If you haven’t been in Gmail lately, you might not have noticed Google‘s new toy tool.  It is called Google Buzz.  In a nutshell, Google is integrating a social media component into Gmail.

In Buzz, users can strike up public or private conversations with integrated video, photos and links.  Kind of like the Status Updates on FaceBook.  In that regard, it is a step above Twitter… the king of the micro-blog/status update world.  Twitter doesn’t allow inline photos and videos, so when users share them, viewers have to leave Twitter to view the associated content.

I haven’t had a lot of time to play in it, but it seems kind of like “Google Wave Lite” to me…  Google Wave has many of the same types of features… of course it adds a LOT more integration with a wider variety of tools… and isn’t tuned to automatically pull in content as sites like Twitter, Flickr and YouTube are updated.

OK, they are very different, but I see the same type of collaboration available with Buzz as there is with Wave.

But there is a big picture here…

The big picture is that you NEED a Gmail account.  Google Buzz, Google Wave, Google Analytics, Google Maps, Google Docs, Google Voice…  Are you getting the big picture?  There is WAY more than that, but those are a good start.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Give Me A Buzz (overlypositive.com)
• The Buzz About Google Buzz (online.wsj.com)
• Google Buzz Isn’t Exactly Humming Along (solution.allthingsd.com)
• Four Reasons to Use Google Buzz (threeminds.organic.com)
• Google Buzz – Gmail adds social network functionality [VIDEOS] (nickburcher.com)
• Google Buzz – What Happened to Google Wave? (boneheadseo.com)
• Google to make Gmail a little more social (news.cnet.com)
• Hands On With Google Buzz – It’s a Stream in Your Inbox (webmonkey.com)
• Google Buzz Takes Aim at Facebook, Twitter (sfist.com)

What comes next?  A few years ago, did we see Twitter and FaceBook dominating the horizon?  Did we see MySpace falling off a cliff and becoming a place for bars and bands… and not much else?  Did we see the mobile would still be “just around the corner”?  Did we know that video would be EVERYWHERE… and still be almost here?

Actually, two years ago at REtechSouth, Pat Kitano told me that Twitter was getting ready to go big and that in a few years it would be a dominant social media.  But, while FaceBook was looming, I don’t think it showed up on the radar as the power it has become.

Regardless, this is an interesting video about the future of technology…

Related articles by Zemanta

• REtechSouth Tickets on sale NOW! and I have a discount… (lanebailey.info)

Get Posterous-ized…

The Great Posterous Experiment…

If you aren’t familiar with Posterous, they might be a good place to start.

As mentioned in “The Great Posterous Experiment”, I devoted the weekend to using Posterous while on a road trip.  Honestly, As a mobile platform to spit out some short posts, It ROCKS! The limitations are with my phone.  I already know a couple of ways to sneak around those, too…

If you look at my Posterous blog, you will see that I made a BUNCH of posts from the road.  All of them were from my BlackBerry Pearl Flip mobile phone.  the pictures, video and text were all generated on my phone.  In fact, I think every one of them was done from the passenger seat of the truck…  most of those while rolling down an Interstate at or around the speed limit…

I know that there are some tools to allow me to do that with FaceBook, YouTube, Twitter or WordPress.  But there aren’t nearly as many tools that allow ALL of them to be updated simply, quickly and at the same time…

I programmed the addresses into my phone before leaving.  I simply emailed the material to the address.  Posterous did everything else…

It can also be used to write to a WordPress blog.

from Lane’s Active Rain blog

Thinking back not all that long ago, I wasn’t doing most of those things seperately, much less combined.  In  fact, a few years ago, many of these technologies not widely adopted because of the bandwidth required.

Now it is possible that someone could send me a message and WATCH LETTER BY LETTER as I type a reply.  And while pulling in information from news outlets, social media and whatever else is required in order to get the message across, we can make a rich media presentation.

In unrelated news, I looked at an 84″ HDTV that was under $5000 (Like I have $50 to spend on a TV right now…).  They were showing a Blu-Ray movie (Pixar’s Cars).  That thing ROCKED.

And then I got to thinking…

<you’d better take cover>

I use a tablet computer.  I was looking at a SERIOUSLY High Definition display “monitor”.  And now this multi-media communications technology.  Imagine if all of these were combined. We are on the verge of things that were in science fiction movies only a few years ago.

And yesterday evening, My son’s teacher said that it won’t be long before kids don’t carry books to school… it will all be online.  I was already thinking that a tablet computer could function as both a reading appliance (like a Kindle) and writing surface…  The 5 year old gets to draw on daddy’s computer sometimes…

I think my phone has more computing power than my school district had when I was a kid.

from LaneBailey.com

Most of us know what it is… but few are really leveraging it to help create business or simplify our lives…

For those that don’t know, RSS is a news feed.  Basically, by subscribing to a website’s RSS feed, each time the site is updated, we will get the new material either emailed to us or in a “Feed Reader”.

I guess the easiest place to start would be the “making our lives easier” aspect.

