccarthy embracing social media to increase consumer engagement - a new way of sharing #activerain #raincamp

jimreppond: Find what's happening at the moment right around you on Twitter with your iPhone using "Buzzd" app. #raincamp

urownlo: listening to @activebob about twitter. #raincamp twitter helps get out my information i enjoy to share

GabeSEO: Twitter TweedDeck tip: Use the filter button in columns to only display Tweets with "?". Result, only question related Tweets. #RainCamp

Design29: Very moving video. Ben Kinney talking about sharing with others, amazing stuff!! #raincamp

Parents Testimonies After Attending RainCamp:

pmcmortgages: Wrapping up the first ever Active Rain raincamp. It was invaluable! Thanks to all! #raincamp

ChristineandCo: Loving what i am learning at #raincamp

victoriarealtor: Brad...Sharing is a good and positive thing ...Thanks for Coming and sharing! :O)) #raincamp

dalekreiser: Great turnout at Seattle #raincamp. Good info to boot! http://twitpic.com/km1eo

Pamstages: The information here at Rain Camp is great, not just for Realtors I think it's for any small business #raincamp

chrispenner: @BradAndersohn Hey Brad thanks so much to you and your team for ripping up the #raincamp yesterday, just super.

DuaneHopper: @clockhours yep, another great show by #activerain at #raincamp. See you at the after hours for a video ;-)

victoriarealtor: Thanks to our Panel at Rain Camp Jim Repond, Rhonda Porter, Courtney Copper and Jo Soss with Active Brad #raincamp

clockhours: @DuaneHopper Hey Duane.. so you are in this crowd.. awesome conference, huh?! #raincamp

cheridiehl: #raincamp Looking forward to using what I've learned to sell Long Beach WA real estate

urownlo: i have so many great ideas from #raincamp that i will be implementing asap

jimreppond: @mortgageporter more like "getting charged" :-) #raincamp

RealtorSandyN: @benkinney The 10 Days of Pain for internet lead generation! You really missed a ton of info if you didn't attend #raincamp

eComprehend: #raincamp thanks for an awesome day of learning!

RollandJLS: Had a great time at raincamp, awesome to see so many positive good people there! #raincamp

kimcripe: #raincamp What a fantastic day! Thanks for making geeky sexy again....

RentonHomeFinde: #raincamp in Seattle social media and how do we sell Renton homes great stuff for our clients and business

depmodechick: My brain is percolating truckloads of ideas, thanks to the first ever Rain Camp in Seattle (put on by Active Rain). Thank you #raincamp !!!

JoSoss: No matter what level blogger you R- #raincamp has to be a must! I picked up lots of stuff Thx @activebrad @activebob @JonWashburn @BenKinney

Ricklie: Fantastic day of learning at Active Rain's Rain Camp. Thanks to all the planners & contributors for an inspiring six hours! #raincamp

JoSoss: Just posted on ActiveRain: ActiveRain- RainCamp - Thanks the Behind the Scenes AR Crew http://activerain.com/t/1274811

renefabre: #raincamp 1 Seattle... thanks Ben Kinney, Bob Stewart, and Brad Andersohn... AWESOME JOB! ActiveRain team, you're fabulous!

Dinah Lee Griffey Allyn - "I have seldom in my career been as inspired as I was today [at RainCamp]." http://bit.ly/luWJJ

skynnard: Most amazing day of learning and sharing. Thanks #ActiveRain for making #RainCamp possible. Well done everyone. Can't wait for the next one.

BrettTousley: Had a good time at Active Rain's #raincamp today. Great speakers and a lot of useful info. Catch it if it rolls through your town.

DaleKreiser - @JonWashburn It was good to finally meet you last night. Thanks for putting on such a great event yesterday #raincamp Cheers!

JonWashburn: I am gushing with happiness after seeing such a positive twitter response to #raincamp - http://bit.ly/4qqssZ

So as you can see kids, getting your parents to one of these RainCamp events is worth while, and will literally change their life. A Happy Parent is a productive, Socially connected and educated Parent. If you're still not sure about "RainCamp" or if it's right for your folks, just listen and watch this video below. Hopefully, you'll be convinced why you "MUST" get your parents to an ActiveRain RainCamp in your area.

We promise to take good care of them, and are committed to making sure that each parent who attends a RainCamp, will come out of it renewed, refreshed, energized and educated. They will never be the same parent again. :-)) Looking forward to seeing your folks at the next Summer Camp RainCamp for Parents. C'mon Kids, it's really all about them!

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FREE Online Technology Tools and Services for Your Business - 2009

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 14:28:19 GMT

Top FREE Online Technology Tools and Services for Your Business - 2009

Last year around this time, I created a Blog post with links to the "Top 200+ FREE Sites and Tools" for your Business. Hard to believe that was a year ago. This year is focused on some sites and tools I actually use more frequently, and think you might too. There are so many great sites that offer some fantastic services, it's a challenge to keep up with all of them, and try to tell you which ones are the best. You could spend more time learning and playing on the computer than actually getting your work done. (so be careful if you check out my top 200 from last year..)

With that in mind, I tried to focus these "Top Sites" on things you can actually use and apply to your business. For every site and service I mention here, there are probably 4 or 5 others that offer the same type of tools or service, and that's not to say they aren't fantastic, these are just my selected choices to share. The slide-show below (using slideshare.net) has the name of the site, a quick overview of each one, then a link to their site using their logo. Some of these you will have heard of, and might even be using already.

Top FREE Real Estate Tools 2009

View more presentations from Brad Andersohn.

You can download a copy of this from Box.net, a great site to store and share files with others. If you've come across some great sites, on-line tools, or FREE services yourself this year, and you'd like to share them here, feel free to do so. On many occasions, I have found some of the best stuff by just reading Blog comments on others posts.

In these tighter economic times, I hope some of these sites and tools will help save you some money, time, and contribute to improving your Blogs, Websites, and Service to your clients. Enjoy! :-)

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ActiveRain Widgets & The New and Approved HTML List

Sat, 06 Dec 2008 01:07:10 GMT

New and "Approved" means "Improved"

Having a network with 123,000 members poses this question, can our network handle this kind of volume and continued growth at this rate? Yes it can! However, there are some things that have had to be changed in order to build a better, more secured and stable platform. Here's your update from the "ActiveRain Files" regarding Widgets and the New HTML approved list.

There are more widgets out there than we have members and new scripts and widgets are being created by the hundreds everyday. Unfortunately, some of those widgets, scripts, and HTML codes can jeopardize and compromise our growing network. After taking a serious and detailed look at these, we have come up with the Approved ActiveRain Widget and approved HTML List.

ActiveRain historically has not supported or endorsed third party sites and software applications that are used to create and write posts, grab the code, text, or HTML, then copy and paste it to ActiveRain. Fortunately, many of these have worked in the past and will continue to do so, but some outside sources of HTML may no longer be compatible with our system. We recommend creating new posts in the ActiveRain formats provided. Security is our #1 priority to avoid malicious or viral causing scripts or code.

What Is A Widget?

Here are the approved Widgets for ActiveRain

- codeamber.org
- apture.com
- blogburst.com
- edatanews.com
- feedburner.com
- feedjit.com
- getclicky.com
- google.com
- mybloglog.com
- designyourownweb.com
- quickribbon.com
- realbird.com
- retaggr.com
- sitemeter.com
- topproducer.com
- twitter.com
- vflyer.com
- weatherlet.com
- amung.us
- widgetbox.com
- singlepropertysites.com
- geovisite.com
- babelfish.yahoo.com
- entrecard.com
- synd.trulia.com
- blogrush.com is shutting down. Click Link.
- Statcounter.com was removed

This list only applies to "script" widgets. Not all widgets have script codes in them. If you do not see a widget that you are using here, and it is currently working on your Blog, then it is not a script widget that we have to worry about, and it is automatically an approved widget. If your widget is not working, then chances could be that it has code or script in it that will not be allowed on the network. It may also be that the widget was not installed properly, dare I say...operator error. LOL~ Here's How To Add Widgets.

