I just spent a few minutes taking a look at the home page of both Zillow (my former employer) and Trulia. As a shareholder of Zillow, I’m always curious what their main competitor, Trulia, is doing and how they are publicly positioning themselves. As you…

In the latest version of talent war within the real estate industry, Trulia nabbed Todd Carpenter to be their Senior Manager of Industry Engagement. This follows Zillow’s recent big name hires of Bob Bemis and Jay Thompson. Who’s the next big name that’ll be in…

Have you heard the term “author rank” yet? If not, you’re going to start hearing it soon if you follow the online marketing and SEO industries at all. What is it? From Google’s Agent Rank patent. The identity of individual agents responsible for content can be…

I was scanning my feedreader today, and saw the news that Alain Pinel, a well known brokerage in the Bay Area, launched a redesigned website with Onboard Informatics Lifestyle Content. Great. A brokerage finally invested in their web presence. Alain Pinel is well known, so…

Tonight’s topic of conversation will be DRIP Email Campaigns.  For a quick read on a few ways to use drip email in real estate, check out Ricardo’s post on the Diverse Solutions Blog. If you have questions, want to learn, or just lurk – join the…

You want to reach residents in your local geographic area, right? Build WeekendSherpa, specifically tailored to your geographic area. What is WeekendSherpa? WeekendSherpa is a free weekly email newsletter giving you insiders’ recommendations on the best outdoor pursuits exclusive to California. It’s a drop dead…

How many of you are working on building hyper local communities for your neighborhood or city? I’ll take a guess and say “everyone” (at least to the agents and brokers reading). How many of you understand community building? I’m guessing the answer is “not many”….

There was an article in the San Diego Union Tribune that was one of the many attempts to explain the listing data integrity and syndication debate to the general consumer. As most of us and some of the big players in the industry have already…

After a very long and strongly debated case over who should be the official IDX recommendation of the Geek Build Steering Committee, we have decided on Real Geeks. Remember, the focus of Geek Build is to build websites with the following goals in mind: Maximize lead…

The web is shifting toward minimalism. Less is more. Chris Smith — and probably many more — agree with me. I really like the latest wireframe revision for Geek Build. But it’s more of the same. It’s bloated. It’s the norm in the real estate…