Google Wave is Like Sex 

So I got my invite by being in the right place at the right time.  On twitter, late night, for the East Coast anyways, and on comes @Brokers4Charity  If you are not following them yet, I highly recommend you do.  I would have said that sans Wave Invite, as I had to of already been following them to see the offer on Twitter.

Now I have sat through the 80 minute presentation of the roll-out to developers.  In it I discovered many useful ideas and possibilities going forward for real estate.  I also viewed numerous videos at @ChrissVoss 's ChrisVossShow.com

Now what did I learn about in all these video's on the Google Wave?  

Google Wave is like SEX,  it is so much better with a partner.

To that end Alan Langstone has set up an AR Wave and

invited everyone with an account to join in and share and learn as is The Way in the Rain

The Latest Greatest Smartphone Gadget -- SQUARE

From the great mind of @Jack, Twitter Founder, comes the next level in transaction payment devices

Must say I find this very intriguing while having some concerns as well.  

First it is an incredible revolution for ease in doing business/sales, collecting debts, but not quite RE Transactions

Second, I would need to be confident it is at least as secure as the tried and true as the credit cards, which they seem to be claiming they are going to be improving on

It is already in Beta Testing in some areas, but is anticipated to be rolled out to everyone in early 2010.  They plan on giving away the Dongle (credit card reader) for free.  It will plug into your Smartphones headset plug.  They may charge $1 for the merchant software to do the transaction, which includes another out-of-the-box idea - customer rewards built in.  We are talking about no more stampable customer reward cards.  It keeps track of your 10 coffees and will give you the 11th free.

Another surprise was:

"Alyssa Milano, set to appear in the ABC comedy series Romantically Challenged next year, joined the Square team as an adviser.

“We added Alyssa to our board of advisers because she has direct and relevant experience in contracts, promotion, distribution, manufacturing, licensing issues, retail, philanthropy, and a deep insight into present and future technologies and social movements around them,” said Dorsey in a statement distributed by Milano’s publicist. “Alyssa brings a clarifying presence to everything we do.”

Milano’s qualifying experience for advising Square, according to the announcement, includes her presidency of the web design firms Celebrity Loop and InterSports, her Touch clothing and jewelery line specializing in creating junior women’s sizes of athletic jerseys, and philanthropic work including with UNICEF and The Global Network for Neglected Tropical Disease Control. (Square donates one cent of each transaction to the charity of the buyer’s choice.)"

For the latest story click here

Twitter in a Natural Disaster, terrorist attack or any other Emergency

I am sorry if you feel I am beating Twitter like a dead horse, but I do believe in its power, and here is one more way.

9/11 - It took me weeks, having just moved from Long Island to Florida the month before, how many of my friends died that day.  Unfortunately it was 8, but my cousin, a disabled FDNY was going to funerals/wakes EVERY DAY for months on end.  Like most of you, it was Surreal, to say the least, but the inability to communicate left you in a state of unknown.  I hate that

Hurricane Katrina - trying to re-unite with families after being scattered across the SouthEast or the entire Country.

I could go on, but I think you get the jist of it.  Disasters & Emergencies strikes and nobody is able to communicate.  Lines are down,  Systems are overloaded.  Nobody can reassure relatives and friends they are ok. 

So how can Twitter help in this case?  Not everybody uses it, certainly not my parents/grandparents etc...

I have set up an additional account for myself as an emergency account.  I have created accounts for my inner circle of Family and Friends.  I made these all Protected Accounts.  People can not just follow us.  Only we will get each others tweets.  Right now there is only 1 tweet in all the accounts - TEST

The key to using Twitter in an Emergency Situation is The accounts are unused, they are protected so only the necessary people can communicate, and all the Accounts are set up to go to Email & Text message.

This email & Text Message is saved.  If a relative or friend, who is not actively involved in Twitter, finds themselves in the next Hurricane Katrina they have an entry in their cell phone From Twitter that they can reply to, which will let everybody in the circle automatically know their condition.  

1 tweet and everybody you care about knows.  WHY, because when the voice networks are overloaded, typically the data networks are still functional.  Everybody can check in with one message, that everybody they care about, will receive at the same time.  1 tweet from each person in the group notifies everybody else in the group of their status.  1 message notifies everyone you care about. 

I had to set up my brothers, mother and father because they are not online.  But they now know how to contact all of us in an emergency.  And each person can individualize their list.  Obviously each family member will have the same family members, but different friends.  So those lists are custom.  You may have to do it for each non-Internet Tech Savvy friend/family member, but in the end, you only have to do it once and have it there when the next Natural Disaster, Terrorist Attack or any other Emergency.

How much better will you feel, if with a single tweet your family/friends can tell you they are FINE.  Than you can start co-ordinating emergency assistance amongst those in the Natural Disaster, Terrorist Attack or any other Emergency, who have limited services from those outside the area.

How to use Twitter Lists for you and your business

So the new rage on Twitter is putting people you follow into lists
Now how will this feature help you or your business?  I found it rather simple.

