For example, say you’re working with a homeowner moving to the Marina District in San Francisco California. They’ve been asking lots of questions about local attractions, so you sit down with them and search the area using Google Maps. Right mouse click the general area, and select “What’s Here?”  You’ll see a green arrow display like this:

Now look to the left-hand side of the screen, you should see the geographic name and a link to “Explore this area.” Based off the zoom level, Google will serve up the “most appropriate geographical entity at that point.”

Once selected the maps should fill with photos from the surrounding area.  To see more, select the “More photos” link on the left-hand side and all available photos quickly populate the map, something like this:

MyTechOpinion
This new feature is super cool and will certainly come in handy for anyone looking to investigate an area further.  To get the most complete mashup available, try clicking the “more” link located at the top right corner of the map.  From there you can add videos, Wikipedia, webcams, and transit information to the current view. If you want to take your search experience from Google Maps into Google Earth, you’ll aslo see a button included.

For those of you that want to participate in the user generated content, try Panoramio.

vCards are commonly used in eSignatures or attached to business emails. They are standard electronic business card files that usually include an address, phone number, email, Website or blog URL, etc. vCards can be added to the Mac OS X Address Book, Microsoft Outlook, and other applications.

Now, I hadn’t heard of the hCard so this gave me a chance to learn more. Apparently an hCard is a microformat for publishing contact information, as well as for extracting details to be used in other applications or Websites and even within mapping tools (yes, Reggie….mapping).

Stan Shroeder from Mashable says, “If you’re lost on the concept of hCard, and are interested in all this dataportability/microformats stuff, you can start with Operator, a Firefox extension for handling several microformats including the hCard.”

If you are not already a member of MyBlogLog, you should join! It’s a great way to access the faces of your readers. And it gives you a visual identity on the Internet. Why is that a good thing? Well, when you visit other blogs who are also MBL members, your picture will appear in the Recent Visitor Widget. So as you cruise around the blogosphere your picture will be left behind to intrigue and entice others to learn more about you, as well as find your blog. MyBlogLog is fabulous way to expose more people to your blog and gain interested readers!

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 the neighborhood too. It’s the next best thing to being there.”

Now buyers can arm themselves with “real living” information.

A concerned parent can map a child’s walk to the nearby school.

A commuter can find out more about road conditions and traffic patterns.

 An iced mocha addict (like myself) can locate all the nearest Starbucks to maximize her caffeine intake. 

Oh the possibilities! This new feature is available now in more than 30 U.S. cities and the images on Trulia are being updated real-time as more locations are added. To check out this great technology for yourself, visit Trulia.

Related: RealBird Integrates with Street View API

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!

So how exactly does the My Location technology work?

Google will pinpoint your location within 1000 meters by calculating and estimating your handset location based on the unique footprint of surrounding cell towers. To start up this feature from with Google Mobile Maps, click “0” and your approximate location will be displayed on the Map. Your location will be represented by a blue dot if you have GPS or a blue dot with a light blue circle around if you do not have GPS. This dot is your approximate location.

To get started, simply text the word “bluedot” to 33669 or visit www.Google.com/gmm on your mobile device to download the application.

Other useful Google Mobile Apps:

• Search
• Gmail
• Picasa
• Goog-411
• Google Readers
• Google Docs
• Google Calendar
• YouTube

The most obvious change (and the one most talked about) is the addition of the new user interface called the “Ribbon”. While I think that the idea of changing the menu options based on your current activity is brilliant, I would like to look beyond the obvious to the smaller features and tweaks. Those little things that you wished Office always had and now does.

While I couldn’t possibly cover all of these new features, I have put together a list of 10 features that has made my life easier and more productive.

