Morgan Carey's Blog: REW Forums

For those of you attending the Inman Connect SF 2009 conference or just like reading about Real Estate Webmaster antics here is some news for you.

We (technically myself, Michael and Phil) have entered the Inman Connect Create Hackathon (or developers challenge) down in San Fransisco the first week of August.

What is the Connect Create?

It's a contest where small groups of developers compete (on site) to develop their most creative / useful / killer real estate related app. You can plan it (we certainly have a plan) but you can't write a single line of code or pre-design the interface before you get there. We are certainly committed to honoring these rules and because it's an honor system we hope all our worthy competitors will honor it as well.

What…

I just posted this as a comment on the NAR blog, but I thought that it probably deserved it's own post as it really should be directed at MIBOR and not NAR - basically we all know the change to the IDX verbiage will be passed it's just a matter of due dilligence (can't blame NAR for that I suppose) but it's also going to take time - all the while, we are stuck without indexable pages until this ruling passes (we being Paula Henry / Mike Taylor of http://www.reddoorindy.com and myself - yes, I consider myself part of the team)

So here is what I wrote on the NAR blog as a potential compromise - I would love to hear some comments from MIBOR members on this issue and I think everyone would like to see some good will and common sense prevail here (it would…

Many of you read over at Agent Genius about how MIBOR (The local board of Realtors in Indianapolis) has demanded that all IDX vendors stop Google and other search engines from spidering any page of a Realtors website that has IDX listings or any part of the data referencing listings (such as property descriptions, MLS #'s or addresses) - this is with the exception of just the agents own listings of course.

Naturally as one of the largest custom IDX vendor in the world we are more than concerned about this issue as should all Realtors as it has the potential to dramatically impact their ability to get their listings competitive exposure unless they go through a third party aggregator such as Realtor.com and pay through the nose for premium…

THIS PROMOTION IS NOW CLOSED

Real Estate Webmasters turns 5 years old today! (April 9th 2009)

I keep sitting down to write a super long post all teary eyed about how awesome our members and customers have been over the last 5 years but honestly I am going to run out of birthday before I'm done - so I have decided to save that post for another day and just keep our Real Estate Webmasters 5th birthday promo post short and sweet -

THANK YOU!

To all of our members, to all of our staff, and especially to all of customers thank you for 5 great years.

It has been an amazing experience and we have learned so much from you all, and hopefully you have been able to learn a few things from us as well. Along the way we have developed a lot of friendships and…

Ok this just made me laugh. I was over at AR (for whatever reason I have no idea, it's not like I ever post there anymore) and there was yet another feature post "promoting active rain" - imagine that - kiss active rains ass to get on the homepage - wish I was a rainmaker.

In the article the poster writes:

"Ok I'll tell you a better reason to join Active Rain...  Active Rain gives you the power to advertise yourself anywhere on the internet.  The exposure you get from Active Rain is second to none.   I did an experiment.  For one week,  I posted about the Chicago Northwest Suburbs.  I think I wrote 3 or 4 posts with the key words Chicago Northwest Suburbs Real Estate.   Before that my website was nowhere to be found when you googled Chicago Northwest…

What's the prize?

• Limited Edition Custom website: $10,000
• Lifetime Website & IDX Data Hosting: $8400
• Full service search engine optimization setup: $6000
• 50 hours additional custom design / programming: $5000
• $15,000 PPC traffic (includes professional PPC setup and optimization)
• Total prize value: $50,400 USD

How to enter this contest (It's free)

• Refer a new member to the Real Estate Webmasters forums
• Refer a new blogger to REW Blogs
• Refer a new customer to Real Estate Webmasters
• Become a new customer of Real Estate Webmasters

Why are we doing this?

It's pretty simple really - The Real Estate Webmasters community has the most knowledgeable and friendly members of any Realtor community online.…

A big thank you goes out to Colleen Forbes and the entire Exit Realty Florida crew for having us be the exlusive website vendors at at your recent Orlando event. Carrie and I had a great time meeting you all, and we look forward to servicing you now and in the future.

Exit Template website winner

For those Exit folks that missed the draw at the luncheon for the REW Exit template website - the winner was Montie Lipsey-Lee of Exit Realty Producers, Gainesville, Florida. Montie - we hope you enjoy your new website, and we are just going to need a few things from you to get you setup (templates are quick and easy) - what I need from you is the following:

• Phone number for the website (goes under your photo)
• Photo - (the higher resolution the…

It's official - The limited edition custom program is a resounding success.

Due to some creative marketing and some timely promo's I have sold so many LEC 2.0's that we are running out of major market areas and I really need to step up production of the next round of LEC's (There are a couple in development including a special "support Marc Rasmussen" LEC which I will finish as soon as I get a new data feed for it *cough Marc cough*

Anyways - as many of you remember, I did the development of LEC 2.0 publicly in my 'designing the next LEC" post and it was a lot of fun, so I have decided to do it again. So without further ado - let's get cracking on this next LEC.

Design & programming - your budget is 300 hours and you start immediately.

Where to get…