1. I have made an initial group of lists to start
   1. Best of Real Estate - I think that is self explanatory (my selfish list)
   2. Tampa Tweeters - this used to be Local Tweeters, but than I figured that would not benefit strangers (list for my clients)
   3. Favorite Tweeters - this is just generally great tweeter (selfish again)
2. organize the people you follow into the appropriate group
   1. Only way I found to do it was to go through all ~2800 people I follow
   2. that was very time consuming though and I am but a piker in the grand scheme of Twitter
3. Turns out, as of Oct 20th only a select group of Tweeters are allowed to use lists
4. you are limited to 20 lists total (drawback if you have are huge with following
5. you are limited to 500 tweeters per list (drawback if you have are huge with following) (10,000 total! Sorry @JasonCrouch)
6. Suggestions for Lists
   1. Break down different aspects of your business that other people would find helpful, I will use Real  Estate Examples
      1. Local RE
      2. National RE
      3. Going Green Tips (implementing myself shortly as it is all the rage)
      4. Landscaping (no brainer IMHO)
      5. Home Staging (actually if you asked someone who was honest, you have bad taste.  And bad breath :-) )
   2. Break down different aspects of  your local area
      1. Local News 
      2. Local Events
      3. Local Traffic & Weather
   3. Charities you work with or support in principle
   4. Soicial Media Giants
      1. Twitter help (newbies will love you for it)
      2. Twitter app developers (those who 'get Twitter' will love you for it)
      3. Mashable (how can you not follow them, so dope they deserve their own list)
   5. Basically anything that would be Beneficial to your prospects/customers/clients/network/YOURSELF
7. Then of course there is the Reciprocity that so many expect
   1. do you follow back those who follow you?
   2. or do you think you are a too cool for school types
   3. should you follow the lists that follow you, or at least the tweeter that created said list with your name on it?
8. Everyone you follow does not have to end up on one of your lists
   1. especially given the limits as your account grows
   2. hopefully this 'experiment' will be successful and expanded
   3. I see many 'twitter could overtake Google' reasons for encouraging and expanding this concept
   4. concentration of information exchange/sharing
9. for further informative posts you can try

   1. Twitter Lists; Limitations, bugs, impact, and brilliance

   2. The Brilliance of Twitter Lists and Suggestions for Improvement

10. Will Net Neutrality affect this?  I do not know, but I see it as one more thing to be concerned about with that horrific doctrine
11. I am sure overtime more things will come to light so please share what you know, what you learn and lets all make The World what it Should Be

For the Newbies: How to turn a link into click-able text


<a href="http://AgentListingWebsites.com">click here</a> RESULTS IN click here

So if you copy the above to a notepad or word doc, until you have it memorized, it becomes incredibly easy

or perhaps the easier way for you to save it is


<a href="Actual Full URL in these quotes">Text you want to replace URL with, without quotes</a>

And that is how easy it is to turn

http://AgentListingWebsites.com

to

click here

try it a few times, it does get to be second nature.  As you will see there is not much to type aside from what you want to use as URL and text in lieu of

it boils down to

<a href="__">__</a>

& replacing the red underlines with your URL and desired replacement text

SPELLING IT OUT

Green Marketing for Realtors

(Broker/Owners Contact Sales for Firm-wide website)

Check out our Website First Month Half Price with coupon code RealtorVIP No SET-UP fees, No Contracts

What is it? Well this is our system created by a Realtor, for Realtors! In this competitive market you need every advantage. And We believe our system gives you both the advantage and a cost-effective marketing approach unlike any others you have seen to date. .

What are we improving upon???? .

I am sure you are familiar with websites that let you buy the address of your listing as the Domain Name for the webpage that Listing will be on. BUT the ones I am familiar with charge about $30-50/mo for hosting PER LISTING. They charge you $10 for the Domain name PER LISTING which you throw away when the listing sells. They charge you $10-20 for the rider sign with that address PER LISTING. Than you can buy business cards for that web address BUT it all gets thrown away when you sell the Listing. .

What our Software allows you to do is Pick one Domain name upon signing up. $49.99/month Unlimited WebPages, 1 page for every Residential listing you carry. No setup fees. No contract. No Limits.

While entering your listing in our webpage generator, as easily as broker loading your own MLS, you pick the Sub-Domain you want to associate with that listing. . You Generate the webpage and there is all the info with a nice clean WebPage ready for marketing that Specific house(with nothing after .com.) Now the Rider sign you buy for the house is really for the WebPage, not the house. When the listing sells, you move the Rider Sign to your next listing. If you choose to buy business cards in bulk for you and your client to give away to your network/contacts, they are assigned to the WebPage, not that particular listing. When the listing sells, the remainder of the Business cards can be associate with the house you re-assign that WebPage to. .

Ready to buy?No, keep reading, we will get you in the end.

The riders are recyclable, the Business cards are recyclable, and the Web Address is Recyclable, because you just have to delete the old listing than re-use the Sub Domain when you Generate a New Listing. And as if that wasn’t enough, your original, unedited domain name is where your listings are stored for reviewing by visitors to your site .

Ready to buy? If NOT keep reading, we will get you in the end .

On top of all that, you can also add a virtual tour from a third party provider to your website just by copying and pasting the Webpage address into the appropriate box in the generator . Ready to buy? click the Post Title Using REALTORVIP as coupon code for 1/2 first month. If NOT keep reading, we will get you in the end .

Do you need more reason to Buy? Ok, how about you can add your trusted network of service providers Like Insurance agent, mortgage broker, home inspector, handyman, contractor, etc… to every listing you generate, automatically. The more links they have, the higher they rank in Search Engine

Check out our Website First Month Half Price with coupon code RealtorVIP No SET-UP fees, No Contracts