(Got Your Own Widget? Make suggestions here, but I can't guaranty they will get approved)

Here are the New "approved" HTML Tags for ActiveRain

Don't pass out on me now, this is important stuff. I'll provide a link to each <tags> definition. Beginners: What Is HTML?

a, abbr, acronym, address, b, big, blockquote, br, center, cite, code, dd, del, dfn, div, dt, em, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, iframe, img, ins, kbd, li, object, ol, p, param, pre, samp, small, span, strong, sub, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, thead, tr, tt, ul, var.

For Font Sizes: Use the <h1-h6> tags, or in Wysiwyg mode, highlight your text then use the CTRL+1 thru CTRL+6 keys.

For Font colors: Use this html code now <span style="color: #29d150;"> instead of this <font color="green"> Here's a link to some different color codes. Still Lost or Confused? Click Here

Look for enhancements and upgrades to the wysiwyg editor in the near future.

A Few New Fixed and Added Features

We updated the network last night and ran our maintenance & upgrades. It will just keep getting better!!

Every 10 seconds, your draft posts are now being saved automatically. No more lost posts from frozen browsers, accidentally clicking the back button, or just mistakenly clicking on that red x up in the right hand corner.

All hyperlinks in your posts should now open in a new window by default unless you change that option manually. Posts written with links in the last week or so will have to be manually corrected.

Twitter Feeds from ActiveRain Posts are now working again.

Links placed in comments will still work but have "no-follow" tags. This allows members to place links that are related to the authors topic, but spamming will be useless.

Though you may have experienced some minor technical issues in the past, or will from time to time in the future, just know that we are restructuring and rebuilding a stronger, faster, secure network for our members. Your support and patience is always appreciated, and your help and participation has been stellar.

Thanks for Building and Growing with us. Happy Holidays. :-)

Images By: ImageChef.com

How To Remove Antivirus Pro 2009 VIRUS from your Computer

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 16:08:36 GMT

How do I get rid of the Antivirus Pro 2009 Virus?

Those are the exact words I Googled when I found out we had been infected by the virus on our home network last Friday night. Three days later, I'm here to tell you, BEWARE, WARNING, DANGER, CAUTION!

If you are reading this post, and you have been infected with the Antivirus Pro 2009 Malware Virus, STOP HERE!. This is the ONLY way I have found that will effectively kill and remove this "monster virus" from your PC computer. I've tried every possible site, scanner, bug-fix, free application, and removal instruction, ALL to no avail.

After two days of (real-time) on-line battles with one of the nastiest, most malicious virus, Rogue AntiSpywares out there, today, I finally found the cure, the complete removal and fix.

This virus has many names, and it will usually appear as a pop-up warning in your system tray that tells you "Spyware has been detected on your computer", then it coaxes you to run their program to remove it. DON'T DO IT! Do NOT click on that pop-up bubble or the warning that appears. Not even Norton was able to detect this one sneaking onto our home network. Not knowing, my wife made the mistake of clicking on it.

Here is the known Danger level on a scale from 1 to 10.

It is so bad, that as fast as people are posting instructions and creating solutions to fix it, AVP2009 goes into your computer, and disables all the tools and applications that are created to kill it. This is no joke! Katerina Gasset had the same virus, but with a different name, and now even her instructions won't work. This is one of the worse virus's I have ever had to tackle.

I spent hours researching this so you won't have to.

Click here to find out more about the Antivirus Pro 2009

Look what others have to say about it

Hundreds of computer users looking for solutions

Yahoo Answers solutions won't even work

How Do You Get Infected with It?

There are many ways your computer could get infected with Antivirus Pro 2009. It can come bundled and hidden with shareware or other down-loadable software. Maybe watching a video, and a pop-up requires you to download a codec file that has it attached etc. The worst part is that it looks legit.

What can the Antivirus Pro 2009 Virus do if not removed?

According to WidowsVistaPlace.com - "failure to remove Antivirus Pro 2009 results in instant bothering. Effects after Antivirus Pro 2009 presence are not just annoying, they also include upload of various viruses and programs pretending to be useful like either fake registry cleaners or system optimizer and privacy guards. These fake utilities share the same final aim with Antivirus Pro 2009, i.e. they want users to pay for registration. The last but not least undesirable consequences of Antivirus Pro 2009 activities are system disordering and data erasing."

THIS IS ONE SCREEN TO AVOID AT ALL COSTS! THIS PROGRAM WILL COMPROMISE YOUR SECURITY. IT CAN SEE YOUR PASSWORDS, LOGINS, ACCOUNT NUMBERS, ANYTHING YOU TYPE OR ANYWHERE YOU GO!

Here's The Solution I Found after Numerous Calls, Reading, and Research.

I'm not going to post the exact instructions, as it will only aid the creators in developing yet another way to prevent you from fixing your computer. Instead, Here is the solution, it's the only company and application I found that could do the job! They are the real deal. Malwarebytes.com. I'd also add AVG antivirus before or after.

They had to remotely access my system, run it in safe mode, run various scans, apps and cleaners, rename and remove files, reboot multiple times etc. Even as an experienced (protected) PC user, I still couldn't have done it without their help. This could happen to anybody, don't think it can't happen to you.

This is a sure fire, guaranteed way to defeat this virus. It's a nightmare, I hope this post will help you if you're a victim, or heighten your awareness if you're a target. What's scary is, as fast as people are posting instructions and apps, this virus is finding ways to disable them, and doing it on your computer. It's that bad. Contact me if you need more details, I won't post them here because I know how this virus, and its owners work now. It's really very disturbing. Watch out for the Anti-Malware apps that say they can remove it as well, they are in fact Rogue Malware applications themselves. If in doubt, just call me, I will walk you thru this process right over the phone. :-)

There's Blog Power in Your Mouse - It's The Right Click

Sun, 30 Nov 2008 19:28:42 GMT

How many times on average do you think you will click that mouse button in your lifetime? LOL~ I can't begin to imagine how many times I have already. This is a tip that I will preface by saying, "it may be a simple one, and you may already know this, but if you don't, this will save you tons of time and frustration when it comes to copy and paste on ActiveRain."
The tech tip today is: "The Right Click!" for FIREFOX USERS!!

Is There Blog Power in Your Mouse??

Here's the scenario - let's say you are going to copy a link and a snippet of text from your website, or outside Blog. Maybe you just want to copy and paste the disclaimer you have at the bottom from your previous post. OK, so we all know how to use the browser menu, select edit, choose copy, then go to your draft post, select edit, then choose paste. (The typical way)

(This can also be done with shortcuts CTRL+C to copy, and CTRL+V to paste)

The problem is, you'll get this box...

...and reformat it all, line it all back up, (correct my typos like annows to annoys...LOL ) create spaces and breaks in the text, and then re-add all my previously existing links. What a pain, would you agree?

This may seem silly to some of you that I would even take the time to post a tip like this, but in all honesty, I just figured this out myself not too long ago, and even funnier, I know some of you are running to your Blogs right now just to try it out. haha. Then, you'll either come back here and call me nuts because it didn't work, and you think I'm pulling your leg, or you'll say absolutely nothing at all, for fear that someone will think we're complete idiots for not knowing about this already. ROFL! It's OK, just know it works.:-)

This tip will also work for your graphics and images too. Yes, There is Blogging Power in your Mouse!

Here's a sample of using a single right click of the mouse to copy and paste text, links and images.

Brad Andersohn Community Builder ActiveRain Corp. Fairfield, CA, 94534	Phone: 707 718-6773 Brad@ActiveRain.com http://ActiveRain.com

The Power of Giving - The Gift of Thanks

Thu, 27 Nov 2008 17:31:43 GMT

I would be seriously remiss if I didn't stop this evening to give my sincere and heart felt "thanks"

to ActiveRain and all the members who make this network such a wonderful place to work and play. Taking time to say "thank you" to others may seem like a small and insignificant gesture, but the power in those words "Thank You", no matter how they are delivered, usually mean as much to the receiver as they do to the giver.

