To make a Twitter search widget read this post.

Related Post:

How to Find a Clients on Twitter: AKS Method

Technorati Tags: twitter, twitter search widget, cool tools

New York City blog buds at Curbed are looking for interns:

Are you an eager, perhaps college-age person who happens to read and enjoy Curbed on a daily basis? (Note: enjoyment not required.) If so, this opportunity may be for you. We’re looking for interns with journalism in their blood to join our merry band ASAP. Responsibilities may include (a) attending long, boring meetings from which you may be required to file entertaining and witty reports; (b) dashing from Curbed HQ to the scene of breaking news with camera in hand; and (c) undertaking onerous, occasionally terrible research projects. The pay shall be zero dollars. Timing’s very flexible, but Tuesday availability is a bonus. Interested persons should send an email to interns@curbed.com with a brief description of yourself and your interest in the gig. No attachments, please. If we like what we see, we’ll get back to you quickly. Thanks.

If you get the gig, come by my office for a story.

Nubrella, a hands free umbrella which will not invert in the wind, made its TV appearance on Shark Tank, a show where folks present new products hoping to get an investment from one of the sharks, which include Robert Herjavec, Kevin O’Leary,  Barbara Corcoran (my favorite), Kevin Harrington, and Daymond John.

I was impressed with the new hands free umbrella, Nubrella.  Given that folks are on cell phones all the time and need two hands to tweet or text message, the Nubrella is a great product.  Also great for the disabled.

Every shark turned the Nubrella down, except for Daymond John of FUBU and Kevin Harrington of infomercial fame.

Hey Daymond and Kevin, you could also offer companies the Nubrella as a great place to stick their logo — on the back, which is now black.  Companies wanting to stand out from the crowd would defintely get noticed on the Nubrella.

Good luck folks.

Technorati Tags: nubrella, shark tank, fubu, daymond john

It has long been the law in New York that co-op boards could reject potential buyers without disclosing the reason.  This is very frustrating to buyers and sellers… and real estate agents.

As a lawyer,  I had a way to get the Board to disclose the reason for the rejection– by claiming discrimination to the NYC Commission of Human Rights– this forced the co-op board to appear and disclose the reasons.  It is a clever tactic (given you sense discrimination by asking the buyer to tell you what questions they were asked during the interview).

Some time later, New York tried to change the law requiring co-op boards to give reasons for rejection.  The law did not pass.  But it now seems the armor has been pierced…

Suffolk Now Mandates Full Disclosure By Co-op Boards

Apparently, Suffolk County has changed the law in Suffolk.  If a co-op board rejects a buyer, they must now disclose the reasons why. This is a big deal.

According to Habitat:

The Long Island country now requires cooperative apartment boards to reveal in writing their reasons for turning down potential residents. Board members could be brought to account more easily in discrimination lawsuits, and be held personally liable. Entitled “A Local Law Requiring Fairness in Cooperative Home Ownership” (Intro. Resolution Number 1763-2009, Local Law Number 36-2009), it also requires that co-op boards provide the same application to all applicants, along with information on the relevant Fair Housing and anti-discrimination laws. Once an applicant turns in an application, the board must acknowledge within 10 days that it has received it, and must inform the applicant whether the application is complete or not. The board must come to its decision to approve or deny the completed application within 45 days.

This is amazing…. if enforceable, given the New York case law allowing Boards to be silent.

Here is where it started back in August 28, 2009: (click images to enlarge)

Curiously, I also found this discussion on 1545-2009 from the Ways and Means Committee in July 2009 (click images to enlarge)

Interestingly, a Realtor attended and made this comment:

I will be calling some lawyers in Suffolk to get their take on this.

Related Posts:

How to Overthrow A Tyrant:Fighting a Co-op Board Rejection

Co-ops to Give Reasons for Rejecting a Buyer?

Technorati Tags: co-op, buyer rejection disclosure, new yrok co-op, suffolk co-op

Does your home, boat, or business property have problems with birds and their little droppings?

