About NikNik
Below are a few recent posts by NikNik:
- Trulia First to Go Google Street View, 08 Apr 2008
- How to Redesign Your Active Rain Blog, 04 Apr 2008
- Future of Real Estate Technology Acquires MTO - April Fools, 01 Apr 2008
- Chicks Love MTO v.2, 19 Mar 2008
- Inman News Beta: Same great news. Brand new site., 01 Mar 2008
- Get Marketing, Get Real Estate, Get 4Realz, 20 Feb 2008
- New Recent Reader Widget from MyBlogLog, 16 Feb 2008
- How Neat Are Your Receipts?, 11 Feb 2008
- Have you been Blogged?, 08 Feb 2008
- Real Estate Marketing Strategies for 2008, 25 Jan 2008
- Want Free Online Meetings For A Year? Then Read This!, 04 Jan 2008
- Dancing with the Bloggers, 01 Jan 2008
Trulia First to Go Google Street View
By NikNik · April 8, 2008 · 11 Comments
Not since the acquisition of Rudy Bachraty, has the Trulia team unleashed such “coolness” in the real estate community! As of today, Trulia is the first national real estate search Website to incorporate Google’s Street View technology.
Google’s Street View mapping is a phenomenal tool for real estate agents. With it, agents and consumers can view a property up close at street view level, walk or drive past the property and surrounding neighborhood, and even check out the yard and other attributes of the lot. For those agents specializing in relocation, this is obviously a powerful resource for learning about a new area. Rudy, Trulia’s Social Media Guru, adds, “Besides zooming in on the minute details of the exterior of the house, now you can actually take a peek at Read more
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Tags: technology, real estate agents, real estate search, traffic patterns, google street view, trulia
How to Redesign Your Active Rain Blog
By NikNik · April 4, 2008 · 5 Comments
I love bling! And not just to wear; I love it on all my blogs and networks. In fact, I had Reggie hook up my ActiveRain sidebar to match the MyTechOpinion Blog v1. So naturally, I was excited when Brad Carroll informed me I could customize my Active Rain Blog layout. With so many sites to maintain on the Web, this is a great way to brand yourself and provide consistency among all your blogs and networks.
To learn how to customize your ActiveRain blog, click here.
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Future of Real Estate Technology Acquires MTO - April Fools
By NikNik · April 1, 2008 · 9 Comments
It’s true. We have been acquired.
Loren over at the Future of Real Estate Technology made us an offer we couldn’t refuse. Actually, he had made several offers to us in the past in his attempt to takeover MyTechOpinion….and make it all his own. Second place on Google for the search term “Real Estate Technology” had been eating him alive! So, we finally caved after many rounds of negotiation.
Loren takes over our domain starting Sunday. As for Reggie, Chad, and I, we’ve decided on a much simpler life. You can find us blogging remotely from our new home (the 85 Renault RV). You should see the curtains I picked out for this baby!
Hey, we said he made us a good offer….of 89 installments!
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Chicks Love MTO v.2
By NikNik · March 19, 2008 · 12 Comments
No, you don’t need to adjust your monitor settings. We launched MyTechOpinion version 2 tonight. Chad made a great suggestion at our weekly offline meeting (yes, we do make it out of the office once in awhile). And before we knew, Reggie’s weekend had been spent whipping us up a new blog.
Reggie had created MTO version 1 on the Blogger platform. Ouch! And secretly longed for his own Wordpress blog…especially after creating so many rockin’ real estate blogs for others. However, he wouldn’t dare mess moving from Blogger without keeping our link structure intact. But after a little(LOTS) research, he decided to go with the Maintain Blogger Permalinks Plug-in. Reggie’s time finally came and we’re happy with the result.
You’ll notice that we’ve incorporated some new features along with better sorting ability to quickly identify helpful articles. Our new platform and design allows us to showcase more technology content. We’ll be adding more video and social media tools as we get going here!
Please let us know what you think!
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If you have enjoyed MyTechOpinion - Technology for Real Estate, please subscribe to our RSS feed!
Inman News Beta: Same great news. Brand new site.
By NikNik · March 1, 2008 · Leave a Comment
When it comes to Real Estate News, “Either you’re in or you’re out!”
It sounds much better coming from Heidi Klum. On Project Runway, Heidi and her A-list designer judges critique and praise the battling designers on their looks and designs each week. Advising along the way, “make it work!”
Well, this week Inman News revealed their new look at www.Inman.com. I was delighted to see their core theme “the first word in real estate” maintained and supported by impeccable construction and detail, with a fabulous color palette and logo to boot! Besides the new look, the Beta Inman site will boast new benefits for members.
