Jay's Phoenix Area Real Estate (and more...)

It's as simple as making a post in ActiveRain, and checking the "Outside Blog" box.

Anyone who has been around Active Rain for any length of time knows Karen George. Her posts are jammed packed full of all sorts of tips and techniques for maximizing your web presence.

You may also be aware that Karen is battling cancer.

Today there is an article today in the Arizona Republic about Karen, and her plans to form a non-profit organization to support cancer research and early detection of breast cancer.

Active Rain was mentioned in the article:

In addition to working on getting SOMAD running and undergoing chemotherapy, George has continued to work from home. She is a member of "Active Rain," a cyber community of real estate professionals from all over the country.

"I worked and I still work all through my treatments. I find that working helps to divert my attention from the ominous pressure I'm under from the cancer," she said. "It keeps my mind focused on other things."

Her posts on the Active Rain blog about her cancer fight caught the eye of Paula Henry, a Realtor from Indianapolis, as well as Phoenix Realtor Jay Thompson.

Henry said she was so moved by George's story that she opened a bank account so others could help George with medical bills, which she said are more than $200,000.

Thompson also is spreading the word about George through his own Web site.

"Karen is incredibly giving of her time and knowledge in the online real estate community. Her positive attitude is truly amazing, particularly in light of everything she is going through," he said.

George said she was humbled to learn people she had never met in person wanted to help her, and at first she was reluctant to accept their generosity.

Please take a moment to read the entire article.

What a remarkable woman. She's fighting for her life, but is still here sharing with us and working on setting up a non-profit to help others.

The donation link for Karen is still up on my blog (top right corner) If there is anything you can do to help, please consider donating.

Several senior executives have left Point2 Agent -- one of the world's largest suppliers of real estate website solutions.

I believe the first public indications of this change were made last Friday here (followed up here). On Saturday, Becky Troutt reported the news here on AR.

Inman News finally ran a story this morning confirming what the blogs had been saying for days.

And Point2 just released a formal press release covering who has left, and who at Point2 was promoted to fill the vacancies.

Interesting times at Point2, that's for sure!  I know many of those that left, as well as those that will take their places. All are talented, dedicated people, and I wish them all the best. 

Planning on attending the NAR Conference in Vegas in a couple of weeks?

Want to meet some of the "A-List" real estate bloggers? Here's a chance to get insight to their experiences with blogging as well as question and answer sessions.

Damon Pace at Incredible Agent is hosting the event at their booth. Stop by, meet some bloggers, get some answers and a shot at some cool prizes!

More information, and the current schedule can be found here.

Schedule For Wednesday, Nov 14:

10:00 A.M. Damon Pace - IncredibleAgent Blog

11:00 A.M. Michael Price - MLBroadcast Blog, Mike's Corner

12:00 P.M. Jay Thompson - The Phoenix Real Estate Guy

1:00 P.M. Lani Anglin - RERevealed Blog

2:00 P.M. Joel Burslem - The Future of Real Estate Marketing (Inman News)

3:00 P.M. Benn Rosales - AgentGenius.Com

4:00 P.M. Pat Kitano - Transparent Real Estate

5:00 P.M. Kevin Boer - 3 Oceans Real Estate

Schedule For Thursday, Nov 15

10:00 A.M. Daniel Rothamel - The Real Estate Zebra

11:00 A.M. David Gibbons - ZillowBlog

12:00 P.M. Kristal Kraft - Denver Real Estate Blog

1:00 P.M. Roberta Murpy - Luxury Home Digest

2:00 P.M. Jim Duncan - Real Central VA

More TBA!

If you are in (or around) the Phoenix area, you should come to this! Hear Brendan King, Point2 Agent COO talk about Point2.

Think of the possibilities...

Learn about what Point2 has to offer (you do not need to have a Point2 website to attend).
Meet other Point2 users.
Get tips and ideas.
Network with others.
Bring a sack of tomatoes and lob them at Brendan while he talks! 

Here are the details..... (Original source)

Point2 Technology User Group Meetup

Brendan King / COO of Point2 (and identified by Inman as one of the Top 100 Most Influential Real Estate Leaders in 2007) will be at this meeting of Point2 users.  Come hear Brendan talk about where Point2 is today and where they are headed with their technology.

This is the first time we're gathering Phoenix P2A users together - if you like it, let us know and we'll see how we might do it again!

Refreshments Provided Courtesy of Point2!  

When: Wednesday, November 7. 4:00 - 6:00pm

Where: Jobbing.com Community Meeting Room (map)
           4747 N 22nd St.
           Phoenix, AZ 85016

How: Register online here. Cost is ZERO!

Thanks to Steven Groves for coordinating!

The following day you can hear Brendan speak on a panel with Joel Burslem / InmanTV and David Miller / Chicago Title on 'RealEstate2.x - The Future of Real Estate' moderated by Steven Groves / Executive Conversations in Real Estate at the 2nd Arizona Entrepreneurship Conference! (separate registration required)

Sorry, I can't figure out how to embed the photos here. To see some pics, go HERE.

