ActiveBob.....It's always Raining!

I have the utmost respect for Lenn Harley. I am convinced that she never ever leaves her computer. The degree to which she manufacturers post on ActiveRain borders on staggering. In fact, I have dreamed that she has a little factory of umpa-lumpas typing away and making maps all day long. And it's not just the shear volume......it's the quality of the posts. When I hear the call that ActiveRain should be featuring more 'hard core' real estate content, I usually think to myself, "well get ready for a BIG dose of Lenn Harley"

Over the weekend, she dipped her toe into a little fray that I had the good fortune of missing. (I was on a golf weekend with the boys). If you missed it, you can find it here, here, and here. We always talk about these sort of things after they play out, especially when one of ours is taken to task. (you'll have to read if you want the details). We decided that when it was all said and done, there were a lot of statements that were right, many that were wrong and a few that were just personal strategy decisions that don't really have a right or wrong answer.

One thing that I wanted to touch on, because it is near and dear to my heart is a contention that Lenn made about video. Here is what Lenn wrote:

Gadgets and Video. Another detrimental trend is the continued focus on non-Google friendly gadgets and platforms. If anything is going to diminish our Google juice, it will be the introduction of Google alien gadgets including video. Video is fun. Video is cute. Video is NOT Google friendly. The more bandwidth devoted to video and other Google alien gadgets, the less Google synergy ActiveRain will enjoy. Just because we can is no reason to do things.

I want everyone to understand something.......nobody KNOWS exactly what Google is going to do. Tomorrow, Google could say, "The world is flat, and if you have anything on your website that insinuates anything other than the world is flat, we are blacklisting you." Are they going to do that? Of course not.....but they could. People's best guesses (don't get me wrong, they are certainly educated guesses) are based on what they have seen in the past. People also make guesses based on patents that google file. But Google files a lot of patents!! And sometimes, (gasp!) they don't even file a patent, because someone else already filed it years ago and they just swoop in and buy them! (there is a rumor floating around they are flush with cash.......can anyone confirm this?)

The last thing I am is an internet history buff, but I'll bet there was a time when Google didn't index those bandwidth hogging images (pictures). Somewhere along the line, some really smart guy or gal at Google said "Hey, let's figure out a way to index images"..........and it was done. Which leads me to video............

Video is fun. Video is cute. Video is NOT Google friendly........YET!! (which isn't even totally true) There is a great article on SearchEngineLand that details the Google Universal and Google Video search products. You should go read it right now. The day is quickly approaching when Google WILL index video and integrate those results in the normal Google searches your clients use to find you. They will index it thoroughly. If they don't........someone else will, and that someone else will quickly become a leader in the Internet Search field. My guess is that if those rumors of Google being flush with cash are true, there is no way on this flat earth they will let someone else beat them to the punch.

So you can either choose to ignore video and focus on text, which will certainly bring you results (as it has for SOOOOO many to date) or you can decide that you are going to figure out how to incorporate video into your marketing plan now. If you choose the latter, you'll be in a pretty sweet position when Google decides that a video is worth at least 1000 words (and it will happen).

(I couldn't resist putting this video in......in has ZERO bearing on this conversation......but it might just be the cutest thing my kid has done so far.......and I missed it because I was down in Atlanta at the RETechSouth Conference...........and yes, that's him at center court!)

It's one for the money, and two for the show three to get ready, it's a go Mixpo! ActiveRain and Mixpo have officially partnered to bring you a powerful new tool and platform for your video editing and video productions. A simple way to create, edit, and produce Video that can be used on your AR Blogs, Profiles, and Websites. Mixpo is now available for ActiveRain Members!

While in the introductory stage of incorporating Mixpo Video, you can still sign up for a monthly subscription at a very low price, or you can save a few bucks by subscribing annually. "You mean there's a fee?" Yes there is, but it's a minimal fee for what you'll get, and it is only to help defray the cost of implementing and supporting the application for all the ActiveRain members here.

If you would like to get a jump on the "New Wave" of Real Estate Video 2.0 and give Mixpo a run, you can set it up NOW!. For $29/month, or $290/year (that's two months free) we can get you access directly to Mixpo. Since their isn't currently a way to directly purchase the product, you will need to use the ActiveRain Paypal. You can transfer the money to ActiveRain's Paypal account by going to Paypal.com. Use the email address billing@activerain.com. Once you make the transfer, send me or Bob Stewart an email with a copy of your receipt, and we will get you activated right away. (within 24 hours) EDIT: NEW UPDATE: AR Video is now fully integrated into ActiveRain. To sign up, just click on the video reel in the toolbar of any new post or comment. This post was created before we implemented the AR Video Platform. It is now fully Integrated. (New Post Coming Soon, or this one to be completely re-done) Edited 9/11/2008

The MIXPO Video Editing and Production Console
Some "Power" Points You May Want to Know About and Consider

| View | Upload your own

So here's a chance to go from Blogger to Vlogger, and get a jump on your competition with Video.

Individual commitment to a group effort -- that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work.

- Vince Lombardi -                     

At times over the past few weeks ActiveRain has been slow and even sometimes unresponsive.  I want everyone to know that we know about the problems and take them very seriously. Our members invest themselves to create content with the hopes that it will eventually reach their customers or other industry professionals. It is our calling and responsibility to ensure that we maintain the platform so that when your customers and colleagues try to find you, they can.

We are very dedicated to fixing our site stability problems and have invested significant resources towards this goal. The root cause of the problem has been the significant consumer traffic increases that we have been experiencing on a month over month basis; we are now seeing over 1.5 million visits to ActiveRain each month! We initially built this community on a shoestring budget so at times during our initial growth we had to take shortcuts just to make things work.  We are paying for those shortcuts now, but the good news is that we now have the funding to build the infrastructure correctly, and we have made significant progress on that front over the past 5 months.  

I see the light at the end of the tunnel.  Below is a list of our current initiatives. They make up what we believe to be the final tasks to bringing ActiveRain to the robust professional level where it needs to be:

1. We are in the process of upgrading the hardware on all of our
servers, which should substantially improve performance.  At the same
time we are also doubling the number of web servers.

2. We've contracted with another firm to provide 24 hour a day
maintenance and support for our systems.  They will be able to react
to any issues that come up much faster, and will also be working with
us to make sure the system as a whole is stable.

3. We've moved some of our development resources from new projects to
fixing a few issues that have been identified.

My heartfelt thanks go to all of you for engaging your peers and your clients through ActiveRain. The near future holds some great opportunities and with your involvement we will move the real estate world forward. 

Introducing the Real Estate Blog Index! This is the inaugural index, so my list is incomplete and I am eagerly hoping for submission of blogs to add to my list.

The Rules:

1. Blog must be about real estate.
2. The URL must be ranked individually on Alexa and Compete. (For instance a blog address of sethgodin.typepad.com would not be allowed because the typepad.com domain is the site that is being ranked. This applies to all inside ActiveRain blogs as well; sorry.)
3. The blog must drive the majority of traffic to the domain name. (For instance although Bloodhoundrealty.com is a real estate brokerage, it is my opinion that the Bloodhound blog drives a majority of the sites traffic.)