A Thanksgiving Greeting
Happy Thanksgiving everybody!
Quick post before the feast - following up on yesterday's RE tech article....
I found Transforming Real Estate a while back when I clicked on a link thinking it was "Transparent..." Jim Kimmons, Transforming's author has a curiousity for and unveils great real estate tech tips. I was a bit disappointed that he put Transforming on the back burner, because...
He's now About.com's Real Estate business author. He laments the inactivity of Transforming in his post there yesterday, and he asks the blogosphere for a little love and support at his new digs at About:com.
"Please pay a visit to http://realestate.about.com and help me to grow the site with suggestions for content you'd like to see. There is a blog there, and I'd love your comments on my posts. There's also a group of real estate discussion forums that are new and in need of participants. They're getting visited but no discussion threads yet, so I'd like to encourage the more vocal of you out there to get some discussions going."
About.com acts as a portal for consumer traffic that will guide them to the real estate blogosphere... it's a great venue for Jim. Let's show him a little love this Thanksgiving! Only after we're stuffed...
--pk
Technorati tags About.com real estate business Kimmons real estate technology
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11/28/2006 10:35 AM
Real Estate Business wrote:
Many thanks to Pat Kitano over at Transparent RE for a Thanksgiving post, for his comment about consumers and the comment from Maureen Francis. I spent a few days thinking about their comments concerning the opportunity for this site to foster dis...
Pat:
I really appreciate the Thanksgiving plug for my About.com site. I also appreciate your post on my discussion forum. I think, in my About newbie phase, I zapped one of your posts though.
Help me with a decision on Transforming Real Estate. It's always been a little "in-your-face" as regards the less-than-professional practice of real estate by some. I also liked to get a little feisty with journalists who were less than fair with our profession. My dilemma now is the different goals and tone of the About.Com site.
I'm not sure whether to move the pithy commentary to the About blog or keep TRE or do no more confrontational posts at all. As always, as a working Broker, time is an issue.
I've enjoyed your feed for some time, and I'm getting you onto my blogroll at About today. Thanks again,
Jim
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Hi Jim, I like the tone of Transforming... the content is useful for the real estate blogosphere... AND it's honest and direct.
With About, I think you're addressing an additional audience - the consumer seeking guidance on real estate issues. (I've done SE experiments on keywords consumers might use like "first time home buyer", and found out About.com places highly, but no real estate blogs did). You're in the fine position of creating a portal between the consumer and the real estate bloggers, exactly what is needed to make the blogger's mission of providing real estate information more appreciable - in essence, About would be driving free leads.
You might separate the messages between About and Transforming along the lines of consumer-focus / blogger-focus. We can discuss more... after the holidays...
Thanks for your compliments!
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Hey, Pat: About.com needs a guide for web logs. You'd be a good one.
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I agree!
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Jim,
I know you addressed your question to Pat, but I just visited About, and I have an opinion.
Like Pat, I see your connection to the consumer on About being a very powerful thing for the industry. While I would not want you to shy away from topics that are critical of the ways we work, I would hope that it could remain a positive platform. I think the industry has plenty of room for improvement and I champion things like increased eductional requirements for license renewal, and COE training.
I have not doubt you will handle it well.
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Maureen: Thanks for the comment. I'm not allowed to write articles directly to the consumer, as there is a Home Buying and Selling Guide site at About.
However, you and Pat have definitely given me a new perspective. One of the reasons for the lack of posts on Transforming since the About blog was the idea that I needed to take the high (positive) road. Besides, half the fun of Transforming was the counterpoint to negative media coverage. That I can still do and pick up that consumer audience.
Your comments are getting me excited about the many ways that I can address the consumer perceptions while writing for real estate professionals.
Thanks again,
Jim
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Pat, I hope you and your family had a delicious and joyful Thanksgiving.
I seocnd your advice to Jim about keyword loading the content and using the right meta data. I'm also a fan of the long-tail method for driving traffic- www.hittail.com is a great free tool for identifying your long tail terms.
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Hi Mary, Diane, Maureen and Jim,
Thanks for your reviews and comments - they were a real Thanksgiving treat... Jim, we're really looking forward to seeing you grow About.com and we'll certainly contribute in getting you there...
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Hope your Thanksgiving was well! I enjoy your blog.
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It was! Honored to hear your compliments...
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