No less then 3 days after we announced our army of real estate data collectors, the competitions started announcing their plans for global real estate domination. Greg Swann at bloodhoundrealty built a zillow bot to compete with our new mega real estate monster…Well, all I have to say is bring it on. 

Any of you, bring it on…if you think your little bots, and computer hacks can compete with our geniuses, so be it.

By the way we added another child superstar to our team:

This is little Hairy, we found him in a box eating lightbulbs in the BestBuy parking lot , and yes…That is his real hair, and Yes, He CAN read minds, and will probably move our completion date up at least 3 months.

Popularity: 14% [?]

Kevin boer at 3oceansrealestate has started a thread about the most marketing property on the internet. When Kevin first spoke to me about this project, I couldn't believe it is 2007 and finally someone has started this…IMO Realtors should have been doing this for years, but I guess it just flew under the radar.

I'm not going to predict the future…again, but I will say this is going to send property marketing into the next phase. We are going to see properties with some pretty amazing marketing soon. Not just video, not just podcasts, not cellphone text messages…I'm talking cool stuff that will knock your socks off.

One of the first things to do when you get a listing is buy a domain name for the property. For example 123greenst.com

Now how do you use it?

There are 3 ways to add a listing to your website. for the following examples, let's assume your domain name is agent.com

1. Subdomains:  123green.agent.com. I would recommend this over the other 2 types. subdomains are considered as different websites, so 123green.agent.com is considered a different website then agent.com. So for every subdomain you make, the links back to your main site (agent.com) boosts the page rank for the main site.

2. top level domain names: 123greenst.com. I would recommend buying it, but only using it for the sign rider at the listing. You can park this domain name on top of the subdomain name, so you still use the subdomain for google juice. It is a lot easier to remember 123greenst.com on a sign rider, then 123green.agent.com or agent.com/123green
3. trailing folder: www.agent.com/123greenst. This domain will just be another page in your website, so there really is no benefits to this.
   

   EDIT:
   I shouldn't say there are no benefits to the 3rd type. The more pages you have in your blog the better the google rankings. I meant, out of the 3 choices, I would go after the first 2. I was thinking about this after I wrote it and was wondering how a redirect would work for this? make the trailing folder redirect to the top level domain? Hmmm…maybe another post about this will be coming soon.

The main argument from SEO Guru's (not me) is that subdomains do not help anymore, especially after one guy got 5 billion websites indexed by google in less then 3 weeks. Since you are not going to spam, and all your subdomains will be realivent relevant website, subdomains will help your main site with google juice.

5 Billion pages on google, put some adwords, and imagine making a penny per page.
As Borat would say "That's Niiice"

Popularity: 12% [?]

The Wordpress questions are starting to roll in. The first couple questions come from Stacey Macioszek stateofmindrealestate.com

Q. Is there a way to change the page order in Wordpress?

Yes, you can edit the page order by going to Manage->Pages. Then on the right you should see a section called page order. If you have not changed it for any pages they should all be 0

On a horizontal menu the higher the number the further to the right. So you can order your pages

1, 2, 3, 4
Or
10, 20, 30, 40
They would both have the same effect.

Q. Is there a way to lock the font size for my blog in any browser?  I found out by complete accident ( my 17 month old hit Fsomething while I was typing.) that when I adjust the text size at the view tab my font goes all wacky.  I tested other sites and some don't change at all and some adjust accordingly.

First, I want to commend you on introducing your children to technology at an early age, but I think trying to make your 17 month old blog for you is a little lazy, don't you think Stacy???

Anyhow, adjustable text size is a CSS thing. It is actually a good thing, even though it makes most blogs look "funky". This falls into the accessibility portion of internet browsing and gives people with poor eyesight the ability to read your blog. There are a couple ways to layout font sizes on a website

EM, PX, or percentage.

EM is adjustable, while PX is not…I think percentage is adjustable to but not sure. The only time I have seen percentage is in tag clouds, since EM and PX pretty much cover the 2 choices for font sizes (fixed and adjustable).

So to change your fonts from adjustable to fixed you can go into your style.css (most Wordpress theme stylesheets) file and change all the fonts from 1.2em (or something like that) to 12px (or something like that).

BTW
In Firefox, to make the fonts bigger and smaller, hold <CTRL> and hit the "+" and "-". I'm not going to tell you which one makes the font bigger adn which one makes the font smaller, you'll have to figure it out yourself. 

In IE, you can go to firefox.com and get Firefox (preferred method) or you can hit <F10>, then <v>, then <x> then use the up or down arrow to select font size.

Q. Is there a better text editor or plugin to help with writing posts?

I use Mudbomb's editor. You can get it at mudbomb.com
it’s nice…if you have trouble let me know, I’ll help you install it. It is just another plugin, but once you activate it, you have to go to your profile and turn off visual editing. That is the only special step I think you have to take.