Being thankful is more than just saying it to someone,

it's showing them your gratitude by your actions, your efforts, and all your other chosen words as well. I have been blessed to be a part of the staff and this community now for quite some time, and really do enjoy love my job and the relationships I've built here. During this Holiday season where the tradition is to "Give Thanks", it hardly seems adequate enough to just say "Thank You!"

You have been an absolute "Joy & Hoot" to work with, you're amazing people!

The friends I have made here are some of the best that I have and know. I am truly thankful for all the people I have had the chance to meet and get to know both on the Network, and in person. This has been one of the most bizarre, life changing, mind Boggling, incredible journey's and years that I have ever experienced, and I am so grateful to be right here, in this time, in this place, right now. This is home.

Thank you Jon, Bob, Rich, Jeff, Matt, Diego, Jorgen, Mike, Jerry, Claire,

and the rest of the ActiveRain staff for putting up with me, carrying me at the times I needed it, and for putting me in my place when it was necessary. You are all the coolest and most awesome people I have ever had the pleasure to work with. I love you guys. I'm very excited and passionate about the path we're on, and fortunate to be able to witness where the future will be taking us.

I know the best is yet to come...

To the GREATEST Community and Network on Earth, I want to Thank you

for your patience, your support, your commitment to us and to yourselves, and for making AR the place it is today. Thank you for contributing so much, both on a business and personal level, I have learned so much from and about each and everyone of you. I wish I had more time to spend with you, and in your lives. I am truly thankful for your friendships and all that you have given me. Again, Thank You!

I am proud of this company, this network, and most of all, this family I call my own.

Lastly, I am thankful that my own family, here at home, allows shares me with this unbelievable on-line community. To them, I want to say "Thanks for Giving" of your Husband and Dad, I love and care about you so much, and I don't say it to each of you enough. Sean, Dustin, Brandon and Princess... Thank You!!

I wish everyone a very bountiful Thanksgiving, and a safe and wonderful Holiday.

May God Bless you all in abundance this season, and in the years ahead. Let us all be thankful for what we have, and give thanks to those who have helped us grow and become the people we are. The greatest gift one can give to another is their time. Make "time" to "Give Thanks" to others, not just on Thanksgiving, but everyday.

It's the invisible FREE gift that is always worth giving...
Happy Thanksgiving! :-)

Here's ALL the AR posts tagged "Stuffed" with Love and Thanksgiving

Twitter Gone Wild! - Rated T

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 01:15:18 GMT

Today, at the very last possible minute, we put together a RR Talk show that was ALL ABOUT TWITTER! How do you get business from Twitter? Do you need to have an account and be on Twitter? How does it work, why would I want to, and who else is on there anyway? This was a great talk show and the special guests and callers are really what make these talk shows so much fun, exciting, and successful.

At one point, we had over 47 people in the chat, 87 live listeners, 6 guests on the line, numerous call ins, and the show has already been reviewed or downloaded by 253 listeners. WOW!! This is a first, and new record for RAIN Radio. Why such a crazy response? As I said, it had to be our guests today. We only started putting this together at 9:30am for an 11:00am PDT broadcast. Thanks to Jeremy Blanton, we turned a discussion on the phone, into a Radio Talk show. I think part of our success today was because some "TWEETS WENT WILD!"

My guests were Paul Chaney, Kim Wood, Jeremy Blanton and we had quite an audience today. So if you are interested in finding out what the "Twitter Pros" are doing, and how they are using the Micro-Blogging platform to gain exposure, build relationships, and do more business, take a listen, and enjoy this broadcast. I'm always looking for good topics for discussion, and expert guests to join us to share their voice, today was no exception.

TWITTER IS HOT, so sit back, enjoy the show, and witness "Tweets Gone Wild" on BTR and Rain Radio. Thanks for listening, we appreciate your ratings, comments, calls, emails, and chat room antics! LOL~

You can also "Follow" us on Twitter @BradAndersohn, Paul Chaney @PChaney, Kim Wood @KimWood, and Jeremy Blanton @MyrtleBeachBlog. Feel free to tweet any of us if you have questions about Twitter. The Twitterville community is also a great resource to find out just about anything you want to know.

Click the > Play Button Above

Social Media Networking - Welcome To The Matrix

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 22:27:00 GMT

You're about to enter the MatWix

Who says you can't make a Blog Post look like a website every now and then? Why not bring the boring links and text to life sometimes? Do you dare or desire to be different once in awhile? Are you stuck, and just part of the everyday Social Media Matrix? Ready to meet the Oracle? Has NEO peaked your curiosity yet? Are you an AGENT, or are you the ONE? Pick Your Pill...one of them, or both, might just help.

Convert Your Blog To Audio in 60 Seconds

Sun, 16 Nov 2008 14:58:48 GMT

I've noticed the fonts on many Blog Posts are getting larger these days.

I do appreciate any assistance I can get with not having to wear my glasses to read your posts. Now there's a way to have your posts read themselves out loud to your subscribers and visitors. It's called Odiogo. It converts your entire post to audio for you. I'll use Odiogo in this post to show you how it works. I'm not saying that everyone should start doing this, but if your eyes are like mine, or starting to get that way, or, if you have viewers who you think would rather hear your post than read it, this may be for you.

Listen To This Post

Here's my Blog converted by Odiogo.

Another great benefit of Odiogo, is that your Blog Posts can be downloaded, and listened to later. You can't do that with just the written typed word. The thing I like best about Odiogo, is that it takes literally seconds to convert your Blog posts to "Audio Podcasts." Just enter your email address, then your Blog URL, and they email you the page that contains an RSS Feed, and another page with all your posts converted to audio. Literally seconds, and you're done. Give it a try, the voice is pretty clear and understandable. It's easy to use, and just as most services and tools I post about, it's absolutely FREE.
Listen to an almost Human Voice read this post:

To use these individual players and converted audio files on your Blog posts, (like the ones seen below), you will need to view the Odiogo page source of your converted posts, find the one that goes to your specific Blog post, then cut and paste the code using the HTML tab on your AR Blog post. I know this may be a lot to digest for some, but as always, you know I'm here to help. Give it a try, see what you think, I'm posting this because I made a promise to a few members that I would. Test out the players below, and see how it sounds converting my last few posts into audio files for playback.

Odiogo.com, where "Saying It, is as simple as Playing It!" (I just made that up by the way...LOL...I mean, laugh out loud. hahaha)

300 - Where Will You Be for #300 on ActiveRain? Click Link for Details
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Download MP3

LinkedIn Becomes More than A Profile -or- The On-Line Resume' Click Link for Details
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Download MP3

Your Social Media User Name - Is It Too Late? Click Link for Details
Friday, October 31, 2008
Download MP3

Bloggers: Sign up now for Odiogo and make your textual content podcast-ready - It's FREE!

Copyright Laws and You - Here's All You'll EVER Need To Know

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 21:46:04 GMT

I just got off the phone with Lenn Harley, one of our ActiveRain resident members and experts on the topic of Copyright, and I am excited to tell you, she'll be joining us, (The AR Staff) ";Live"; this Thursday on Rain Radio. Lenn has even contacted her attorney, Paul Thaler, ESQ. from International Square in Washington DC to join us. We'll have as many answers as we can, to as many of the questions you may have. Copyright, plagiarism, cut and paste emails, screen captures, jokes, recipes, clip-art, logos, cartoon photos, and anything else you can possibly think of. This is a rare, one time shot to get your questions answered by an Attorney, and an expert who knows the laws, and your rights.

Have Your Computer Read The Rest...

