Over the Holidays I took some time to look closely at Google’s new Gadgets for your blog. I was very surprised to see how many gadgets were out there. These Gadgets are the same offered on the popular iGoogle. I immediately thought about the real estate agent looking to add a bit of flare to their blog by providing relevant data to their geographic area. Many of the Google gadgets allow the blog owner to customize results by zip code.If you are more interested in using Gadgets for your own self promotion, you could always develop your own.
Does Google have the perfect Gadget for your Real Estate blog?
· Posted on January 3, 2008 · 3 Comments
Adding YouTube Video To Your Next Real Estate PowerPoint
· Posted on December 16, 2007 · 3 Comments
The impact of YouTube’s video sharing technology is hard to miss. Not only can you find any video imaginable on YouTube, but real estate professionals are leveraging the free bandwidth and enormous popularity to promote their own commercials, video testimonials, local community footage and lots more. However the need to leverage your video in a listing presentation, kiosk, or window display may arise. So let’s talk about how you embed that video into your next PowerPoint presentation.
This is a very straight forward task and can be achieved using a YouTube Video add-In created by Shyam at skp.MVPS.org. The Add-In works for PowerPoint 97’ to current. Keep in mind however the video is streaming, so you will need a live Internet connection to display the video in your PowerPoint.
THIS EXAMPLE IS FOR POWERPOINT 2007. For other versions of PowerPoint, click here.
To get started, download the YouTube Video Add-In here. Start by unzipping the folder.
- Open PowerPoint, and click the Office Button.
- Click PowerPoint Options then select the Add-Ins tab.
- Click PowerPoint Add-ins from the Manage drop down and click Go.
- From the Add-Ins windows click Add New.
- Locate the folder you downloaded and unzipped. Select the Add-In YouTubeVideo2k7.ppa.
- Choose Enable Macros if prompted.
Congratulations, the YouTube icon should now be added to your toolbar as seen below. To use, simply click the button and follow the simple 4 step process.
Calling All Mobile Agents: Synchronize Your Google Calendar With Your Blackberry
· Posted on December 13, 2007 · 6 Comments
For those real estate agents that already utilize their Google Calendar, you can add one more benefit to the growing list. Now Blackberry users can access their Google Calendar anytime, anywhere. And technology savvy real estate pros can organize their broker’s tours, home inspections, signings, and more…on the fly! Streamlining your business events will afford you more time and better communication. Here is a quick list of suggestions for use:- Share your calendar with teammates and assistants.
- Import activities from Outlook.
- Receive email or mobile text-message reminders for events on your calendar.
- Create a special marketing calendar for each listing, and share it with the homeowner using the “send to a friend” feature.
- Use the invite feature to email special invites for a preview of newly listed homes (Google Calendar keeps track of RSVPs).
- Schedule your “blog posting plan” to keep content ideas flowing and prepared for upcoming posts.
To become even more organized and rid yourself of tardy excuses, simply visit http://m.google.com/sync in your mobile browser to download and install the Google Sync for mobile application. Once installation is complete, click on the Google sync icon and sign in to your Google Account. Now that’s efficient!
Sidebar "Bling" Cross Promotes Your Online Presence
· Posted on December 10, 2007 · 15 Comments
These days real estate professionals are members of social sites, online communities, blogs and more. So how do we deliver a consistent brand and message over so many tools? Also how to we channel interested parties to our other communities? One way is to use a similar sidebar for each application.
Introducing the BLING Widget for Real Estate Agents
Since we have not seen the perfect sidebar bling application for you real estate agents, we developed one for you to use. You will notice in “Step 7″ I instruct you to use the full path to the icons. This is so that you can use this code on real estate networks like Activerain, Facebook and more without making further changes.
Here is an example of the buttons I have created for your use.
(Buttons from left to right: LinkedIn, Facebook, RSS, Activerain, Zolve, MyBlogLog, Google MyMaps, Friendster, Trulia Voices, Zillow and RealTown Real Estate Network.)
DOWNLOAD ZIP FILE OF BUTTONS HERE.
