Right now there is a small core group looking at the feasibility of a real estate bar camp in the Atlanta area.  If we can put it together, the event will be held this fall… September or October is the likely time frame.

Here are a couple of posts on Active Rain with more info about #rebcATL (that is the ‘official’ Twitter hashtag for the event).

• Should Atlanta have a reBarCamp?

• A little more about an Atlanta rebarcamp

On the second link there is a webform asking about what you might want for a rebc.  We’d love to get your feedback in order to make a better experience for everyone.  It also give you the opportunity to volunteer…  There will be lots of opportunities for volunteers from now until the event concludes… and then I’m sure planning will need to begin for the 2011 #rebcATL.

We are also putting together a FaceBook Official Page for #rebcATL.

I am a FireFox user.  I prefer it over Internet Explorer for a lot of reasons.  It has WAY more flexibility.  And one of our MLSs is even going to be supporting it soon.

I had installed one particular plug-in a long time ago, and was left wondering why.  In fact, when I set up the new computer, I didn’t install that particular plug-in.  But while at REtechSouth (#retso), I attended a session of FireFox, and it was mentioned as a ‘must-have’ add-on.

It is back.  And it is back with a companion.

GreaseMonkey is an add-on that allows little ‘scripts’ to be run.  They modify the experience of sites from Amazon to YouTube.  They can be major (literally moving components around) or minor (blocking Farmville notices in FaceBook).

GreaseFire is the companion.  This little add-on finds things that can be modified by a GreaseMonkey script. I’m finding it a bit buggy… and that doesn’t seem to be very different from some other users… but the concept is great, and I would expect that to be fixed in a release in the near future (FireFox just did a major upgrade).

The other way to find scripts is to look on Userscripts.org.  There are thousands of different scripts…

Have Fun.

But I’m not happy with the site conversion.  Or maybe it is that I’m not happy with the conversion tracking.  I’m not happy with the engagement.  Or maybe it is that I’m not happy with the engagement I can see.  I know that I’m not happy with the visuals… and some of the widgets/plug-ins/features…

Mostly, what it comes down to is that I’m not happy with my overall strategy. There isn’t one.  At no point did I sit down and make a plan.  It has been patchwork… and it doesn’t seem to match.  That needs to change…

Over the last few months I have managed to build a lot of great pieces.  WordPress, Joomla, Posterous, Tumblr, Flickr, FaceBook, Twitter and other services/sites and networks are all great… individually.  I’m not saying that I like all of the pieces I’ve made… just that the pieces have a lot of performance capability.  In a couple of cases, I may tap some experts on particular platforms.

I’m interested to see where everything will go…  I haven’t made the plan yet.

And that is where the next step comes in…

MindMapping.

En Vogue | Free Your Mind

I’ll be using an open source program called FreeMind to lay out my ideas for website strategy.  I have used it to put together some presentations about various subjects.  It let’s me brainstorm ideas, and then organize them into something more cohesive.  In effect, it is a ‘radial outline’.  We all remember outlining things in school.  Outlining was a great tool for organizing content, but it was very linear.

The MindMap allows that outline to become a hub and spoke.  And then the ideas on the spokes can become new hubs.  This means that it becomes very easy to see which ideas have the most connection to others…  Unlike a linear outline, the MindMap allows ideas to connect to other ideas, rather than just be a subset of one thought.

But there is another step…

Implementation.

3run – Free Your Mind

And it always involves faith.  The faith that it can be done… that I can do it (or find the right source to do it).  The faith that it will work (or that it can be tweaked to work).  Of course, the faith will be subject to measurement (analytics) and modification…  But I will be ready to step into it… into the void of the unknown.

I am in the process of MindMapping my website strategy.  I am also analyzing tools and techniques.  As the strategy emerges, I know that there will be some pain and a learning curve… sometimes it may get pretty steep.

But this is where my business comes from.

from Lane’s Active Rain blog

REtechSouth

After every conference and seminar, there comes the real challenge… implementing all of the VERY cool things I’ve learned, while living in the real world. Setting up client searches, responding to inquiries, dealing with the family, making sure everything that should be on track is on track… they all get in the way of rolling out 3782 changes to my websites and social networks.

I have found that I need to take a little time… and then I need to dive in. Diving in comes next. I have pages of notes, some vendor material and a list of websites and ideas. I have mind-mapping software on my computer… and it needs to get used.

For the last few weeks, I have been unhappy with much of my web presence. I have a great IDX, but I am not getting the most out of it. I have good Page Rank, but I don’t have the level of conversion I feel I should have. My traffic is decent.

And I focused on the sessions at REtechSouth that I thought would help me fix that…

Plenty of sessions to focus on, too…

If you weren’t at REtechSouth, you should have been.