News will continue to flow from Inman TV, the InmanBlog, the InmanWiki, and NOW via the NEW Blog Network! The Blog Network is a consortium of Real Estate industry bloggers which include (just to name a few): Transparent RE, FORUM, 4realz, Urban Digs, The Mortgage Reports, and MyTechOpinion. Yep, our real estate technology posts from here at MyTechOpinion are now available at Inman. This doesn’t sway our opinion of Inman’s new look…but rather raise our level of expectations. And with that, I’m proud to say, “Inman News Beta, you’re in…you may leave the runway!”
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Tags: beta, mortgage reports, real estate news, inmanwiki, real estate technology, bloggers
Get Marketing, Get Real Estate, Get 4Realz
By NikNik · February 20, 2008 · 2 Comments
If you are a real estate agent with a passion for technology and great marketing tips you should consider attending one of the upcoming 4Realz Internet Marketing Seminars. (Especially if you live in the SoCal region!) 4Realz featured speakers, Dustin Luther and Jim Marks, promise to share great marketing advice for real estate agents. I have witnessed Dustin in action several times. He has a great way of breaking down complex issues and helping you focus your time and effort in real estate marketing activities that get results! They currently have three seminars scheduled for Southern California (room for only 100 participants at each location).
- Los Angeles on March 6th
- San Diego on March 19th
- Orange County on March 31st
The type of material they plan to cover in the full-day course includes (1) quality website features and design, (2) engaging in existing social networks, (3) building an online community with blogs and (4) tracking and conversion to maximize return-on-investment.
The seminar costs $149 for a full-day course. This includes a light breakfast , full lunch, and 8 solid hours of valuable real estate marketing advice! Click here to register and check it out for yourself!
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Tags: real estate marketing, great marketing, marketing tips, real estate agent, real estate agents, marketing seminars
New Recent Reader Widget from MyBlogLog
By NikNik · February 16, 2008 · 3 Comments
You may have noticed our new “Recent Reader” widget from MyBlogLog. If not, take a look. The design has been updated and now you can access additional information about your readers. When scrolling over a reader avatar a flyout box will appear with reader details. You can then find out more about your visitor by easily clicking through to their MyBlogLog profile and community pages. The new widget is also infused with a quick link for adding visitors to your contacts. In addition, MyBlogLog readers can simply add themselves to the site’s community by selecting the “add” button at the bottom of the widget.Currently, MyBlogLog offers a choice of seven colors and 2 layouts for your widget. You will need to adjust the flyout box based on your blog layout. There are a couple of known glitches:
- Iframe Blocks Flyouts: If you’re displaying the widget code in an iframe, set your flyouts value “none”.
- Mac Firefox - Flyouts vs Flash: This is a Firefox bug w/ CSS transparency and absolute positioning.
MyBlogLog has plans for those of us who prefer optimum customization and promises we’ll be able to upload our own skins very soon. Also, stay tuned for major changes on your MyBLogLog profile. In the coming weeks, your profile will be getting a facelift and new integrated features….taking your profile from static to dynamic!
Getting Started: To update your “Recent Reader”widget, go to your MyBlogLog community page and click on the “widgets” link under your community description.
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Tags: own skins, mybloglog, colors, technology, widget, widgets
How Neat Are Your Receipts?
By NikNik · February 11, 2008 · 4 Comments
You may not have been very organized when it came to your real estate business receipts last year, but there’s a handy technology tool that can change all that for you this year! Neat Receipts is a scanner/software combination that will organize all your receipts, expense reports and other business documents.
After sending your documents through the scanner, the software will automatically catalog the information making manageability a snap. You basically turn your piles of paper into organized digital files. That’s right, from piles to files.
I’ve witnessed the efficiency of this tool first hand. My stepmom takes Neat Receipts with her wherever she goes (like lipgloss), ready at a moment’s notice to scan those “write-offs”! It’s quite amazing to see how effective and organized one person can be. She inspired me to try one on myself…and I haven’t looked back at my piles since!Neat Receipts 3.0 Features:
- Smart sorting
- Enhanced PDF functionality
- Keyword search
- 2007 tax categories
- Scans quickly and easily
- Image viewer
Neat Receipts Version 3.0 retails online for $229.00, or purchase in bulk to save. Click here for pricing. Sorry Mac users, you’ll have to wait until March/April 2008 to get your version.
To learn more, watch this demo.
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Tags: tax categories, scanner software, MyTechOpinion, technology, business receipts, business documents
Have you been Blogged?
By NikNik · February 8, 2008 · 1 Comment
With over 100 million blogs on the Internet, how do you discern which ones make it to your Google Reader. Blogged.com is “better blog” directory and organizer. The authors and editors of Blogged scour the Internet and blog submissions to identify “better blogs” for different content areas and award each a score. Editor reviews are provided by professional editors who evaluate a blog based on the following criteria: Frequency of Updates, Relevance of Content, Site Design, and Writing Style. The closer you are to 10, the better the blog you have. Use keywords to search for blogs and see if your blog made the cut!