IMPORTANT: If you are adding this to your blog, please make a backup of your template before beginning so you can easily restore things if you need too.
Step 1:
Create a new folder on the root directory of your website or blog and title it “bling”
Step 2:
From the icons I’ve created, choose the specific icons you want to use on your sidebar widget and add them to your newly created folder titled “bling”. (Note: Choose either the .jpg files or the .png files. PNG files have a transparent background.)
Step 3:
Start by opening notepad or your HTML editor. Now you will be adding the code from each step to the blank notepad document. Please add each snippet of code to notepad in the order below. If you are advanced, the complete code is avaliable here.
Step 4
Copy the code below. Now paste into the notepad document we opened in Step 3. The code we just copied is for the header of our widget. The widget title is”Find Me Online” If you would like to use a different headline, replace those words with your own. You can also update the header and border color by replacing the hexadecimal (6 Digit) color with one from this chart.
Step 5
Copy the text below. Now paste this code after the code above. We will be editing it as follows:
Replace [Insert URL of Personal Photo] with absolute/full URL to photo. (i.e. http://www.mytechopinion.com/images/reggie.jpg) (Tip: Ideal width is 75 pixels or less)
Replace [Insert Name] with your name
Replace [Insert Company Name] with your company or blog name
Replace [Insert Your Blog or Website URL Here] with your actual URL
Step 6
Copy the code below. This is the DIV for the buttons. Please paste to our open notepade file after the previous code.
Ok, now you will start to add the buttons for your widget. 4 buttons will fit on each row. If you are using more than 4 buttons, you can add another DIV by preforming Step 6 again. This will create a 2nd row of icons.
Step 7
Earlier you added the buttons for your widget into a newly created folder. Now find the corresponding code from the options below. Then add each desired to your notepad or open editor. Look for “<!–Insert Buttons to the left of this block–>” and paste the button(s) code before it.
LinkedIn
Replace [Insert LinkedIn URL] with the link to your LinkedIn Profile.
Facebook
Replace [Insert Facebook URL] with the link to your Facebook Profile. Also replace [Full Path to Image] with your full URL to the image.
ActiveRain
Replace [Insert Activerain URL] with the link to your Activerain Profile or blog. Also replace [Full Path to Image] with your full URL to the image.
RSS
Replace [Insert RSS URL] with the link to your RSS feed URL. Also replace [Full Path to Image] with your full URL to the image.
Zolve
Replace [Insert Zolve URL] with the link to your Zolve profile or blog. Also replace [Full Path to Image] with your full URL to the image.
MyBlogLog
Replace [Insert ByBlogLog URL] with the link to your MyBlogLog Community. Also replace [Full Path to Image] with your full URL to the image.
Friendster
Replace [Insert Friendster URL] with the link to your Friendster URL. Also replace [Full Path to Image] with your full URL to the image.
MyMaps
Replace [Insert MyMaps URL] with the link to your custom Google MyMaps page. Also replace [Full Path to Image] with your full URL to the image.
Trulia Voices
Replace [Insert Trulia Voices URL] with the link to your Trulia Voices profile. Also replace [Full Path to Image] with your full URL to the image.
Zillow
Replace [Insert Zillow Profile URL] with a link to your profile on Zillow. Also replace [Full Path to Image] with your full URL to the image.
RealTown Real Estate Network
Replace [Insert RealTown Profile URL] with a link to your profile on RealTown Real Estate Network. Also replace [Full Path to Image] with your full URL to the image.
Color Generation Technology for your Real Estate Blog
· Posted on November 9, 2007 · 4 Comments
New real estate blogs join the blogosphere everyday, but unfortunately some really miss the boat with basic design elements. Often the design could be saved if the colors were updated to a more complimentary color palette. For example, say you download a beautiful WordPress or Blogger theme and then change out the header graphic with a local photo of your geographic area. But the new local photo is full of different colors. Now your blog’s CSS needs to be updated to reflect these new colors. How do you choose the perfect hexadecimal color without being an expert? If you are off a few shades it can impact the total design.BigHugeLabs comes to the rescue with its free color pallet generator. This is one cool technology. You simply upload or paste a link to your main blog header photo, and BigHugeLabs returns 15 complimentary colors in hexadecimal format, with CSS for your blog (or Website, print design, home design etc.). If your photo is stored in Flickr or Photobucket, BigHugeLabs also has tools for pulling in the photo(s) for palette generation. If you have questions about editing your CSS, you may want to peak at this CSS Cheatsheet.