In addition to the incredible information that was presented, the connections that were made and the fun on the exhibit hall floor… there was also the opportunity to hang out with my friends. There are a lot of folks I have been lucky enough to meet from all over the country. And there were some that I was able to meet (in person) for the first time.

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• Where do we go from here? (lanebailey.info)

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.

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• 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…

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

Are you planning on hitting REtechSouth in Atlanta?  As usual, I have a discount code for tickets.  Brad Nix gave me the hook-up to deliver a 10% discount (affiliate link… that is where the discount comes from) on all ticket levels.  Here is how it breaks down:

• All Star Admission $134.10 + $3.35 EventBrite fee.  This is normally a $149 ticket.  It includes event access on both Thursday, Mar. 25th and Friday, Mar. 26th.  It will get you in to all of the learning sessions…  You can see folks like Jeff Turner, Amy Chorew, Brad Carroll, Ilyse Glink and Heather Elias… and WAY more.
• MVP Admission $179.10 + $4.48 EventBrite fee.  This is normally a $199 ticket.  This includes everything in the All Star package, as well as special seating, access to the MVP/Speaker’s Dinner on Thursday evening and access to the MVP Lounge.  Those that went to New Media Atlanta had a blast in the Rock Star Lounge hanging out with the speakers.
• 10 All Star Ticket bundle $891 + $9.95 EventBrite fee.  Yep, you get a discount on the discount.  This is 10 $149 tickets for just $89.10/each.  The bundle normally sells for $990.  Grab some folks from the office and get a discount.
• 25 All Star Ticket bundle $1687.50 + $9.95 EventBrite fee.  That brings the price down to just $67.50/each.  Brokers, bring the WHOLE office. Ramp up production with technology and social media marketing in the new year.

I will be there!  I can’t wait.  Brad has built REtechSouth into THE event in the Southeast for real estate technology and social media marketing.  In just a couple of years, this event has become one of the premier conferences to attend, regardless of where you live and work.  Atlanta is an amazing place in the Spring.

Last year I had the opportunity to attend the speaker’s dinner.  I HIGHLY recommend the MVP Admission for that reason.  Imagine yourself standing in on a conversation with Jeff Turner and the Notorious R.O.B.  At the previous REtechSouth I was able to spend some quality time talking with Pat Kitano and Tom Royce.  The luminaries of the re.net will be there…

Don’t forget, these tickets will likely sell out, especially the MVP tickets.  they are limited by the size of the dinner venue.  Don’t miss out.  Here is the link again to get the discount.

Catch #retso on FaceBook, too.

from Lane’s Active Rain blog

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

1 : to subject to or manage as a syndicate
2 a : to sell (as a cartoon) to a syndicate or for publication in many newspapers or periodicals at once; also : to sell the work of (as a writer) in this way <a syndicated columnist> b : to sell (as a series of television programs) directly to local stations 

— syn·di·ca·tion \ˌsin-də-ˈkā-shən\ noun

— syn·di·ca·tor \ˈsin-də-ˌkā-tər\ noun

source

Syndication is another part of a solid social media and social networking strategy. One of the biggest pitfalls of social media and social networking is maintaining a presence in many locations.  It can be a serious time suck.  Updating a bunch of site individually could take hours…  Even just keeping up with all of the profiles could be more than many people could handle.

Luckily, there are some tools that can make life WAY easier.  Posterous, AtomKeep and FriendFeed are three that come to mind…

Since we recently talked about FriendFeed, as an aggregator, we can start there…  It is unique, in that it both aggregates AND syndicates on multiple platforms. Through FriendFeed, you can make a post from Twitter show up on FaceBook, and dozens of other sites.  You can also have posts or activity from other sites reflected onto Twitter (or where ever… Twitter is used as an example).  Bringing in the data from a bunch of sites is aggregation, while putting the collected information out to a bunch of sites is syndication.

AtomKeep is unique in that it is designed to only handle one aspect of your social media presence… your profile.  Through AtomKeep, you can write the profile once and then syndicate it out to many sites.  Updating can be done in one step, rather than individually updating dozens of profiles…  There are limitations, since the least flexible platform rules all others, but it is a great way to handle to platforms on which you are least active.

Finally, the new kid on the block is Posterous.  It also has an aggregation capability, but the cool part is that you can email anything to Posterous and have it automatically routed to the appropriate sites (on which you participate).  Pictures to Flickr, FaceBook and Twitter.  Videos to YouTube.  Blog Posts… you get the idea.

The key to maiing effective use of social media and social networking is to be efficient.  Getting your message out to multiple platforms in one step is part of that efficiency…

However… Another aspect of an effective social media presence is INTERACTION.  Don’t just spam your message all of the time.  Remember to spend time interacting on the sites to which you are paying the most attention.

from Lane’s Active Rain blog