MyTechOpinion was contacted by Blogged recently because they had given us an excellent score of 9.7! When searching for “real estate” we are currently the top rated blog. For business, we rank in the top 6 just under Seth Godin and SEO of the Sea. And for technology, we are #7 right under the Google Blog!!!! Thanks Blogged….MyTechOpinion greatly appreciates your opinion!
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Tags: MyTechOpinion, Directory, real estate, widgets, widget, Google
Real Estate Marketing Strategies for 2008
By NikNik · January 25, 2008 · 9 Comments
Joel Burslem handed me a Flip camera and press pass at the Inman Real Estate Connect New York. And, I’m pretty honored that he thought I’d bring him back something worthy of Inman TV. Good thing I kept it clean. Those blogger parties can get pretty wild!
Actually, my goal was to uncover real obstacles facing agents in this market and the strategies being used to get a leg up! A special thanks to Dan Green, Brian Wilson, Sara Bonert, Diane Cohn, Jay Thompson, Christian Sterner and Reggie. They not only provided me with great real estate insight and perspective, but also professional wisdom from the heart! Thanks for sharing your expert knowledge and for getting “deep inside real estate” with me!
Tune in next time, as I sit down and get “deep inside real estate” with Max the HomeGain Monkey for an in-depth interview on boosting buyer traffic to your Website.
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Want Free Online Meetings For A Year? Then Read This!
By NikNik · January 4, 2008 · 5 Comments
Yugma became one of the fastest growing real-time web collaboration services in 2007! Thanks to the real estate bloggers, and other online technology enthusiasts! But mostly the bloggers! And to show their appreciation, Yugma would like to give you a free year of their premium service valued at $99.50.To learn more about this program and how to get your sponsored Yugma account, check out the details on the Yugma blog. The window to request your account through the Yugma Blogger Program will be through the end of January, 2008. So if you are interested, get on it!
Yugma will also be upgrading their current services with new features and improved performance in the coming weeks. If you have not checked out Yugma’s online meeting tools, it’s worth investigating. It’s an affordable option for real estate agents, keeping you connected with your clients and colleagues!
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Tags: technology, real estate agents, bloggers, real estate agent, new features, real estate
Dancing with the Bloggers
By NikNik · January 1, 2008 · 1 Comment
Todd Carpenter asked me to judge his first annual “2007 Humdinger Award” contest along with Dan Green and Chris Lengquist. The entries were funny and the bloggers were fierce! As for the scores…you’ll just have to visit Blog Fiesta to get the true results. They are all superbly hysterical posts in my book. So if you haven’t already checked out these blogger funnies, start off your new year with a big giant smile and get to reading!DTPMMALF – Athol passes the “ass test”! I’m very impressed that he understands what’s really being asked of him. Plus it made great reading material for Reggie.
The Bubble Gum Interviews – Each and every one of them is oddly fabulous! Finally someone gets to the heart of what we really care about…you know…drag racing in Houston, Starbucks, arm wrestling Chuck Norris or Brittney Spears. Thanks Lani, I look forward to the next one!
The Honor is All Mine! – It sucks to be overlooked. Just an oversight on their part I’m sure. But can I buy you at beer at the next Beers & Bloggers so that I can say I know you now?
Ten Marketing Tips You Can Learn From A Prostitute - An amazing introspective article detailing the dualities between prostitution and real estate. Very motivating!
Business Goals – A plan is good. A plan with real expectations is even better. Some of us need to plan our “nice time”. Thanks for the tip!
Top 5 Reasons Why You Wouldn’t Hire a Penguin as Your Next Realtor® - Yes, I run into Penguins from time to time at the gym. They are always the ones ignoring the “no cell phones” rule and insist on talking on their cell phones as I’m running on the treadmill….take it outside already!
Please Don’t Destroy My American Dream – This actually brought back nightmares of my former neighbors who held weekly BBQ’s on the roof of their 7 bedroom home. They had dirt bikes too. (Which I don’t mind enjoying on occasion.) But not while the neighbors are making their own “Jack Ass” movie dragging themselves on crates down my front lawn.
Mademoiselle? Oui. La Spinster?…ZUT! - “Bella Donna” sarebbe la mia scelta!
What I’ve Learned in Two Weeks of Real Estate Brokers Classes - Get to the point already! 
WordPressing their widgets into your Facebooks! - Perfectly hilarious and smart!
And, I’m looking for “Dancing with the Bloggers” contestants. Still working on the logistics of the venue…it may have to take place in my gym locker room. But if you own an iPod and you have a little shake left if your booty….you’re in!
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Tags: real estate, widget, marketing tips, widgets, wordpress, business goals