There is also a table plugin for it so you can add tables to your posts.

Thanks for your questions, and keep 'em coming, our support department can handle anything!

Popularity: 6% [?]

In the business world, keeping a tight wrap on company secrets is key to success. Has Rich Barton of Zillow just given away one of Zillow's major business components? 

The real estate community has been working for months to get at the data extraction Zillow uses to get all the information about your homes. With just a few clicks and insightful research, Realivent has uncovered a how Zillow does it.

And this whole time we thought they used computers…I guess the joke is on us.

In response to the newly found Zillow secret, we at Realivent are throwing away all our computers, all 3 of them, and acquiring a large army of children to do our research. So if a kid between the ages of 5-7 starts asking you about you home, just smile and know that the information is going to make online real estate better. We are hoping to get all the data by 2013, and unleash the next real estate monster.

Sorry Zillow, welcome to the business world

Here are some of the kids you might meet:

Timmy's in charge of our Bird's Eye View of homes. Here he is practicing.

Jonathan is in charge of weekly price changes. Before the kids can go out and ask the general public real estate questions, we make them practice on zoo animals. We also tell them that no matter how busy the people look, they will always have time to talk real estate.

Little Ricky is in charge of recent real estate news

Lastly, Jenny is in charge of graphic design…not sure if we are going to keep her though. She does this to everyone in the office.

Popularity: 14% [?]

According to The Secret – Thoughts – become – things, or something like that. So if you've been under a rock, don't listen to Oprah, or been a naked protester up a tree in Berkeley…I highly recommend watching the DVD. You can read the book also, but why when you can watch the DVD.

Better yet, don't just go buy it, think about how you will feel watching it…Imagine your hands wrapping around the DVD as you stick it in the DVD player…In a few day an old man will knock on your door with the DVD. You will not have to buy it…hopefully he will also have a DVD player, with progressive scan. If you have seen the DVD you know what I'm talking about.

In a nutshell, feel happy, image yourself getting all the things you want, and remember that the bad things that are happening to you today, are because you brought them onto your self a few weeks ago… did I spoil it?

I have watched it a few times. Yeah it's corny…yeah you can take it for what it's worth, but bottom line, it gives you hope and makes you feel good.

Now on to my experiences with the law of attraction. I love cars and I would be happy with a nice exotic car and a P.O.S. house. Lamborghini to be exact. I love them, even though there are better exotics, and some people think the style is lame, but I've loved them since I was small…So I'm trying to attract one. I don't want to pay for it of course, but if I image it hard enough, I'm sure that old man will appear at my door someday with a DVD, I mean Lamborghini.

So right after watching the movie I just wanted to test the secret out, and set me goals low…All I wanted to do was see one on the road. So I imaged how it would feel if I saw one…I think I got more excited just seeing one then owning it, because if I saw one, that mean I can control the future. My goal was to see one the next day.

The next day rolls around and I drove all over SF, but didn't see one…what a disappointment, the Secret Sucks…Or Does it?

That was about a week ago, and today I just saw one….

So, Is it working? Am I getting closer to old men with Lambo's? Was I suppose to Car jack it? I don't know…
What do you guys think?

Granted it has been a week, there are a lot of exotic cars in SF, and there is a Lamborghini dealer on Van Ness, but I would say in my 33 Years of existence I've only seen about 7…so to see one a week after I imaged seeing one could mean something.

IMO, it's interesting stuff…I'm am now imaging people commenting on this post, let's see if it happens. 

Popularity: 4% [?]

I actually hate graffiti. I don't think it's art, I don't care how much time you spent on it…I just hate it. Especially graffiti that is just a tag for a symbol or something. There is more and more graffiti in my area everyday, it just ugly.

Another one of my pet peeves is when someone tries to paint over graffiti, but they use a different colored paint then the rest of the wall. Even if it is just a shade off, it looks awful. Either paint the whole area the same color or try to just remove the spray paint graffiti.

Anyhow, here is my tag on America. I used the new Google Maps "My Maps" to make it…cool stuff. Just spent about 5 minutes on it, but I can see the possibilities. Custom heat maps, school zones, districts, neighborhoods… should add a lot to real estate websites

Popularity: 8% [?]