I don’t know how many different blogs and sites I read…  I admit that I don’t read all of them every day, but I generally read about 30-40 posts on about 100 sites almost every day.  Real estate, technology, politics, local events, cars and travel are all on my reading list. 

In order to scan each of these sites each day to see if there was a post or article that I was interested in would take at least an hour… probably closer to two.  Add in the time to actually READ the material…  I wouldn’t have time to do much else.

Frankly, I enjoy the reading.  I want to be informed and up to date on what is happening in the world… and around the corner.  In a way, it isn’t much different than those that liked to scan several newspapers each morning. Except it is WAY faster (only having to look at headlines or short intros) and WAY cheaper (since the sites are free to read, unlike having several newspaper subscriptions).

So, it is making my life easier… cheaper… greener… and more time efficient.  At the same time, I can be more up to date on world and local events, as well as other information that is interesting to me. (Personally, I use FeedDemon as my reader, but you can use Google’s reader, Mozilla or even Outlook)

But what if the goal is creating business?

OK, there is the obvious that if we are keeping up with industry news and trends, we should be better able to respond to the market…  But there is something deeper…

Local expertise!

Some of the sites that you might be able to get daily feeds from might include local newspapers, local chambers of commerce, local businesses, local groups that promote events… and if you are one of the first to know about all of these happenings that are around the corner, you can be the local expert. Starting the discussion about property tax increases, changes in garbage collection, zoning hearings, roadway improvements, new developments and business relocation means that you can rank for those terms… the terms that people in the area might use to search.  Being on top of the search engines for local terms means that locals will read your blog… and that YOUR RSS feed will be one that THEY should subscribe to.

So, you also need to make your RSS feed easy to find for site visitors.  You want to be part of THEIR regular routine. Of course there is real estate sprinkled in to your site, so your readers will see you as the expert… the “go to person” for local information.

And when someone asks them about real estate… you are already the expert.

But why worry about the RSS?

According to the stats on my site, I have approximately 8 times as many people reading me on a given day via RSS rather than directly on my site.  That is valuable traffic. The best traffic is local traffic…

For many here, the first tool is going to seem like a no-brainer…

Active|Rain…

There are three aspects of Active|Rain, and I think that a real estate agent that wants to compete in a Web 2.0 world needs to leverage all three in order to accomplish that goal.  Each has a specific purpose, and while there certainly is overlap, each fulfills a specific purpose that is beneficial to agents in a different way…

Let’s start with Incredible Learning Opportunity…

There is no secret among those that have surfed around the site for more than a minute or three that there is a LOT of great information… free for the taking… right here on Active|Rain.  There are scores of the greatest minds in real estate sales right here… EVERY SINGLE DAY.  Bryant Tutas, Lenn Harley, Brian Brady, Midori Miller, Ken Cook, Jon Washburn, Jeff Turner, Pat Kitano, Missy Caulk…  and I could list 100 more.  And this isn’t like some “MasterMind” seminar where the interaction is minimal. These people are here, they are on FaceBook, Twitter and other sites.  They are interacting with everyone that chooses to interact with them.  They are at the REbarCamps, they are at REtechSouth, NAR Conventions or other events.  I have met (like in person) most of the folks on that list.  Whether it is technology, sales techniques, presentation tweaking… just about anything… these folks have the inside lines.  Even the free membership has full access to all of these people and more… And writing “Member’s Only” posts allows you to not only share, but ask the community for help or advice.

And then there is Google Dominating Blogging Opportunity…

One of the future tools I am going to cover is WordPress… but for now I think we need to spend a few minutes talking about Active|Rain RainMaker blogs.  These things have the juice… Google Juice.  Sure, you can load up a self-hosted WordPress blog, tweak it out with a custom theme and set it up with all of the coolest plug-ins.  But after doing that, until you start getting the love from Google, nobody will know you are there.  And that takes time…  Active|Rain has the system tweaked right out of the box.

So, you can grab your own domain, like GwinettGarageGuy.com, and have a blog that is ready to go.  It doesn’t need to be tweaked, tuned or rebuilt every few months (or days).  Instead of thinking about the plug-in updates and the new version of the platform that just came out today, you can just blog.  There are some modifications that can be applied, but compared to a full-blown, self-hosted blogging platform, it is quicker, easier and at least as powerful… and FAST.

But, one of the primary reasons to blog is because of the longtail search and attracting business through search results.  EVERYTHING that needs to be done in the background to make RainMaker blogs rank well with search engines is done… And the staff of Active|Rain, the Ambassadors and even the other bloggers will share all of the tips about writing content that you could ever want… content that WILL get you to the top of the search engines for the terms you want to target.

But wait, there’s more…  Localism Opportunity…

Maybe you’ve seen it… maybe not.  But there is a part of Active|Rain that is strictly consumer facing.  I think it still needs a little work, but the concept IS where the web is going…  The web is going local.  It is kind of funny… when the internet first started to show its muscle, the allure was that everything in the world was at our fingertips.  We could use it to learn about strange and exotic locations half a world away.  And now we are finding that one of the most powerful things about the World Wide Web is that we can find out what is happening around the corner and even in our own neighborhood.

