Use eChirpy to Tweet Blog from Your Email (Huh?)

Published by Joseph Ferrara July 3rd, 2009 in Cool Tools. Comments

echirpy

What if you have something to say but don’t want to blog?  What if you prefer Twitter but find the 140 character limit limiting?  Well, eChirpy may be an alternative.

eChirpy lets you compose a 500 character message from your personal email account and tweet it out to the Twitterosphere,  and whatever sites you have enabled via Twitter.

Just sign up for an eChirpy account and register your twitter account.  Now you can send any email to twitter (via a link) by emailing it to any of the following @echirpy:

Business: business@echirpy.com

News: news@echirpy.com

Careers: careers@echirpy.com

Just For Fun: fun@echirpy.com

Sports & entertainment: sports@echirpy.com or entertainment@echirpy.com

eChirpy is FREE.

Here’s a sample eChirby miniblog I posted from my email account.

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Dig Your Well Before You’re Thirsty

Published by Joseph Ferrara July 2nd, 2009 in Marketing tips. Comments

One of my favorite networking books is Harvey Mackay’s  Dig Your Well Before You’re Thirsty.  Harvey’s from the old school.  A good school.

I highly recommend it.

dig-your-well-networking-book1

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Russians Most Engaged in Social Media

Published by Joseph Ferrara July 2nd, 2009 in social media. Comments

According to ComScore , Russia is the most socially engaged country, with folks spending an average 6.6 hours on social media sites.  Brazil and Canada are second and third. The U.S. is ninth.

kohtakte

Vkontakte.re, the top Russian social media site, has over 14 million monthly visitors. (an English version is in beta)

Here’s how other countries rank on social media engagement:

social-network-by-country

Here is the breakdown of the most popular Russian social media websites:

russia-social-media

Marketing Tip

If you speak another language or represent clients from other countries, you might want to consider having a presence /interacting on their social media websites.  Many real estate markets have a large percentage of people from other countries.

Source: Comscore

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Real Estate Porn: I am Condo Curious

Published by Joseph Ferrara July 1st, 2009 in Real estate porn. Comments

condo-curious

Pushing the print ad envelope. With the decline in print ads, I guess they figure no one is looking. (what are those guys looking at?)

via The Official Realtor Ad Awards (check out Dana Severson’s work.  Very funny)

For More in  the Real Estate Porn Series:

Ad Edition

Home Stager Edition

Furniture edition

Title Insurance Titillation Edition

City Edition (video)

Broker Agent Edition
Developers Edition
Hotel Edition
Top 10 Signs You’ll Score…With a Buyer

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Building A Company With Social Media

Published by Joseph Ferrara July 1st, 2009 in social media. Comments

social-media-applied

via WebDesignerDepot
 (take the jump for more net porn)

Further Reading:

50 Ways to Use Social Media, Listed by Objective (WebStrategist)

5 Ways to Use Social Media to Reach People Who Don’t Use Social Media (ReadWriteWeb)

How Search-Like are Social Media Sites (SearchEngineLand.  Social media categories.)

Related Posts:

Does Size Matter in Social Media (Or Does It Just Feel Better?)

Social Media is NOT Like a Cocktail Party

Why Social Media is Like Stand Up Comedy.

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RentWiki is Social Real Estate Rental Search

Published by Joseph Ferrara June 30th, 2009 in Search. Comments

rentwiki-logo

Since launching theClozing.com, I’ve been interested in websites that aggregate and organize  information from sources that include social media.

Rentwiki is a rental seach engine which aggregates neighborhood information and reviews from locals on numerous lifestyle topics.  You can also see tweets about the neighborhood.  Got a question?– ask it on RentWiki  and via Twitter.

From the Rentwiki About Us page:

Our Vision

“Where should I live?” is a question 40 million movers ask each year.

When we move, we want to know much more than bed, bath, and price. We want to know about the location, safety, walkability, social scene, etc. and get a feel for the neighborhood. Instead of starting dozens of rental sites to sort through hundreds of listings, we call a friend, family member, or co-worker and ask for advice and their opinion to help narrow down the location.

RentWiki.com is a peer review and recommendation website to help people find a place to live. From local reviews to pros/cons about the area, we hope to make renting easier.

I really like the idea of Rentwiki, which launched in January 2009.  It is often difficult to get comprehensive neighborhood information from one source.

Rentwiki is in these cities across the country.

Property Managers can list rental property on Rentwiki  for $10 per lead. Read more here.

Here’s a sample rental wiki for Mission Bay.  It includes:

  • Neighborhood overview
  • Community pros and cons
  • Reviews from locals
  • People who live there
  • Social scene
  • Quality of living
  • Transportation and parking
  • Rental advice and tips
  • Pets
  • Entertainment and recreation
  • School and family information
  • Twitter conversations about the neighborhood
  • Ask a question
  • Check videos and events

Check out the Rentwiki blog here.

