My Early Days on the RE.net
Todd Carpenter did a nice job chronicling the birth of real estate social media at http://realtynex.us/2010/01/29/a-six-year-history-of-the-re-net/.
This is my contribution to these early days that I sent to Todd for his article:
I met Larry Cragun at Inman 2006, who proudly proclaimed he was a real estate blogger. That got me started on blogging (my first blog article), and I've always called him my blog godfather. Teresa Boardman showed me enough of the ropes to blogging to be christened "blogmother" (Teresa, I still feel bad about the Weenie crisis that got you unfairly labeled as some sort of misanthrope, but it is still the funniest thing three years later). My first "virtual friends" (in 2006, everybody was in awe of the idea that friendships could be made by machine) Joe Ferrara, Jeff Corbett, Jim Cronin, Mary McKnight, continue to be social media lights.
In August 2006, Teresa sent me an Active Rain invitation. Active Rain profoundly changed blogging into the conversation machine you now see on Facebook. The series of quick comments "Great article!" became more a salutation than a continuing discussion point. Real estate bloggers in late 2006 became re.net (term usually attributed to Greg Swann) and Real Estate 2.0 (oops, Redfin seemed to have trademarked that term and caused this Real Estate 2.x hoopla). The first Inman Bloggers Connect in the summer of 2007 was the christening of the blogger IRL events that have now become industry standard with the REBarCamps.
In retrospect, it's easy to see the real estate industry leads other industries in the adoption of social media (called "blogging" in 2006). Up to 2006, blogging was the province of techies and a burgeoning teenage crowd creating MySpace profiles (arguably a type of blog). Real estate agents jumped into blogging primarily for marketing purposes, but they stayed for the chatter. You won't see any other industry with more 50-somethings on the social media.
I applaud Todd's initiative to chronicle the early of real estate social media. The most profound manifestation of all this is: the history is all written, it takes a curator like Todd to publish it. Social media is the quintessential yearbook.
This is my contribution to these early days that I sent to Todd for his article:
I met Larry Cragun at Inman 2006, who proudly proclaimed he was a real estate blogger. That got me started on blogging (my first blog article), and I've always called him my blog godfather. Teresa Boardman showed me enough of the ropes to blogging to be christened "blogmother" (Teresa, I still feel bad about the Weenie crisis that got you unfairly labeled as some sort of misanthrope, but it is still the funniest thing three years later). My first "virtual friends" (in 2006, everybody was in awe of the idea that friendships could be made by machine) Joe Ferrara, Jeff Corbett, Jim Cronin, Mary McKnight, continue to be social media lights.
In August 2006, Teresa sent me an Active Rain invitation. Active Rain profoundly changed blogging into the conversation machine you now see on Facebook. The series of quick comments "Great article!" became more a salutation than a continuing discussion point. Real estate bloggers in late 2006 became re.net (term usually attributed to Greg Swann) and Real Estate 2.0 (oops, Redfin seemed to have trademarked that term and caused this Real Estate 2.x hoopla). The first Inman Bloggers Connect in the summer of 2007 was the christening of the blogger IRL events that have now become industry standard with the REBarCamps.
In retrospect, it's easy to see the real estate industry leads other industries in the adoption of social media (called "blogging" in 2006). Up to 2006, blogging was the province of techies and a burgeoning teenage crowd creating MySpace profiles (arguably a type of blog). Real estate agents jumped into blogging primarily for marketing purposes, but they stayed for the chatter. You won't see any other industry with more 50-somethings on the social media.
I applaud Todd's initiative to chronicle the early of real estate social media. The most profound manifestation of all this is: the history is all written, it takes a curator like Todd to publish it. Social media is the quintessential yearbook.
Interesting. I think Laurie Manny being one of the first moderators on AR is worth noting along with her knowledge of SEO. And of course, Mary McKnight. Polarizing yes, knowledgeable, of course!
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Kevin, I met you through Ardell and 2007's Project Blogger. I think I awarded you first prize based, in part, on this article:
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OMG Remember that one! Wow. Thanks for the kudos. Everyone in the re.net was so shocked by it...but here in SoBe I never gave it a second thought!
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