Blog Tour USA rolled into sunny Phoenix about 5:00pm yesterday. I walked up to the "Blog Bus", pounded on the door and walked in. Right there in the flesh, in living color were the Sellsius Boys. Joe was at the laptop, and Rudy was filming someone (the video camera rarely leaves Rudy's side.)

It was like meeting old friends. Joe and Rudy are a couple of great, friendly, down to earth guys. They're wicked smart too...

We were soon joined by a couple of others, and then Damon Price with Incredible Agent stopped by. Incredible Agent is one of the corporate sponsors of the Blog Tour, and they hosted the evenings festivities at Tempe's Depot Cantina. Incredible Agent is rolling out a new free website product, be sure to check it out. I promised Damon and some of his staff I'd give it a whirl and an evaluation. It's on the ever expanding to-do list...

There were a WHOLE bunch of folks there that I don't know. But some of the icons of Phoenix real estate blogging were present. Jonathan Dalton and Christoph Schweiger were there, and have accounts already up on their blogs. The data master John Wake graced us with his presence. Steven Groves was there, complete with that goofy Bluetooth thing stuck in his ear. Dave Smith even drove up from Tucson -- where apparently there is a shortage of food and alcohol. Alas, once again, The House Chick shunned our little party :) . We'll cut her some slack, as she's probably still recovering from a recent move.... Even the Arizona Republic joined in, sort of.

I chatted with many folks about blogging. Some furiously scribbled notes, some seemed very interested, and a few appeared to be there just for the food, beer and margaritas. People filtered in and out, but the party finally broke up about 10:00. Less than 30 seconds after their departure, a nice little Phoenix monsoon dust storm blew up, complete with a little mud rain... Joe and Rudy had planned to drive a couple hours toward San Diego, but they hunkered down in a strip mall as the winds buffeted the RV.

All in all, it was a grand time, with good networking and opportunities to meet new, and old friends.

Sorry, I'm terrible with names, and the Dos XX's and 'ritas don't really help with that. If you see any photos you'd like, leave a comment or contact me and I'll send them to you.

And damn it, where is my Trulia t-shirt?

The boys from Sellsius will be in Phoenix on Thursday. If you're anywhere near the Phoenix area, you don't want to miss them. Incredible Agent, a Blog Tour USA sponsor, has secured a location, and they will be launching a new (free!) product for Realtors then too!

More info is here.

Let's give Joe and Rudy a hot Phoenix welcome! As if meeting Joe and Rudy isn't enough, this would also be a great time for the local Active Rainers to gather and chat, have some food and drinks, and check out what Incredible Agent has coming down the pipe!

A "SPLOG" is a Spam Blog. "Sploggers" steal content from other blogs and re-post it as their own.

Why in the world would someone do that?

The intent is to build a blog or website that contains a lot of content, and will be ranked well in search engines. The sploggers add Google AdSense and other advertising to the splog and are basically using other people's content to increase their search positions and generate ad revenue for themselves.

Almost anyone who has been blogging for some time has been "splogged". In addition to being incredibly unethical to steal someones content, it is also illegal as it violates federal copyright law (*if* the domain host is in the US).

My "other blog" (and MANY others) were recently victims of a splogger. Finding my content, word for word, on another blog with zero attribution is incredibly annoying to me. So I set off to see what I could do about this splog.

Thanks to the help of a great blog on plagiarism, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and a helpful web host, said sploggers domain was taken off-line in less than 24 hours.

It was painful and time consuming, but well worth the effort!

Here is the whole story.

This could be HUGE.

eBay has just opened up kijiji.com in the US, a free on-line based classified service.

I jumped right in to the Phoenix edition to see what was involved in creating a "listing".

It was a snap. Very intuitive interface, easy to upload pictures (a max of 4, at 4mb each). It's not the greatest listing, as it was an experiment in ease of use (plus, 10 years from now I can say, "I had the first home listing on kijiji in Phoenix")

To me, the site is quite similar to BackPage.com, though a bit "cleaner". It's certainly a LOT cleaner than Craigslist, which purely from a design perspective is a disaster from 1985.

SFGate.com has a great article, including comments from Craigslist who said, "We simply do not look at other sites as competition. We never have done so at any time." Hmmm...

Kijiji is free--for now. Apparently eBay plans to explore ways to make more money, I'm assuming by offering "premium services", at some point.

eBay's 25% stake in Craigslist (which they plan to keep according to SFGate) makes this even more interesting. I can't really see Craig Newmark helping out eBay, and regardless of how Craigslist feels about kijiji, it does seem to be direct competition. Craig and his list tend to march to the beat of a different drummer, so their nonchalant attitude is to be expected. No question that Craigslist dominates the free on-line classifieds market. But eBay isn't chump change in the on-line world.

There is a dearth of listings on kijiji--for now. Only 21 items TOTAL on the Phoenix site. It will be interesting to watch the growth.

Surprisingly, I haven't heard anything from the real estate blogs out there. Normally we're slobbering over free venues to display listings. Maybe too many hot dogs on the grill right now...

This could get interesting.

Others Opine: Deep Jive Interests, Joe Duck, Don Dodge, Wired,

Here are a couple of great links discussing Google's real estate reciprocal link penalty. Should be required reading for everyone...

From SEOMOZ

From CAD Website Design