And Localism is a network built on thousands of neighborhoods.  The neighborhoods are networked into towns, the counties and states.  Consumers can surf through neighborhoods and find out about them, see what is happening and even pictures and videos.  Maybe they are interested in buying… maybe they are just keeping a pulse on where they live.

Being a RainMaker opens up Localism to posting.  Sure, sponsoring a community is a way to crank it up another notch, but writing quality, local material is the way to reach consumers, and Localism is another way to showcase that material… pointed towards the communities in which we work.

So…

To compete in the RE.net, in a Web 2.0 world, Active|Rain is an indispensable tool.  If you aren’t a RainMaker, you should be…  Talk to your local Ambassador.  And yes… I am an Ambassador. If you are in GA, feel free to give me a shout.  If you are already a RainMaker, and want to ratchet up your performance, talk to your local Ambassador…  I am working on setting up a local seminar on tweaking Active|Rain for better results.  I haven’t even touched on the benefits of tuning your profile…

from Lane’s Active|Rain Blog

(And I hate the name of the Fan Pages as much as everyone else…)

But, they are first on the list.  I don’t know yet WHAT I am going to do, only that I must do something, because they are currently REALLY boring and that has to change.  I am also going to be rolling out more FaceBook pages for specific purposes.  After all of the cool ideas from #rebcclt, I realize the power of these things.

I have to be honest, though.  FaceBook did NOT make this easy.

Here are my current pages.  I love my current fans, but it would be cool to have a few more.

• Lane Bailey
• Lilburn Dwellings

Drop in, look around, become a fan and see how it changes over the next few weeks and months.  I’ll also use the mailing application to update Fans of new pages and ideas for how to use the pages.

And go subscribe to Mike Mueller and Dustin Luther to see what sort of cool crap these guys are coming up with for FaceBook and a lot of other social media!

Of course, some have taken it well beyond blogging on A|R and have included Twitter, FaceBook, LinkedIn, Trulia, Zillow, Flickr, Blip.fm… and a million other sites and communities.

But the same question is always at the bottom of it…

just out of sight of some, and front and center for others…

WHY?

What is the purpose?

• To ‘close’ sales
• To make money
• To grow our business
• To get back in touch with old friends
• To make new friends
• Lookin’ for Love…

These are the answers I usually hear… but they all entail one thing.  To meet people… and to build relationships.  Regardless of what else you might be trying to accomplish on the list, it comes down to meeting people, building relationships and leveraging those relationships to fulfill the goals of each and every person involved.

Seriously, what else on that list can be accomplished without meeting people… probably face to face… and building relationships?

I have had the great fortune to meet a lot of Active|Raindrops.  Some that are no longer active in the rain, others that are very active.  I have been able to hang out with some of the famous and the infamous.  On FaceBook I have been blessed to get re-acquainted with many of my (I thought) long-lost friends, as well as get to know a lot of new friends.

But there should always be a goal…

And raw numbers are not the goal…  I can’t have meaningful relationships with 50,000 people.  And there are a lot of people that I really don’t want or need to know… and a LOT more than really don’t want or need to know me.

Do I really want or need 53,000 followers on Twitter?  If I had 10% of that, could I actually interact with them, or would I filter out all of these “new friends” so that I could concentrate on people I knew?

So, is that the goal?  Should we be trying to build a following of thousands of people just to broadcast messages to them, but not engage in two way conversation? Not that there is anything wrong with that… I have a FaceBook ‘Fan Page’ that I started to put up even before Mike Mueller and Dustin Luther told me to… and I think it is a GREAT idea.  But there is a major difference.

If we are friends on FaceBook or if we are mutual followers on Twitter, we expect that the conversation is two way. If we are fans of a FaceBook ‘Fan Page’ we expect that to be a one way broadcast.

Do I have all of the answers?

Heck No… I don’t even have all of the questions.  I do have a questioning nature, though.  And I like to go against the grain.  And popular notions often strike me as something to question.

And I’m one to talk…  I am following 1000 people or so on Twitter.  I have over 600 ‘friends’ on FaceBook… and I don’t actually know some of them.  I have started getting more picky about who I friend or follow, and on my local Twitter account, I only follow people that are in my immediate area… but the fact remains that I am not the poster boy.

But I am starting to put together the questions…

While at #rebcclt last week, there were a lot of ideas flying around about unique ways to use FaceBook Fan pages.

• You kid’s school
• Your neighborhood
• Clubs
• Events (like charity walks, etc.) in which you participate
• Your business
• Your school (alumni)
• Target Markets

Basically, if there is a group of people that would like to put out news, maintain a calendar or promote discussion… or a combination of the three… then it could be good to build a FaceBook Fan page for the group.  I know that I have several ideas for fan pages to implement as I get time… Of course I hope that they get easier as I put a couple together.

from Lane’s A|R Blog