Too many birds can lower property values…. crap.   Cleaning bird poop is also a pain… and has health risks.  There might be a solution.

Bird-B-Gone products supposedly get rid of birds without terminating them.

According to the website:

Bird•B•Gone products carry the longest industry guarantees, and are made in the United States. Our products are humane and safe for birds and the environment. We provide first-rate customer service and support, and measure our success by the success of our customers.

They offer many products, which include:

Bird Spikes

Solar Deterrent

Scent (Avian Plus)

(”small wall mounted unit that emits a non-toxic, non-allergenic scent into the air that is pleasing to humans, and unbearable to birds.”)

Bird Spiders (for boats)

… and many more… for pest bird problems.

Frequently Asked Questions here.

The City of Newport Beach used their plastic bird spikes on the main lifeguard station in Newport Beach California.

FREE SHIPPING FOR FEBRUARY

They have free shipping for February.

Connect with Bird-B-Gone on Facebook and Twitter.

If their products work, share it with your clients (or use it yourself).  They claim to have many clients.

Anyone use Bird-B-Gone?  Let me know the real poop.

Bank of America iPoster

The Bank of America has been creating alliances with real estate brokers by getting them to join their Preferred Real Estate Broker Network, AT NO COST.  Here’s a broker in New York.

In the Network, the Bank claims “real estate brokers can market their listings to the Bank of America customer base of over 58 million potential buyers and sellers at bankofamerica.com.”

iPoster

Apparently, there is a new way to get greater exposure of a broker’s real estate listings — it’s called the iPoster, an “interactive touch-screen kiosk in 6,109 banking centers that allows customers to research property listings“, as well as current mortgage rates and information on their Alliance agents, which may include Spanish speaking real estate professionals.

Is any real estate broker or agent doing business with Bank of America and appearing on the iPoster?  Any leads from it?   I have yet to see an iPoster.

[Interestingly, Bank of America offers online consumers home value and blog posts from Cyberhomes.]

Related Post:

Association Marketing: Real Estate Brokers Join Bank of America Alliance

Technorati Tags: iposter, bank of america, real estate marketing

If it’s a hassle to check into your Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn accounts various times a day, try Nutshell Mail, which will send updates from any, or all, accounts in a SINGLE email.

You can choose what gets sent from each account and how often during the day you get the email.

Customize Your Facebook Notices: (click image to enlarge) Sections, Friends, Filters and Pages

Customize Your Twitter Notices (click image to enlarge): Sections, Search Terms (add them), Lists

Set the Nutshell email delivery times:

Done.

I just signed up for Nutshellmail and will let you know how it works.

Here is an small shot from my email: (click image to enlarge)

Anyone use Nutshellmail?

Related Post:

Access All Your Social Media Acccounts from One Place: Yoono

Technorati Tags: nutshellmail, email, cool tools, social media, twitter, facebook, linkedin, sellsius

(this post was originally published in February, 2009 but republished because someone called me asking why Wisestamp stopped working on Gmail.  Well, Gmail changes recently caused Wisestamp signatures to be erased and a new version needs to be downloaded.)

Wisestamp is a Firefox add-on that lets you customize your Gmail signature to add:

• your social media icon links
• IM (instant messaging/chat) services
• a photo or image (logo)
• blog post RSS feed (to include your last blog post title and link)
• HTML code.

Here are some Wisestamp signature examples (see more here):

Here’s one with a photo:

It’s easy to create and edit your custom signatures once you’ve downloaded Wisestamp:

1. Locate the WiseStamp icon on the bottom of your browser.
2. Click the icon and choose “Edit Signature” (or simply click on Tools ->WiseStamp)
3. Design and customize your signature. (you can create business & personal signatures)  Here’s my example.
4. Add social media icon links (you can also add your latest blog posts by adding your RSS feed)
5. Preview then Save and close the signature editor window. Done.

If you use Gmail, it will automatically display you Wisestamp as your signature. You do no need to go to Gmail settings.