RSS and Pipes are the Future of Real Estate Content
· Posted on October 21, 2007 · 5 Comments
Lately I have been hearing a lot of talk about a technology called Yahoo Pipes, and what it can do to streamline RSS feeds. So today we are going to demystify RSS and Pipes for your benefit!
Let’s Talk RSS
To start, you must be noticing it gets harder and harder each day to keep up on all the great content accross the web. You likely know that Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is an easy way to keep up with this ever changing content. Rather than going out to each of your favorite sites one by one to see if they have new and appealing content for you, RSS is designed to bring the content of the sites you subscribe to right to your desktop via a Feed Reader. So rather than individually visiting 25 blogs in a row…simply open your reader and browse all content from one location. Your content comes to you!
Yahoo Pipes Technology Explained
Ok, now that you understand RSS let’s talk about Pipes. The term originally comes from UNIX and means roughly the output from each process is chained together creating a new output. Think of aggregation. You can say that pipes are the natural evolution of the RSS feed. Think about the current state of the blogosphere. Today you write a post on ActiveRain, tomorrow on Zolve, then Trulia and of course there is that guest post you recently did on another blog favorite. Plus this whole time you have been posting on your own blog. So how do you take all this content and mash it up into one feed for your readers? Introducing Yahoo Pipes.
Yahoo Pipes will aggregate and mashup content from around the web using RSS, data sorts, filters and translation. (Did I mention that no programming is required?) So in the example I mentioned above, the pipe you create could be a mashup of all your posts in one place—filtered by your name.
Let’s Build a Pipe
To get started, go to Yahoo Pipes and register for your free account. Once you have logged in, click the “Create a Pipe” button. You’ll notice the canvas appears. Start by simply dragging the module titled “Fetch Feed” from the library pane on the left side onto your working canvas. One by one enter the feeds that you would like to combine. Click the “+” sign to the left of URL to add another feed. Repeat the steps as necessary. Now drag out modules from the library such as “Sort” and “Filter”. Make sure you connect each module by its connecters. Once you have customized your pipe, click the save button and name the feed. Now click properties and give your feed a description and tags. Congratulations! Now save and publish your feed.
See an example of a pipe here. This is a combination of NikNik’s posts here at MyTechOpinion and the HelpMyAgent blog. See tutorials here.
Center for Realtor Technology Talks Tech
· Posted on October 17, 2007 · Leave a Comment
Today over at Inman, Jessica Swesey has interviewed Keith Garner of the Center for Realtor Technology. As you know, the Center for Realtor Technology is a part of the National Association of Realtors. Listen to Keith’s view on real estate technology and a few new technical applications that have become available.
Cyberhomes PDF Report Aids Real Estate Agents with Local Market Statistics
· Posted on October 12, 2007 · 3 Comments
There has been a lot of buzz on the Street about Cyberhomes recent partnership with AOL. If you have not heard, Cyberhomes is now AOL’s exclusive provider of home valuation and listing content. However that’s not what this post is all about. For some time now Cyberhomes has been offering it’s free PDF Report to Real Estate agents and consumers alike. This report is packed with useful statistics for important pricing and buying decisions. For example, the 18 page PDF reports contains zip-code level information such as buy/sell indicator, building starts, rental vacancy, local unemployment, median and average home prices, sales count by price range, local school and neighborhood info, etc. This report can be customized by using the refine value tool. (i.e. custom comps, home upgrades, subject property adjustments.)
If you would like to check out the Cyberhomes PDF report, simply visit Cyberhomes and search a property. Once you see the neighborhood mashup, click the link titled Detail Page on the balloon. Make any refinements first, and then click PDF Report.