1. Save as PDF – The PDF file format is gaining more and more importance in the real estate industry and now you can save your Office files directly as a PDF, no additional software required.
2. Email Merge in Publisher – Email marketing is becoming a standard marketing channel in the real estate industry. Publisher 2007 has now made it easier to send full cover email campaigns to your past client base by adding email merge capability. You can now personalize each email and send it without relying on the BCC field.
3. Indexed Searches in Outlook – Outlook has always had a Find feature, but it has been painfully slow. Searches in Outlook 2007 are virtually instantaneous. Your search keywords are even highlighted in the search results. I would have upgraded just for this feature!
4. Easier Pivot Tables – I am a statistics junky. I love to analyze market activity to find trends. I use pivot tables in Excel to create dynamic tables and charts. The new Excel finally makes creating pivot tables an intuitive process. The pivot charts that it creates look so good that you will want to include them in all of your listing presentations and marketing materials.
5. Context Checking – There? Their? They’re? I often forget which one to use. The new context checking ability in Word will put a blue underline on any word that it feels is misused. I love technology that makes me look smarter.
6. Post to Your Blog From Word – You know that blogging is here to stay when Microsoft incorporates it into Word. You can now publish a post directly from Word to your blog. Why would you want to do this? Think, active spelling, grammar and context checking.
7. Smart Art in Powerpoint – This is so cool that you have to try it. Take a list of bullet points in Powerpoint and turn them into a chart with a click. Use this and your listing presentation will jump to the next level of professionalism.
8. Text Formatting Menu – Right-click on any text and find a formatting menu pop up. No longer do you need to venture off to the top menu to change the font or size of text. This menu as to be using my wrist fatigue.
9. Conditional Formatting in Excel – In college, a professor showed us how to use convoluted formulas to change the background colors of cells in Excel based on the cell’s value. With Excel 2007, you just need to highlight the cell(s), click Conditional Formatting and make a selection. Try this to color code a spreadsheet of listings. Color code listings that sold below asking price in one color and those above as another color. Once you do this, you will see market trends without even putting your glasses on.
10. Graphs that Impress – All I can say is “WOW”! Recreate a graph that you made in a previous version of Office in Office 2007 and get blown away. You will look like a professional graphic artist to your clients.

I’m sure that I missed many indispensable new Office features. If you can think of one, leave a comment telling us about it. We’d love to hear why you think Office 2007 has made your real estate business more efficient.

Tips on Using Microsoft Office 2007 for your real estate business.

View microsoft Office 2007 Video Promotion

To access these new street-level maps simply search Google local in select major areas and look for the new “Street-Level Views” icon in the top right corner. Once clicked you will notice the streets turn purple. Then simply move the “stick figure” to a purple area and watch street-level views appear. Real Estate agents and others will notice arrows on the street-level graphics for navigating you through local streets. You can also make these new street-level view full screen, and you can spin the angle of the photo 360 degrees. Have fun with this new piece of technology and enjoy this breif video on the new features.

Cyberhomes also now includes the ability print a detailed summary report. The printed report displays the Cyberhomes estimate, estimate ranges, changes over the last 2 months, neighborhood values, physical characteristics and assessed values. If it’s not print you’re looking for, maybe you would like to email the property. Or possibly take advantage of the new alerting feature which allows a user to receive monthly updates about a property.

Cyberhomes has also been updating their Charts & Graphs starting with adding 3 new revolutionary heat maps in their Market Maps section. These new visuals display Home Value Estimates, Changes in Estimated Value and Housing Density. These heat maps are keeping with the Cyberhomes theme and utilizing Microsoft Virtual Earth for the clean and smooth look and feel.

The Blackberry 8800 is sleek. With its glossy finish and shiny chrome trim, the device seems more like a Motorola Q in my hand than any of my past 3 Blackberrys. The 8800 includes a media player. This turns your Blackberry into a music and video player. The MicroSD card expansion slot can accommodate up to a 2GB memory card (1GB cards are available for less than $20). Voice-dialing has been a standard function on my cell phones for years, but has been absent from the Blackberry line until now. GPS is also added through the integration of the Telenav software package (this is a paid subscription service).

One of the most notable changes, especially to a longtimet Blackberry user, is the omission of the classic Blackberry scroll wheel. This navigation device has been replaced by a trackball located in the center of the phone. This trackball is flanked by the traditional escape button (normally found on the side, below the scroll wheel) and a new menu button. While this is taking me some getting used to, this new way of navigating through the Blackberry’s applications and menus seems to be more intuitive. The Blackberry newbie won’t experience this transition period.

For those familiar with Blackberrys, you may be saying to yourself that all of these features have been available on the Blackberry Pearl for several months. While the Pearl shares all of the great new features and adds a camera, which is sadly absent from the 8800, the lack of a full QWERTY keyboard keeps the Pearl from being a good business solution. Try writing a couple of emails on the “SureType” keyboard and you will agree.

If you are in the market for a smartphone, the Blackberry 8800 is the best business device with personal life functionality that I have come across. It is only available from Cingular at this point. Cingular was also the first to adopt the Blackberry 8700, but Verizon and Sprint finally came along with the 8703, so it probably is just a matter of time for them with the 8800.