I hope all of our members will participate by either listening in, or calling in to learn and discuss this really important topic. We are trying to clean up the community and at the same time, help protect our members and friends. After an extensive conversation with Lenn just the other day, I can't begin to tell you how important this is to us all. Lenn made it a point to contact Paul to clarify a few questions we both had regarding email, screen shots, and photos, I was shocked by some of the copyright laws. You might be too. We'll be sharing this information with anyone who is interested. It's important to know how this can, and will affect you now, and in the future. I know for a few members, it already has.

The AR RAIN RADIO Broadcast is this Thursday, November 13th, at 11:00am PDT. It's a one hour Talk-Show, and it will cover everything you ever wanted to know about the Copyright Laws, violations, and the repercussions of what happens if or when you get caught. You can either use the "Live" chat, you can phone in and ask questions, or you can just listen in as we breakdown these COPYRIGHT LAWS into bite size and understandable pieces. What questions are most important to YOU, I'd love to share them on the air? If you have to miss this broadcast, I'll try and post the show here after, as I'm sure we'll be referring many here in the future.

The phone number to call in is:

Call-in Number: (347) 677-1643

Here's the Website To Chat or Just Listen In

About Paul Thaler:

";In 2000, Mr. Thaler successfully litigated a case of first impression in the Commonwealth of Virginia concerning the ownership of an Internet domain name."; This was Lenn's case. Thank you Lenn and Paul for doing this for us, and for helping out the ActiveRain Community and the On-Line Internet World. I'm Looking forward to a fantastic hour with you both, and finally bringing some clarity to this very hot topic. We're honored that you would both take the time out of your busy day to share this hour with us. Thanks.

Related Post: Copyright-Is-It-Clear-Are-We-Safe
Copyright Image Source: Courtesy of UTMEM

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

EDITED and UPDATED 11/13/08
Recorded From Today's Broadcast

If you missed today's show, and want answers to some of these questions, just click play on the image below. I want to thank Lenn Harley and Paul Thaler for their time today, and for sharing their wealth of information and knowledge with us all.

Here's some of the questions we covered today:

Can I cut and Paste Jokes, Recipes, Cartoons etc?

Can I use Youtube’s embed codes on my site? Are Links ok?

What is Creative Commons Licensing?

Can I record a video or audio of a performer and post it or use the music on my own production?

Can I do a screen capture or use snagit, and then post about it using the image I’ve captured?
(many of us use these for tutorials etc.)

How much text is considered a legal snippet from the original author?

I subscribe to a service that provides Newsletters, Reports, Graphs, Market Statistics – can these be posted?

Link backs and source – attribution. What’s required?

What Is Public Domain?

Are quotes from people OK to use just with the Authors name? EX: Quotes by famous people?

Are we allowed to copy images from Google Earth - to use as MLS photos or on our websites?

What are the fines and repercussions of copyright infringement?

How do we protect our images and works from plagiarism? Copyright.gov

What’s required to protect my Blog, My emails, My photos, and my originally authored content?

How do you know when someone has violated YOUR copyrights?

How do you track it?

Here's answers to these questions and others that were addressed today on our broadcast. I hope you'll find this information useful and valuable. The benefits of knowing this stuff about copyright laws will help keep our network and community protected, and help keep YOU out of court and settlements.

300 - Where Will You Be for #300 on ActiveRain?

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 23:34:28 GMT

Here in am in Orlando Florida at the NAR 2008 Convention and ActiveRain Gathering. In a 100 years, I would have never guessed that this is where I'd be creating my 300th post on AR. Sitting in my hotel room at the Hard Rock Hotel, I just had to write this milestone post. What will make this post the most unique of all, is that I am building it as I go. This will be my smorgasbord post of everything ActiveRain at the NAR 2008 event this year. The CyberProfessionals, The Convention, The Expo, Diamond Dwellings, The AR Party, REALTORS night out at Universal Studios and anything else I can share. It's all been such a blur, thank goodness for digital cameras and video.

This has been one of the greatest times I've ever had. The memories from this trip will live on for lifetimes in this post. Spending these past few days with friends and members from all over the Country completes what I call, a real history In The Making. Jon, Rich, Bob, Jeff and I have really enjoyed being part of such an awesome trip here in Florida. I am blessed to be with such a fine group of individuals who have really made me feel apart of not just a GREAT organization and company, but also part of a family that I would do anything for. I never could have imagined that working for ActiveRain is really NOT just a job, it is truly a Life Adventure.

Stay tuned for ALL the details coming very soon....right now I'm off to spend an enchanting evening with my AR family and friends at Universal Studios here in Florida. I will be back to complete this post shortly....

UPDATED 11/11/08

Well I finally made it back home. It's amazing that I took over 300 photos, those have taken some time to upload, and I went ahead and posted most of them here, (the ones I can share anyway) :-O I hope you'll stop by to take a look at em. Take a minute to see the "FaceBook" photo TagIt for sure, see how many AR members you can recognize and then tag. It's Fun!

NAR Convention 2008 Photos ActiveRain FaceBook Photo TagIt ActiveBrad Video Prank on ARBob

There were so many great events happening you guys, so many things to do, so many people to meet, it was ALL so much fun and very exciting. I still can't believe how big the EXPO was. It just seems like just a blur, there was so much there. I'm not sure that I ever slept on this trip. LOL Hopefully, this post will capture most of what I got to see and do, and I'm glad I get to share it with you. The best part of the entire trip this year was getting to meet ALL the other ActiveRainers from all over the Country. Truly some of the best people and friends I know. So until the next NAR Convention, REBarCamp or ActiveRain Gathering, be well, be safe, and be blessed! :-)

My NAR 2008 Video - 5 days in 10 min.

LinkedIn Becomes More than A Profile -or- The On-Line Resume'

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 21:56:19 GMT

Here's a post that I just couldn't resist. LinkedIn.com has announced some really cool new features to their site. Up until now, I think many have just considered this site to be a place to have a profile, an on-line resume', or the place to be if you're anybody in any business. I think most members on ActiveRain are probably on LinkedIn already, and if not, should be.

Just today, I have already incorporated two of their new features to my LinkedIn profile which is now a syndicated site to host my Blogs and other more useful information. I just added the ability to have posts from my various Blogs show up right on the profile. Check out BlogLink. You can even have Google Docs and presentations there.

Here's some of the other items they've added that you can include:

Box: Collaborate and share files with your friends and network.

Huddle: Create private work areas to share projects.

Amazon: Find out what the rest of your network is reading.

TripIt: Check out and follow your traveling network.

SixApart: Keep up to date with your networks latest posts.

Google Docs: Add and embed presentations on your profile page.

SlideShare: View, comment, and share presentations.

WordPress: Promote your latest WordPress Posts.

CompanyBuzz: See what others are saying about your Company.

I haven't had the chance to setup and try or test all of these yet, but at least we know that LinkedIn is trying hard to become more than just a place to host your Resume' and Profile. They've built that reputation to some extent, and now looks like they might be trying and live up to the their name instead. LinkedIn.

I personally like what they've done. That means this post should appear on my LinkedIn profile now. (once you're logged in) Don't forget to add YOUR AR Blogs there too.

See all their new "Featured Applications"

Copyright - Is It Clear? Are We Safe?

Mon, 03 Nov 2008 05:00:54 GMT

When you see a Police Car ahead, and you're speeding, don't you slow down? Hopefully Harlen will have that same impact and affect as he travels around and throughout the Network. I have heard he's already making a dent on AR. His presence alone here should make a difference, knowing he's lurking in the shadows.

This post is in response to a thread of comments I read yesterday; The Active Rain Police: So now what, everyone gets booted? Posts like Gregory Lohr's prove that the word is out, and that the message is starting to go Viral. Carolyn Tann has also written a post in the Club Chaos Group and even emailed the members regarding this topic as well. It all stemmed from this announcement that Harlen had arrived on the scene.

Is the message clear? Members want Clarity and Answers.