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KeyRingThing Consolidates Loyalty Cards to One Card

Published by Joseph Ferrara June 28th, 2009 in Marketing tips. Comments

keyringthing

Companies use loyalty club, discount & reward cards to keep customers coming back for savings.  But the problem is folks end up with a pocketful of them— several for supermarkets, one for rewards at electronics and retail stores, one for hotels, one for a buyers’ club, etc.– all on bulky key chains or stuffed in wallets. Many cards get misplaced because of lack of use.

KeyRingThing offers a nifty solution–an all-in-one slim plastic card that consolidates up to 6 different company bar codes. (I’m gonna need several of these)

Each bar code is labeled.

loyalty-card

Digital versions of KeyRingThing are also provided for Apple iPhones and smart phones.  Temporary cards can be printed from your computer for free.

Cost: The plastic cards are $3.97 for 1, $5.97 for 2, $7.97 for 3, and $9.97 for 4.

Share this tip with your clients. “Wow, that Jane is very helpful.  She knows a lot.  Maybe we should hire her.”

Businesses can advertise on the card and offer coupons by becoming a sponsor.  Not sure if advertisers get exclusivity or are just listed as an option.

A Sellsius Thumbs Up.

Another company aggregating bar codes is Justoneclubcard.com.

h/t RISMedia via theClozing

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Truli a Pissed Homeowner

Published by Joseph Ferrara June 27th, 2009 in Trulia. Comments

A homeowner raises his voice on Trulia and threatens legal action.

This was posted yesterday, but no published response from Trulia.  Maybe Christopher should complain on Twitter, where Trulia seems to be on the ball.

(click image to enlarge) (link)

trulia-complaint

Source: Deep Throat

If you have a tip or find something folks ought to know about, send it over:

Sellsius@gmail (dot) com

UPDATE:   Emily Gibson, Trulia’s Community Moderator, replied , “…it does appear that your home is now bank-owned and that transaction is what is being shown as a prior sale.”

She added: “…..in the future the sales data we receive for homes should allow us to distinguish between normal sales and foreclosure sales like this one. Best Wishes”

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Spice Up Your Blog and Email with Zemanta Firefox Add On

Published by Joseph Ferrara June 27th, 2009 in Cool Tools. Comments

zemanta

Zemanta is a Firefox add-on that helps save bloggers time, by suggesting copyright free images, related links,  articles, and tags– directly from a sidebar (with search box) in your blog dashboard– a click adds the content to the post:

zemanta-search

If you click the image you like, Zemanta automatically adds it to your blog post– one pain in the neck, however,  is Zemanta’s image insert preference is either right or left– I prefer none. (please add that option guys).  Also, if you simply click the image, Zemanta will insert it at the beginning of the post.  To insert an image within the post, you have to drag and drop  it.  Still, it will only insert as a right or left preference.

Click  a Zemanta suggested article and the title and link are added automatically. (See Related articles below)

Zemanta also lets you add a “Reblog” button for folks to grab parts of your blog post and post them to their own blogs.  Try it by clicking the +REBLOG button at the end of this post.  Pretty cool.  This post was ReBlogged.

Zemanta has good intentions but I’m not too crazy about it as a blogging tool, except for its ability to find copyright free images and the REBLOG function.  There’s the image insertion thingee.  And while Zemanta makes related article suggestions, I feel they are limited (and many times unrelated)–besides I don’t like computers telling me what stories are related.  Add a Google search and maybe you have my interest.

Sellsius Grade: C+ for blogging.  The plus is for the ReBlog clipping function.

You can also use Zemanta to spice up your emails with images and links:

email-zemanta

I do like Zemanta as an email enhancement tool– especially its ability to add images directly in your email– you can even grab images from your Flickr account.

Sellsius Grade: A- for email imagery.  The minus is for the Zemanta promo/ad links that hitch a ride on your cool email.

Despite my reservations with the blogging functionality, others seem to think Zemanta is the best thing since linkbaiting.

Get the Zemanta Firefox extension here , take it for a spin, and decide for yourself.

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A VC Talks News Aggregation

Published by Joseph Ferrara June 26th, 2009 in Marketing tips. Comments

This from A VC blog:

If I was starting The Village Voice today, I would not print anything. I would not hire a ton of writers. I would build a website and a mobile app (or two or three). I would hire a Publisher and a few salespeople. I would hire an editor and a few journalists. And then I’d go out and find every blog, twitter, facebook, flickr, youtube, and other social media feed out there that is related to downtown NYC and I would pull it all into an aggregation system where my editor and journalists could cull through the posts coming in, curate them, and then publish them. I’d do a bit of original reporting on the big stories but most of what I’d do would be smart curation, with a voice, and an opinion.A VC, Jun 2009

News aggregation from mainstream media and social media is the goal of our current real estate news aggregator, theClozing.com.

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