WiseStamp works with Gmail, Yahoo! Hotmail, and AOL mail.

Since the editor is HTML supported, you can add this twitter badge from Twignature.

You can even add animated gifs:

Note: There is a new version for those who were using Wisestamp before and recently found it was not longer working.  Why?

According to the Wisestamp blog:

Gmail has recently changed its interface causing some of our Firefox users to suffer from signature auto insertion problems and WiseStamp icon disappearance. In order to meanwhile overcome this issue we offered users to use the manual insertion work around, however we understand how important those issues are for our users and therefore have worked on a rapid working fixed version- you can now install so….here it is.

Download the new Wisestamp version here.

Got questions? FAQ here.

Technorati Tags: wisestamp, cool tools, gmail signature, sellsius

In December 2009, I wrote  Email Beats Twitter and Facebook for Sharing Content according to ShareThis.

While emails may be more easily shared by recipients (via email forwarding),  it is wise to allow options for social media sharing of your emailed content/ newsletters.

Add Social Media Share Buttons in Email

Allow email recipients the option to easily share your email content to their social networks.

Do this by adding social sharing icons or buttons to your email content— when they click the icon it uploads a link to a social media site, such as Twitter or Facebook.

So, if you send out email, whether using MailChimp, eCampaign Pros, Constant Contact, or any other (tell us who you use which allows social media share buttons), you should add social media icon links so readers can share your email with their social media sites.  These could include buttons such as:

• Share this on Facebook
• Share this on Twitter
• Share on LinkedIn
• Digg it
• Stumple it
• Fark it

Here is an example of a Nike email using social media share buttons:

Smith-Harmon found that among those retailers that did provide social network sharing links, Facebook was the clear favorite. Every campaign studied that had a SWYN capability had a link to Facebook. Twitter came in second, at 67%, while only 44% of sharing-capable e-mails linked to MySpace. (eMarketer)

You can also include buttons to allow email recipients to connect with you on your other social media hangouts —

• Follow me on Twitter
• Join our Facebook Page
• Link Up with me
• Join our Meetup group.

Links to Related Blog Posts or Website Conversion Pages

It is also wise to add links to related blog posts, especially if you can have thumbnail images, and website conversion pages.

Here is an example of email which has links to Related Stories: (click image to enlarge)

Video Email– The Next Frontier

While email newsletters with social media sharing buttons increase the spreading of your content, you can go a step further by incorporating video in your email.  Some of my clients use TalkFusion, which lets them create branded email players.  [note: TalkFusion pays affiliate income, which is shared with clients]

Here’s a video email I once sent at Christmas: (click to play)  This email was forwarded like crazy.

While the social media sharing of email is meant for emailed newsletters, I am waiting for Google to let me send regular g-mail which includes social media share buttons.  I wonder if they could do that?

Sources and Further Reading:

Share-to-Social Buttons Increase Newsletter Interaction: 6 Steps (Marketing Sherpa)

Making your emails go viral (eMarketer)

How to Take Advantage of Social Media in Your Email Marketing (Mashable)

Image source: Design Strike.

Technorati Tags: email marketing, twitter, facebook, email, social media

One of my favorite bloggers, Hanan Levin, posted his last post on Grow-a-brain. Hanan had blogged on it for seven years.

Grow-a-brain was a long time favorite of mine. Although Hanan was in the real estate industry, he often blogged outside the lines, with creativity and humor, on a vast array of fascinating subjects.   He posted an image on every blog post (which I loved), many being interesting and peculiar.   Hanan was also the master of links.  He was one of the first to post links to real estate blogs, which he did over many years.  Amazing.    He also posted about a certain musician we both admired.  I can go on and on about grow-a-brain posts.  There was so much to love about Hanan’s style of blogging. When we went to California during the BlogTour, we visited Hanan, a wonderful sharing person (and a fan of Sellsius).

My farewell to grow-a-brain.  Hanan is moving on to a new personal blog Grow-a-Baby, for Adora, born October 18, 2009.