When you publish a post, Wordpress can automatically notify blog rollers all over the world and maybe even in other galaxies (wouldn't be surprised). These are called ping servers, and if you go into Wordpress->Options->Writing you will probably see you have 1: http://rpc.pingomatic.com/

This is the default pinger, but you can add more…try this list. Yeah, some might not work still, but all you have to do is copy and paste the list to your blog and forget about it. if you enter the URLs manually remember to add each new ping URL as a new line, do not add them separated with a comma.

http://rpc.pingomatic.com/
http://realivent.com/ping.php
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
http://1470.net/api/ping
http://api.feedster.com/ping
http://api.moreover.com/ping
http://api.moreover.com/RPC2
http://api.my.yahoo.com/ping
http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2
http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping
http://bblog.com/ping.php
http://bitacoras.net/ping
http://blog.goo.ne.jp/XMLRPC
http://blogdb.jp/xmlrpchttp://blogmatcher.com/u.phphttp://bulkfeeds.net/rpc
http://coreblog.org/ping/
http://mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatt
http://ping.amagle.com/
http://ping.bitacoras.com
http://ping.blo.gs/
http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/
http://ping.blogmura.jp/rpc/
http://ping.cocolog-nifty.com/xmlrpc
http://ping.exblog.jp/xmlrpc
http://ping.feedburner.com
http://ping.myblog.jp
http://ping.rootblog.com/rpc.php
http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php
http://ping.weblogs.se/
http://pingoat.com/goat/RPC2
http://rcs.datashed.net/RPC2/
http://rpc.blogbuzzmachine.com/RPC2
http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/
http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080/
http://rpc.pingomatic.com
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
http://thingamablog.sourceforge.net/ping.php
http://topicexchange.com/RPC2
http://trackback.bakeinu.jp/bakeping.php
http://www.a2b.cc/setloc/bp.a2b
http://www.bitacoles.net/ping.php
http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2
http://www.blogoole.com/ping/
http://www.blogoon.net/ping/
http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates
http://www.blogroots.com/tb_populi.blog?id=1
http://www.blogshares.com/rpc.php
http://www.blogsnow.com/ping
http://www.blogstreet.com/xrbin/xmlrpc.cgi
http://www.imblogs.net/ping/
http://www.lasermemory.com/lsrpc/
http://www.mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatter/ping.php
http://www.mod-pubsub.org/ping.php
http://www.newsisfree.com/RPCCloud
http://www.newsisfree.com/xmlrpctest.php
http://www.popdex.com/addsite.php
http://www.snipsnap.org/RPC2
http://www.weblogues.com/RPC
http://xmlrpc.blogg.de
http://xping.pubsub.com/ping/

If you would like me to add your ping URL to the list…shoot me an email 

Popularity: 6% [?]

Ultimate Tag Warrior is an awesome plugin. If you don't have it, get it, NOW!  *waiting...waiting*

Ok, now that everyone is back, let's discuss a problem I ran into and how to fix it. When you write a post and have the UTW plugin activated, you will notice a section below the post edit box that gets related tags for you. UTW sends your post to Yahoo's content api, and then Yahoo returns keywords based on the content...really cool stuff. You can see the Yahoo content API Here.

The API will only send 5,000 queries per application ID. So if you click on the "Get Keyword Suggestions From Yahoo" button and nothing happens UTW has probably reached it's limit of queries. Think about how many blogs UTW is installed on...it's a lot.

You can fix this by adding your own Yahoo API Application ID. I know it sounds hard but I don't think you have to even go to yahoo to change it.

The file to edit is in the UTW plugin folder. The file name is ultimate-tag-warrior-ajax.php 

On line 95 you will see $appID = "wp-UltimateTagWarrior"; If your editor does not have line numbers, you can search for "wp-UltimateTagWarrior". Change the appID to whatever you want, but make it unique because if the appID is already in use by another large website you might just run into the same problem as before. I changed the appID to my credit card number: 4532-2344... J/k

anyhow, once it is changed, re-upload the file and go check it on a post...it should work and return the tags based on the content of your post. 

Here is another useful code snippet I use to return tags based on content
You can try the code out here: My Keyword Generator
Simply send it content and it returns the keywords, don't forget to change the appID in the snippet too.

Popularity: 9% [?]

You might run across a time in your life when you need to hide a page in wordpress.

You have 3 options to do this:

1. Write the page as Draft. This will hide the page from the list of pages in the menu but you can still access the page by search, and the page will be accessible if you type the direct URL to the page.
   I use this method a lot to provide pages when I do not want them in the menu. I like horizontal menus for my blogs, and if you add too many pages, your menus might start looking bad.
   Example of hiding with a draft: Real Estate Blog Lab

2. Make the page private. This will remove the page from the menu, and you will not be able to access it by search, or by entering the URL. Please remember to log out once you make a page private. Many people make the page private and then try to access it immediately and find they can still see it. This is because you are logged in as "admin" still. So make the page private, logout and try to access the page.
   This would be the preferred method to hide a page

3. The last way is to hardcode your menu function. Wordpress created the menu with this function: wp_list_pages();
   You can either remove that function and add your own links, or add the "exclude" argument to wp_list_pages() like so:
   wp_list_pages(exclude=17,38);

   The numbers are the page id's...you can get the page id's from the manage pages section of you wordpress blog admin section.
   Since this method will probably never be used, I will not go to far into it.

I use hidden pages all the time, especially when I have a sidebar widget that displays a small snippet of information, but can open a full page when more details are needed.

Popularity: 41% [?]