Lenn Harley, as witnessed in the comments of Greg's post, is very well versed in the area of copyright laws and violations. Still not clear on Copyright? Just go read Lenn's Blog and all her posts on the topic. She's a great resource for what you can and can't do. Also review http://www.copyright.gov

IN A NUT SHELL:

The idea of posting jokes, poems and recipes etc. is fine, it's your Blog, just don't copy and paste or plagiarize others sites and other authors material. Create your own. Be an author, not a copycat. It's OK to take a small snippet, then add a link to the original source, but then write about it in your own words. How much of a snippet is acceptable? Great question. I would never use more than a sentence or two max, just to be safe. (That's just my opinion, not sure it's a Harlen, Lenn, or copyright law)

Pictures, Graphics, Images, Screen Shots, Logos, Art work? Simple, don't use them unless they're yours, or you paid for them. Make sure you clearly understand the rules and copyright laws of the sites that offer them (questionably) for FREE. Just be safe and not sorry.

ARE WE SAFE?

As far as Harlan and his role here, my understanding is that he is going through ALL Blog posts, both NEW and OLD trying to help clean up our network. All he's requesting is that you go through your own Blog, and clean it up. If you don't, the penalties here are pretty stiff. CRUSH PLAGIARISM!

One reason is to protect you, our member. In my opinion, it's better that you find your posts before Harlan does, and it's even better if Harlen finds these posts, before the original authors do, wouldn't you agree? Have you seen some of these fines? OMG!

Secondly, asking members to go through their own Blog posts and clean them up is alot easier and faster than Harlen trying to go through all of them himself. You're helping him, he's helping you.

Thirdly, this effort makes our Community and Network a much better place and resource. We want to provide ONLY original content for our visitors. We get over 7,000,000 visits per month. This adds Value and Integrity to the network, and it keeps our traffic coming back while at the same time referring us to others.

WHAT ABOUT YOU?

One last important issue to consider about copyrighted material, you need to make sure you are copyright protecting your own content too. Our members produce some of the best stuff on the Web, and we need to make sure we're protecting our own content as well. Cleaning up our Blogs is a much easier process than going out there and trying to find out who has violated us in the same manner. Shouldn't we be just as concerned about who's stealing our stuff? Yes. Check out Copyscape.com, I see many members use this site for their AR and other Blogs.

I see a day coming soon when we will have to change Harlen's role on AR because he will eventually help Crush Plagiarism here. Then we'll give him additional tasks like Smashing Spam, and Deleting Gamers etc. Help us give Harlen that new role as soon as possible, clean up your Blogs, and get rid of anything that's not yours. It should be clear as day! Keep Blogs safe, stay clear of Harlen and the Copyright Police.

Photo Image Courtesy of FreeFoto.com: Thank you for using FreeFoto.com. Please remember to give attribution and a link back to this site. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License Image Reference: 04-04-12

Your Social Media User Name - Is It Too Late?

Fri, 31 Oct 2008 21:00:38 GMT

Seems there is always something new to be learned and discovered. Twitter, FriendFeed, Online Webinars, the Information is flying around the WEB 2.0 World at high speeds and at high altitudes, but if you try to grab on to some of this stuff, it's amazing what you can learn from being connected to these Social Media Networking and Marketing platforms. At todays webinar, we discussed your "User Names" and how they should be selected and used on the web. A great site was mentioned that will search your name on multiple sites to see if it's available. So why is this important?

The questions?

Is it too late? Does someone else already have your user name or do you? What should your user name be? Your real name or a company? Should it be your name with a title? IE: BradRealtor? Maybe a memorable slogan, or a cool phrase? I can tell you this, when I forget anything about anybody, I just Google their name. I think I even do this sub-consciously. Today, it was suggested to lock up your "real name" to be used as your "Brand", and to capture that "name recognition" you deserve. Who will find you? Google will, your family will, your friends and neighbors will, and the people who search you out when your name comes up in certain circles will too. Let me explain...

It's Your Name. What's In A Name?

Referral business for one. If someone refers you to another person, how do they do it? Your nick name, your company, your slogan or your catch-phrase? No. IMHO, I think in most cases people use other peoples names. Real names. If I'm at dinner with friends, and you mention someone to me like Mary McCormick and her awesome site, I would probably remember her name before I would remember her site at: RealEstateLuxuryHomesInFlorida.com. So what would I do when I got back home? I'd Google her name. How about you; would you ever do a search for ActiveBrad? Exactly....

A Possible Tool $ Solution!

UserNameCheck.com is a website that can search many of the social networks and social media platforms. It searches sites to see where you can Brand your name, and snag it before someone else does. Now I'm not saying you should go join all these sites, but do take stock in the ones you feel are beneficial to you, your on-line presence or your business.

So now you're just one click away from making some important decisions... should I be using my real name and which places should I be doing it? (seriously pondering right now...) Will people search me as Brad Andersohn or ActiveBrad or my former TheEscrowGuy? Hmmm... guess I have the same dilemma as some of you...crap, I hate when this happens. LOL~

Right Now, you're probably realizing like I am, that in some cases, it may be too late to change, even if your user name is available. The Google placement and SEO you've gained to this point, might not be worth losing...or is it??? It's like the same dilemma you have when deciding to change a phone number, or an email address. What user name are you using on the Web, and is it getting you the best possible results?

Hopefully this post will catch some of you before it's too late....one way or the other.

Listing Router - How To Set Up Your Own Click Campaign

Wed, 29 Oct 2008 05:56:19 GMT

This is much simpler than you may think, so don't complicate it or get frustrated until you have reviewed this entire post. This was written to walk you through the process with little or no pain. Let's see how I do.

Listing Router is really a simple Pay Per Click system, very similar to Google Ad Sense and Ad Words, the difference is that it is housed within the AR Network and it revolves around members Blog pages and IDX Listing Sites. The traffic this will help generate to your sites will be easy and measurable now.

Members can buy visitors/traffic to their IDX sites for $1.99 per click-through (like Ad Words).
Members who have visitors land on their blog pages who subsequently search for property in a city (outside of their own market place) get credited a % of the $1.99.

Members can then use those credits to purchase visitors/traffic back to their IDX sites, and so on...

Another major highlight to this Listing Router program is that we have other resources who will buy any traffic AR members don’t choose for themselves, yet the AR member delivering the traffic will still receive the credit into their account. This is a win win for you and for them.

IMPORTANT NOTE

The "Listing Router" will ONLY show up on your pages when LOGGED OUT of ActiveRain.

Follow these 5 steps to setup your own campaigns for your market areas.

ActiveRain members creating campaigns will be given discounts based on points they've earned. The discounts will be as follows: 3% discount for members over 25K points, 5% discount for members over 50K points, 10% discount for members over 100K points, 15% discount for members over 200K points, and 20% discount for members over 300K points.

This next post will show you How to "Opt-Out" but I can't see any reason you would. :-)

Related Posts:

The ActiveRain Listing Router

The Listing Router (Video) Whiteboard Explanation

Listing Router - How To Setup & Save Your Own Traffic

Listing Router How To Opt Out

Edited 10/28/08 - Update

In response to our well-founded member concerns about people 'kicking the tires', testing Listing Router to insure that their campaigns are working correctly and being charged for such, We've decided to make Listing Router FREE for the first two weeks (until November 11th 2008)

Anyone who has set-up a campaign and has been charged for clicks to be routed to their IDX sites will have their accounts credited back. You will still receive credits for referring traffic out of your individual markets. What this means is that there is virtually no risk involved in setting up your Listing Router Campaigns.

So everyone go ahead and set-up your campaigns, kick the tires and have at it!

Listing Router - How To Setup & Save Your Own Traffic

Wed, 29 Oct 2008 05:56:05 GMT

ActiveRain launched Listing Router today. Jeff Corbett has created an "Introductory Post" that will give you a few more details about Listing Router and the initial launch. The following posts are tutorials to help you get Listing Router setup and running properly. These will be very short and easy tutorials so you can get up and running right away with little or no hassle at all. You might also want to catch Bob Stewarts "White Board" Video Presentation for a better understanding of ActiveRain's Listing Router.

