Real Estate Agent, Brokerage and Mortgage Blogs

Wondering what you missed at NAR? Of course you are. You put 25,000 real estate professionals into one city and you are bound to have some fun. And that is exactly what happened.   From touring the exbhibits of our fine competitors and soaking up the pearls of wisdom the Web 2.0 and mashups seminar offered to hitting the town with wild men Matt Heatton and Jonathan Washburn of ActiveRain, NAR was chock full of memorable days and nights.  Check it out!

Web 2.0 and Mashups Seminar

What a cozy and informational seminar this was! Moderated by Keith Garner, Director of The Center for Realtor Technology, the guest speakers included, NAR CTO, Mark Lesswing, Errol Samuelson of Top Producer and Paul Rademacher, Google employee and developer of the first ever mashup, HousingMaps. Mr. Lesswing of NAR began the seminar by explaining web 2.0 and mashups and detailing common misconceptions about web 2.0 which led nicely into Mr. Samuelson’s discussion of mashup implementation and finally ending with Mr. Rademacher’s talk on APIs and how Google’s release will lead to more robust mashup implementations and how gadgets can help to drive more traffic to websites. The most interesting part of the seminar was Paul’s explanation of how gadgets can be responsible for driving more traffic to a site than content itself. So, the gist is, hire a good developer to build your site a cool gadgets and register it in Google’s directory then sit back and watch the traffic! On a personal note, we had the opportunity to speak with Paula O’Brian of Ronin Technologies one of the movers and shakers responsible for the new RETS specifications and additional functionality which was beaux coup interesting! (Hoping to interview this brilliant mind and give you a little additional peek into what RETS will be able to do for you as a Realtor). Kieth Garner is also a very personable and brilliant guy: I highly recommend checking out CRT- we have found his site endlessly informational and attribute much of our success in the real estate market to the information we have garnered from CRT. Now, onto the most surprising personal interaction of the conference. Paul Rademacher of Google was simply a wealth of knowledge! It’s obvious that his level of expertise when it comes to web 2.0 and mashups is without question. Even today, the first mashup ever created is still perfectly viable and still a great example of a mashup. The skill necessary to reverse engineer Google Mapping before their API was available is simply astounding. For John, getting to meet and talk to someone of this caliber was truly a highlight of the entire convention. John’s talk with Paul was the single catalyst in our decision to switch from Yahoo! Maps to Google Maps and his offer of advice in facilitating the conversion was an honor we graciously accepted!

What can you say about the company that wrote the book on Realty Blogging? The Blogging Systems booth was not just well appointed and informational, but staffed with knowledgeable and helpful blogging professionals. Wile we could technically be considered a competitor, Richard Nacht, Paul Chaney and Barry Hurd were all gracious and helpful.   For those of you that don’t now much about Blogging Systems they provide a community blogging solution where there are multiple blogs coexisting on a single site. A typical use seems to be for Intranet purposes so Realtors within an office can communicate with each each other and the consumer. These types of blogs act as a supercharged networking device. At least, that is my understanding of their offering. Hopefully if I mischaracterized it, Richard or Paul will drop by and correct me! Competitor or not, Blogging Systems is very skilled at what it does and on a personal note, they are very fine individuals.

Buy Realty Blogging here

Vista print is an online business card, postcard and branding company. Since we print mammoth quantities of our marketing materials, we were really impressed with the quality and prices Vista offers. One of our primary concerns about ordering our print jobs online has been the quality of the print. Vista allied all our fears with excellent paper qualities, print resolution and paper cuts. 

What a show. While I have been a fan of Harry Connick Jr. since the mid 90’s, my husband, John, barely knew who he was until the other night. Within 10 minutes into the show, though, John was laughing and whispering into my ear how much he was enjoying it. Mr. Connick, a native New Orlenean, put his heart and soul into the show as a thank you to Realtors for donating more than $525,000 and building more than 54 homes in the Gulfcoast area. The show and banter between the musicians was reminiscent of Frank Sinatra’s Rat Pack which left us wishing it had lasted more than an hour and a half.

Wanna buy some of his great works? Click here.

Hitting the town with ActiveRain

You haven’t lived until you hit Bourbon street with quiet as a “mouse” Matt Heatton and rebel rouser Jonathan Washburn of Active Rain. While Matt has a great sense of humor, he is often the straight man to Jonathan’s jokes and often the butt of those very same jokes. In one night we learned that Matt’s nickname is high school was “mouse,” his mom banned fireworks from the town they grew up in and they drove Dukes of Hazzard style through the streets of Seattle in Jonathan’s father’s Porche. Needless to say some crazy stories were swapped and lots of laughs exchanged. The night ended early as John and I had to be on the road by 6 AM, but 5 hours with Matt and Jonathan is all you need to learn that there is a lot more to these lifelong friends than meets the eye. Thanks for the good times!

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