New look REW Blogs: More than just a pretty face
Posted Dec 7, 2007 @ 1:00 am, Viewed by 1405 Visitors, Read 1440 Times.At first glance, you'll notice a much more aesthetically pleasing layout, with cleaner lines, re-organized features and navigation – a more pleasing user interface overall.
However, there's a lot more going on "under the hood", as it were. We've added a lot of cool new features and tools that will help you make the most of blogging. These features include:
- New listings management with customizable property types, features, and statuses. Drag-and-drop photo management for far easier image management, and extended features on details pages inspired by the REW IDX. Such things as saved searches and favorites for visitors, new inquiry forms, on-page mortgage calculator, Google mapping of listings and some soon-to-be-released syndications that will really maximize your listings' exposure.
- Social bookmarking of other members ("Friends" - this name will change). You can now flag other REW Bloggers that you respect and showcase them on your REW blog, improving blog interlinking and ease of access for readers to find complimentary information.
- New abuse reporting - the community can now participate alongside the REW Staff in policing the blogs and keeping them clean of link spam and other violations of our rules and terms of service. Clean, professional blogs mean better authority for the entire community and thus more opportunity.
- Profile commenting - You can now leave comments on other members' profiles: Recommending them, providing a testimonial or reference, etc
- WIDGETS! - This is one of the cooler features - You can now customize your REW Blog from a selection of our widgets. Select from current items such as user stats, relevant reading, blog tags, friends, Flickr photos and more.
- Signatures - This should be popular - Many of our members were adding manual signatures with their contact information at the bottom of each post - you can now set a default signature in your profile that can be turned on or off, and modified at any time, saving you the time of having to create one each time.
- Listings statistics - detailed statistics on your listings including unique views, total page views etc
I will be posting detailed tutorials on all of the new features, and as always, if you have any questions or would like to discuss elements of the blogs or make suggestions, report bugs, etc, you are more than welcome to post at our Blogs Forum.
If you have a question or comment regarding my blog entry, please use the comments box below - if you have a general question about REW Blogs or would like to discuss any facet of being successful online, please visit the forums.
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Social Bookmarking13 Responses to “New look REW Blogs: More than just a pretty face”
I like the new format I look forward to adding new content
I love the new formatting and I love my blog! Once I sale a couple more condos, we will be having your company design a custom website!
I looks awesome, Morgan. I look forward to using some of the new features!
As many of you have no doubt noticed, there are some really small things that need to be tightened up (These things may take a few days) but I am really pleased with the amount of things that "aren't" broken so far 
Honestly, we had over a million unique readers sinse I started tracking in February 2007 - for 2008 I want that to be 5 million. In order to do so, I need to help you guys as much as I can, in driving traffic to your blogs the right way
Thanks for the compliments so far.
Looking great Morgan! Thanks for providing more features to our already popular blogs!
"Google mapping of listings and some soon to be released syndications that will really maximize your listings exposure" - Very, Very Nice!!! How about for REW clients connecting the REW Listings on web page to these listings, so we do not have to do twice the work?
This is great. I will really have to step up my blogging for the new year.
Looking Good Morgan, I will make a point of taking a test run in the next few days. Have a Great Day! Don Mann - Greenwood, BC
keith - that is actually the plan - Once we work the bugs out of the listings manager here at REW Blogs, it will become the new listings manager installed on all users of the REW CMS (Replace the old one) - because they will be identical formats, customers that are also users of REW Blogs will be able to check a box or (Opt in) to have their listings syndicated directly to REW Blogs listings platform
That is a beautiful thing, it is nice working with a great company! Kudos!
bjmatson
Morgan, I am definitely commited to implementing your Blog and take advantage of this set-up. How would you recommend I (and other realtors) insert it into my existing real estate website? I prefer to make it part of the site and/or make the visitor feel as though they are still in my website.
I'm starting to understand the BLOG and how to use it, and I must say... I love it. I HAVE A SUGGESTION. It would be great if you had somewhere to click to send our suggestions for improving the Blog. ALSO, in setting up "Categories" I would like to be able to sort them once I have already created them. ...i guess that's 2 suggestions... but maybe you prefer I post here so everyone can see the suggestion and then your answer. THANKS MORGAN
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As the creative mind behind REW Blogs and the director of technology for Real Estate Webmasters, I am here to help you make the most of our platform.
I am happy to teach all who are willing to learn and look forward to building many great friendships along the way.
I do ask that before immersing yourself in the activities that will no doubt dramatically increase your online exposure such as blogging, creating static pages, adding listings and the like that you take the time to read our terms of service and the rules of blogging here at REW.
We are much different than most social media / blogging platforms in that we are a fully staffed and moderated system. Read More
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The new format is awesome! I look forward to blogging more and utilizing the new features. Thanks Morgan for making a great resource even better.