To save your own traffic, you can direct any viewers from your Blog, Profile, or posts to any of your IDX websites or locations. These must be IDX and they must be your sites. You can not just direct to any website that has listings, it must be an approved IDX exchange site. Tip: Be sure the IDX site you are directing visitors to has a good lead capture system in place. The "Find Homes For Sale" search box will now appear at the top of your screen and will "Float" as visitors scroll through your Blog, your profile, and your individual posts. Searching for property is literally just one click away now.

IMPORTANT NOTE

The "Listing Router" will ONLY show up on your pages when LOGGED OUT of ActiveRain.

To find property, visitors will just enter that city into the "Find Homes For Sale" box and click Search.

Once visitors type in a City to search, a link to that City will be provided as seen below.

Whether you opt in or out for the Listing Router Feature, you will have a NEW customizable link.

EASY SETUP INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Go to your "My Home" Link located at the top of any AR page

2. Click on the "Listing Router" link located on the left side of screen

3. Enter in your City ie: Bellevue (Don't include the State)

4. Add your MLS IDX Listing page URL for that City
Sample (http://www.MyIDXWebsite.com/BellevueWA)

5. Click Update, then repeat to add additional Cities or areas.

You can add as many additional areas as you have IDX links for. There is no cost or credits needed to setup IDX listing links to your own IDX sites.

NOTE: Double Check and Make sure the links you create go to the proper IDX sites you have setup. You can edit or remove them as needed.

To setup your "Customized Link" Just go to your "My Settings" page,
(see newly added link) add your title and the URL, and you're done.

All you need to do is setup your Markets, this is FREE and EASY to do. See the Screen Shot Below

Just a reminder that all this free traffic comes from your own Blog, Posts, and Profile

This next post will explain "How To Setup Your Own Click Campaign"

Related Posts:

The ActiveRain Listing Router

The Listing Router (Video) Whiteboard Explanation

"How To Setup Your Own Click Campaign"

Listing Router How To Opt Out

Listing Router - How To Opt Out

Wed, 29 Oct 2008 04:52:37 GMT

ActiveRain's Listing Router allows you to "opt-in" or "opt-out" depending on if you have an IDX and want to participate or not. What is IDX you ask? "IDX or Internet Data Display, is a program initiated by the National Association of Realtors which went into effect on January 1st of 2002. The IDX concept allows the members of an MLS system to display publicly, on their company or personal web site, all of the currently available properties for sale within that MLS system."

Listing Router allows you to set this up by using the opt-in and opt-out options shown in the screens below.

IMPORTANT NOTE

The "Listing Router" will ONLY show up on your pages when LOGGED OUT of AR.

By default, the top of your screen will look like this:
(it appears this way on your Blog, your Posts, and your Profile)

If you decide to "opt-out" (which I can't see why anyone would) your screen will look like this:

To opt-in or opt-out, just do the following:

1. Go to the "My Settings" page after you're logged in.

2. Put a check in the box to show the Listing Router Search Box on your pages.

3. Un-check the box if you wish to "opt-out" and NOT show the Listing Router on your pages.

4. This is also where you can setup your customized link to appear on the top right.
(This will appear on your Blogs, Posts, and Profile)

Once you enter your Title and the Link location of your site, just click update and you're done. You can direct this link to any location of your choice. I recommend some type of lead capture site that helps you grow leads and business. This is really simple to do and should literally only take you seconds to setup. If you need additional help, feel free to contact any of the AR team and staff, we'd be happy to help assist you.

Related Posts:

The ActiveRain Listing Router

The Listing Router (Video) Whiteboard Explanation

Listing Router - How To Setup & Save Your Own Traffic

"How To Setup Your Own Click Campaign"

There's No Place Like Home...

Sun, 26 Oct 2008 19:57:03 GMT

As evidenced by my lack of posts here on AR this past week, most of you are aware that I have been away from home for 6 days now. It has been quite the Journey and I'm ready to head home tomorrow. My last visit home for a few short hours between the REBarCamp and where I am now, only gave me a chance to hug and kiss my wife and kids, and then it was back on the road again. My oldest son Sean had invited me down to his place where he attends College at Cal Poly. I had not seen him in a few months so off I went.... Been having a blast but I really do miss home and the rest of the family.

I didn't realize how much can happen on AR in just a week. I feel like I have been totally disconnected with the world. Got up at 6:00am this morning just to try and read some posts and catch up with what's happening here in the community. WOW! So much going on with so many friends. Well, my son and I are having a great time together just being alone and creating some "Father/Son" memories. Boy are we making some good ones too! We went out to Pismo Beach yesterday on ATV's, I've never done that before, what a blast. Last night he took me to the Cal Poly Mustangs game where they defeated the Thunderbirds, and today, it's a round of Golf at Laguna Lake, before the long 5 hour trip back home.

I just wanted to let you all know that I am alive, I am surviving the road, and looking forward to getting back to my home, my office, and my duties here on AR. You know that it's bad when you start dreaming about this stuff. The other night, I dreamed that Rich and I were asked to start featuring "Tweets", now that's not a dream, that's a nightmare. LOL~

One last note: I'm Looking forward to sharing some really exciting "NEWS" about a new "AWESOME" feature we'll be adding to AR and announcing this next week. This will empower some of you to really start using ActiveRain in a way that no other social network has ever offered before. I am sworn to secrecy until Monday, so watch for those posts coming soon....stay tuned. I hope you all are having a great weekend, and are enjoying your homes and your families.

Whether it's your Home, your Office, or right here on ActiveRain, there really is no place like home.

? ActiveRain at REBarCamp - "LIVE" Updates and "Real-Time" Feeds ?

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 17:20:04 GMT

Follow us and enjoy what's going on in Houston Texas at the REBarCamp this year. We'll be posting Audio, Photos, Interviews, Podcasts, Videos, Links, and Updates in up-to-the-minute, real time "LIVE" feeds to this post. I'm including the Utterli Widget, UStream.TV Widget, and Twitter to keep you informed of all that's happening at this event.

Rich and I will be sharing as much as we can with you regarding the items of value and use of the information we learn and share with others. I hope you'll take the time to check back here and see what we've posted. There will be other members reporting and posting as well, so I'll try and keep this post updated with links to their sites and Blogs as well.

SO HAVE SOME FUN, and COME FOLLOW US at REBARCAMP:

Click Play To Start Audio, Photos & Videos

Follow us on Twitter, Use #REBC to post or just Follow using this Widget

Video From Various Locations in Houston Texas - This is Entertainment! LOL

Join Us "LIVE" from Houston Texas - Show Starts Oct. 22, 2008 @ 9:00am EST

Video clips at Ustream Thanks to WEB 2.0 technology, we are able to provide you information and insight as to what takes place at these events, and do it right here "LIVE" in a single post. How Cool, Enjoy! :-)

Here a "LIVE" Broadcast on RAIN Radio

ActiveRain @ REBarCamp - Knocking on the Doors of Opportunity

Fri, 17 Oct 2008 19:38:06 GMT

What is an REBarCamp? Why Would I want To Go?
Who Is Going To Be There? How Will This Benefit Me or My Business?
What Are The Topics? Where's it at? How Much Will It Cost?

The Door is Unlocked

Knock on the door of your choice to find out more about REBarCamp. You only get one choice so make it a good one. This is not "Let's Make A Deal" or the "Knock Knock Game", this is YOUR chance to see if "keys" to Industry Secrets and WEB 2.0 Successes lie behind these unlocked doors. Activerain is taking the show on the road and hopes you'll come join us this year. So what's it gonna be? Door One, Two, or Three?

When certain doors of opportunity open for you, take full advantage of it, the rewards can be immeasurable!

We Built This City...

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 07:29:46 GMT

You're probably thinking of the 1985 classic by Jefferson Starship aren't you? This post is about AR Cities!

As I was searching for the "missing Blog link" the other day, I discovered an exciting change that you may not have seen yet. It's the City pages on ActiveRain. I was so excited, I actually forgot what I was originally looking for (the Web has that effect on me at times...LOL). Click on States, Select your State or Province, Select Your County, and then Your City. It's that Easy!

The changes made to the City Pages on AR look very different now. In the past, the only thing on these pages were Agent Profiles in that city, and they were all sorted based on members with the most points.

Now there's an opportunity to "Build This City" and bring "More Value" to these pages:

Here's a feature similar to what Twitter Members are using:

Just post what's happening in your City, remember, it's just like a Blog Post and will get SEO & Google juice. According to a conversation I had with Jon and Bob this morning, we are already seeing an increase in hits to the ActiveRain City Pages. I'm anxious to see how and when these will start showing up on Google.

~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~

Now you've got to love this, I do. I was the one that had to clean out the Q&A everyday that used to be up on the menu bar. This is a change I have been asking for since July.

Now consumers can contact "Local" experts and get "Local" answers to their questions. I hope members won't use this area to ask silly questions like, "How Do I Make My Font Bold?" (but I guess you could)

This could really change some things with our direct consumer contact provided we use this feature appropriately. I suggest taking 5 minutes a day to see if you can answer any local questions from visitors or readers who find this and use it.

My thought is this; if SEO will come from your short 140 character updates and community announcements, then inevitably, this City Level Q&A will get more exposure and in time, become another value added tool. Come see my City, I left a message there for ALL of you.

BTW - Everyone was so busy looking for the missing Blog link, that no one mentioned the "Referrals Link" or the "Q&A" links that were gone also. Well, just like the Blog link, they were never really missing, just moved. The Referrals and Q&A links are now under the Channels Section in the "More Information" box located on the Main page of ActiveRain.com. Hope you will enjoy and use these features. :-)

ActiveRain Approved Widgets and Script Codes

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 19:18:03 GMT

hanks to all the members that responded to our request for information about their <scripts> and widgets, we now have an "Approved" list for you to use as a guideline. Our programmers have determined that the following are safe and available for you to use on the network.

For those of you who may have missed the original post, the ActiveRain Team is making an effort to try and keep the network from being compromised by any malicious and threatening scripts or HTML codes. We asked ALL members who were using <script> widgets or codes on their Blogs, to let us know about them so we could do the research to determine which ones could and should be kept.

All widgets and <scripts> that were submitted and reported by our members have ALL been approved. Any other scripts that have not been approved, will be stripped and simply won't work when trying to add them to your Blog. This is for the safety and protection of the entire community.

If you have a <script> widget that you feel needs to be added to this list in the future, please let us know by simply leaving a comment with the name of the widget and the URL or web address location, and we will research it for you. Do Not Post The Script or Code in the comments here, just the name and URL.

Thank you to all those members who took the time to investigate their Blogs and report back to us, this saved us hours of time and research. It was a huge effort by the community, and I personally appreciate all your help and support. I have noticed a huge difference in the speed of our site, and not that this had anything to do with it, but I certainly haven't missed that "Proxy Error" screen popping up this past week.

Related Articles:

How To Add Widgets To Your Blog

Widgets Group

AR Tutorial - Adding Widgets

NOTE: If the widget you posted or submitted on the original Blog Post request is NOT ON THIS LIST, that means it was not a script code and it is safe to use. Example: Postlets, Meez, Grazr, ClusterMaps etc.

Be On The Lookout ... SPAMMERS are Sneaking Into The Rain

Sun, 12 Oct 2008 00:01:18 GMT

SPAMMERS BEWARE - WE'RE AFTER YOU!!

Have you been SPAMMED here lately? If so, please report these critters that are taking the time to fill out a profile on AR, just to SPAM you! If you report any member who is obviously here with one intent [TO SPAM OUR MEMBERS], shoot me an email, and I will take care of it and also give YOU 500 points for helping keep our network safe and SPAM FREE. Be on the lookout for these illegitimate crusaders that deserve to have the fleas of a thousand camels infest their armpits. LOL~ (not really) We caught three so far this week thanks to YOU.

The email SPAMS may look something like this:

Name: Mary Mark
Email Address: marymark25@yahoo.com
Subject: Hi

Message: Hi I hope today finds you well. I felt greatly impressed after reading your profile today. My name is MARY Please I have some thing to discuss with you . I will like you to write me on my email address; marymark25@yahoo.com to enable us to discuss in details. I hope hearing from you soon. Thanks for your understanding.

MARY

Help us catch these Culprits of Corruption, these Populating Parasites, there is no room in the rain for SPAM! These folks are deleted by staff immediately in most cases, but on occasion, a few do slip by.

This weeks 500 point award recipients & winners are:

Robert & Jani Bielenberg Kevin Boer Sherry Scales

Their Busted Perpetrators are:

Mary Mark Osila Patrick

Thank you for helping us to capture and delete these poachers, happy hunting!

THE ACTIVERAIN

NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH
COMMITTEE

(of which you are all part of)

***Note: This "SPAM WATCH" does not apply to comments made on your posts by other members, only email spam from other illegitimate members. For comment spam, you have 3 options: 1) Contact member to ask that links not be placed in your comments, 2) Delete the comment using the link provided, 3) Report as spam using the link provided. Using These 3 options will not be awarded bonus points.

ActiveBrad's "TOP FREE Picks" - 2008

Wed, 08 Oct 2008 08:29:51 GMT

ChicagoAgentMagazine.com who also runs MiamiAgentMagazine.com contacted me last week, they wanted to know if I would write an article for their magazines this week. Zipporah Porton, Senior Editor, asked for Active Brad’s Top FREE sites or web-tools for REALTORS®. WOW! That's a BIG task. There are so many FREE websites and applications on the WEB, I felt writing an article like this would be somewhat challenging. I do love a good challenge, so here's what I came up with. These are all sites I have personally seen, used and recommended to others in and out of the rain this past year.

TOP FREE Picks for 2008

Here's a link to the Published Article (PDF)

Since these Magazines obviously don't have links (though they might in the future) I decided to post links to all the sites listed in the article. I even threw in a few extras for all my AR friends. Yes, this took hours to complete, but don't ask me how many. It has taken me all year to build this list, here are my top 150 plus.

Social Networks	Social Bookmarks	Photo Host - Editing	Video Hosting	Web Blog Tracking
ActiveRain Localism LinkedIn FaceBook Naymz FriendFeed Plaxo	Diigo AddThis ShareThis Technorati SocialMarker StumbleUpon Del.icio.us Digg	Flickr PhotoBucket Picasa KodakGallery Picnik ImageShack PhotoLava	Google Video WellcomeMat Viddler YouTube Vimeo VEOH Zipvo	Clustermaps Sitemeter StatCounter Websitegrader Google Analytics MyBlogLog Who'sAmongUs
Online Publishing Issuu.com	Blog Text to Podcast OdioGo	Screen Capture SnagIt	Questions? Answers! ChaCha.com	Research Name UserNameCheck
Photos and Images	Blogging Sites	FREE TV	Graphic Tools	BONUS SITES
FreePhotos FreeFoto Public-photos Public pictures PicApp FreePhotos.se PDPhoto.org FreeGraphics.org FreeDigitalPhotos	ActiveRain Localism Wordpress Blogger InmanNews RealTown MyStreet Trulia Zillow	FreeTVonline Hulu ABC & CBS Streamick ChannelKing TV-Video.net	QuickRibbon ImageChef Glittermaker LogoMaker SignGenerator	SearchMe PayPal AnnualCreditReport WifiFREESpot Speaking Avatar Retaggr BirthdayAlarm Switchboard HitTail

Voice To Text	Audio Editor	MP3 Downloads	Google Tools	Animated Signatures
Jott	Audacity	MP3DownloadZone	Google	TextGifs MyLiveSignature

Animated Gifs	Wiki’s	FREE Software	PDF Convertor	Text Messaging
GifAnimations	PBwiki	Tucows	PrimoPDF	Txt2day

Calls and Text Msgs	Internet Radio	Video Messaging	Business Tools	Chat Tools
Jaxtr Skype 811.com	BlogTalkRadio Stickam	Seesmic Eyejot	GoogleDocs OpenOffice CollectiveX	Meebo iChat

Podcasting	Photo Slide Shows	Widgets	Voting and Polling	FREE Websites
MyPodcast Hipcast PodBean Gcast	Slide RockYou Animoto Photobucket	Widget World WidgetBox ClassifiedAds Widget GoogleGadgets	Polldaddy GlowDay BraveNet	Bravenet agent.point2 Squidoo Wix

Micro Blogging	FREE Music	Zip Code Info & Stats	FREE task Manager	HTML Guide
Twitter BlipFM Tumblr	Shoutcast Live365 Actionext LastFM	ZipCodeStats ZipSkinny	RememberTheMilk	W3Schools HTMLGoodies CodeTutorial

Flyer Programs	FREE Email	Amusement Stuff	Mapping Apps	Subscribing Apps
Postlets vFlyer ClassifiedFlyerAds Craigslist GuruRealEstate	Gmail – Google Yahoo – Yahoo Hotmail – MSN	FreeKidsColoring Meez PhoneSpell.org	Google Earth MobileMaps Multiple Locations RandMcNally HousingMaps	Feedburner FeedBlitz

Blogging Tools	Blogging Tips	News Community	Web Marketing	Copyright
SEOBook	Blogging Tips	Topix	SEOSentro	Copyscape
SEOChat	CopyBlogger	TheOnion PRWeb	REELseo
WebConfs	Problogger	Trade Publications	FREE Lookups	Reverse Directory
SEOmoz	DailyBlogTips	TradePub	MelissaData	SearchPhone
SEOCompany	BlogSessive			AnyWho
HitTail
Search Widgets	Logo Design	Web Browsers	RSS Feed & Read	How To ActiveRain
BlogBar	LogoDesignWeb	Firefox	Grazr	Tutorials
Google Search	LogoMaker	Flock	RSSFeedReader	Help & FAQ
	LogoDesignEngine	Google Chrome	Google Reader

Site Comparison	Language Translator	Link Enhancement	Blog & Site Rating	Blog Editor
Compete HitWise Alexa Page Rank Checker	Babel Fish Google Translator FREE Translator	Snapshots Apture	TopBlogArea BlogTopLists TopOfBlogs TopSites	ScribeFire Nvu - Kompozer Windows Live Writer
FREE Listing Sites Craigslist Zillow Pressmania	FREE Listing Sites Submittheoffer Hotpads	FREE Listing Sites Listingvue Iggyshouse	FREE Listing Sites Backpage Kijiji	FREE Listing Sites Rapidlistings Realbird Findlistings
Open House List Onlyopenhouses	Condo Listings Newcondosonline	Computer Utilities Ccleaner iObit	Anti - Spyware AdAware	Video Distribution TubeMog

DISCLAIMER: All these sites are FREE. Many Websites and Blog sites have certain restrictions or limitations, some of these sites and tools MAY NOT necessarily work on ALL Networks, Platforms, Websites, Blogs or Browsers. Explore and Experiment at your own risk, but the most important thing.... Enjoy!

ActiveBrad on ActiveRain FeedFuze Feed.

The Virtual Real Estate Brokerage and Office - WEB 3.0

RainCamp™ Platinum Access Passes & Upcoming Dates

Blogging and Time Management

Tis The Season for Giving - Feed It Forward

How To Create and Use iFrames and Tables on Your Blog

How To Use ScribeFire to Enhance Your ActiveRain Blog Posts

Google Chrome Evolves - A Computer Operating System?

What Is RainCamp™

Platinum RainCamp™ Sponsor: Market Leader

The Best of NAR 2009 Expo - Real Estate Technology

Are You Coming To NAR This Weekend?

ActiveRain Channels - Real Estate Technology and Tools

Technology | Twitter | Google | Websites | Photography Video | Facebook | Social Networking | SEO

ActiveRain Statistics - Comments, Views, and Clicks

RainCamp is Coming To San Francisco

Platinum RainCamp™ Sponsor: Market Leader

The ActiveRain Point System

Building, Managing, and Protecting Your Online Reputation

The Google Story - A Video Story Book

Top 40 Resources for Information and Education

How To Get Your Blog Posts "Viral" Exposure on Twitter and Facebook

How To Use Your "Existing" Domain Names on AR Outside Blogs

NY Daily News Reports From ActiveRain - A BIG Wordless Wednesday

Social Media Buttons and Icons - Is Someone Pushing Your Buttons?

Apture - The All In One Tool For Social Media Content

My 14th Anniversary Surprise from ActiveBrad

ActiveRain RainCamp - Better Than SummerCamp For Kids!

FREE Online Technology Tools and Services for Your Business - 2009

ActiveRain Widgets & The New and Approved HTML List

New and "Approved" means "Improved"

What Is A Widget?

Here are the approved Widgets for ActiveRain

Here are the New "approved" HTML Tags for ActiveRain

A Few New Fixed and Added Features

Images By: ImageChef.com

How To Remove Antivirus Pro 2009 VIRUS from your Computer

How do I get rid of the Antivirus Pro 2009 Virus?

Here is the known Danger level on a scale from 1 to 10.

I spent hours researching this so you won't have to.

How Do You Get Infected with It?

What can the Antivirus Pro 2009 Virus do if not removed?

Here's The Solution I Found after Numerous Calls, Reading, and Research.

There's Blog Power in Your Mouse - It's The Right Click

Is There Blog Power in Your Mouse??

The problem is, you'll get this box...

The Power of Giving - The Gift of Thanks

I would be seriously remiss if I didn't stop this evening to give my sincere and heart felt "thanks"

Being thankful is more than just saying it to someone,

You have been an absolute "Joy & Hoot" to work with, you're amazing people!

Thank you Jon, Bob, Rich, Jeff, Matt, Diego, Jorgen, Mike, Jerry, Claire,

To the GREATEST Community and Network on Earth, I want to Thank you

I am proud of this company, this network, and most of all, this family I call my own.

I wish everyone a very bountiful Thanksgiving, and a safe and wonderful Holiday.

It's the invisible FREE gift that is always worth giving...Happy Thanksgiving! :-)

Twitter Gone Wild! - Rated T

Social Media Networking - Welcome To The Matrix

Convert Your Blog To Audio in 60 Seconds

I've noticed the fonts on many Blog Posts are getting larger these days.

Copyright Laws and You - Here's All You'll EVER Need To Know

Call-in Number: (347) 677-1643

Here's the Website To Chat or Just Listen In

EDITED and UPDATED 11/13/08 Recorded From Today's Broadcast

Here's some of the questions we covered today:

300 - Where Will You Be for #300 on ActiveRain?

LinkedIn Becomes More than A Profile -or- The On-Line Resume'

Copyright - Is It Clear? Are We Safe?

Is the message clear? Members want Clarity and Answers.

IN A NUT SHELL:

ARE WE SAFE?

WHAT ABOUT YOU?

Your Social Media User Name - Is It Too Late?

The questions?

It's Your Name. What's In A Name?

A Possible Tool $ Solution!

Listing Router - How To Set Up Your Own Click Campaign

IMPORTANT NOTE

Follow these 5 steps to setup your own campaigns for your market areas.

Listing Router - How To Setup & Save Your Own Traffic

IMPORTANT NOTE

Technology | Twitter | Google | Websites | Photography
Video | Facebook | Social Networking | SEO

It's the invisible FREE gift that is always worth giving...
Happy Thanksgiving! :-)

EDITED and UPDATED 11/13/08
Recorded From Today's Broadcast

What is an REBarCamp? Why Would I want To Go?
Who Is Going To Be There? How Will This Benefit Me or My Business?
What Are The Topics? Where's it at? How Much Will It Cost?

NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH
COMMITTEE