Hey guys,
Been talking about it for a while and we are close to finishing the coding side of the new REW Blogs.

What is this? Basically it is very similar to what you are used to at blogger. Instead of having to create a blog at yourblog.blogspot.com you will now be able to create a blog here at REW using your REW username or other name you choose.

So for instance (There is not skinning or advanced functionality turned on) but my blog would be www.realestatewebmasters.com/blogs/webmaster/

You can login and create a post, edit posts, it has an advanced wysiwyg editor all that fun jazz. One of the cool new features of this blog which is an improvement over the existing blogs is that you can create your own custom meta data per page.

Another cool feature of the blogs is that you will be able to upload your listings to the blogs to showcase to visitors.

There is an outbound links section so that you can link to your sites, or other bloggers blogs, a static page section, blog settings manager all the things you would expect from a blog.

A major benefit of these blogs is that you can rank them in the major SE's right away, you dont have to worry about sandboxing and because REW is such an authority if you do a good job with your postings, you should be able to generate a TON of traffic and hopefully generate some leads.

There is also a rev share component, each blog will have an adsense component which by default will show REW ads, similar to the ones you see to the right of the forum >>>>

If you want to make some adsense revenue from your blog you can sign up for an adsense account and copy paste your adsense code into your backend and the system will automatically rotate your adsense ads and the REW ads. There is a huge potential for revenue for busy posters and for those of you that are not real estate agents but maybe looking for extra income and just love blogging, this will be perfect for you.

I am looking for suggestions as to what you guys would like to see in these blogs and of course volunteers for beta testing of V1.1

These blogs will only be open to REW Forum members who have shown that they understand what a quality website has to offer and that we trust will use their blogs for the power of good, not evil - so no spam!

So yeah, tell us what you want, or tell us what you hate about your current blog - we're listening!

Also a non adsense version of the blog will be available for install on all REW sites soon after we beta test V1.1 so clients tell us what you would want on your perfect blog.

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Webmasters who spend their energies upholding the spirit of the basic principles [Of Google] will provide a much better user experience and subsequently enjoy better ranking than those who spend their time looking for loopholes they can exploit. Google.com

Morgan:
What if we already have a blog on our site?

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Fort Lauderdale Real Estate | Fort Lauderdale Condo | Fort Lauderdale MLS

I'm up for the beta test. Looks like you're handling what I've really wanted on a blog, the meta stuff. I still haven't found a plug-in that I can get to work.

Also, will we be able to customize our blog template?

I don't know how you could make things easier but whenever I need to change something in the css I forget what I did previously & have to study it all again. Time consuming, even though I've tried to write out directions on how I made changes.

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Southwest Chicago Suburbs Real Estate is an affordable area with close access to downtown Chicago. Money Magazine says that Orland Park real estate is one of the best places to live in the U.S.

Judy:
You might want to try Dreamweaver (Macromedia). You type everything in, it converts to html and saves a copy to a file. So anytime you make changes, you can go to that file first. Works great for me. (just a suggestion).
john

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Fort Lauderdale Real Estate | Fort Lauderdale Condo | Fort Lauderdale MLS

Beta testers needed, count me in.

Off topic: Morgan I sent you a PM this weekend and haven't heard back, did you get it?

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The Suburban House Hunters Team would like to thank REW members for past referrals! We are never to busy to handle your Chicago area referrals.

Always looking for quality unique content for our real estate agent blog, PM me if interested in writing a post.

My vote for "Greatest real estate agent in the world" contest.

Same here.

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Social Networking for Realtors ~ Mobile Homes For Sale in Arizona ~ Arizona Manufactured Housing

Actually, John, I'm referring to what I do using ftp. I just use Notepad to cut & paste changes. I guess I get a little deeper into the templates than some do and make many changes to suit my vision of what I want my template to look like.

If I'm doing a lot of changes in a certain timeframe I can remember what I did prior. It's only when I try to go back after some time that I can't remember exactly what I did before. Dreamweaver isn't going to help with css & php (I don't think) or my memory!

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Southwest Chicago Suburbs Real Estate is an affordable area with close access to downtown Chicago. Money Magazine says that Orland Park real estate is one of the best places to live in the U.S.

As previously mentioned, I would love to be in on the beta version.

Will there be the capability of flash similar to our websites? The reason I ask is that it seems to my memory that I haven't seen any Blogs like that. When ever someone sees my website for that first time it is one of the first things they mention about how nice the site looks; it is really one of those things that make your sites stand out in the eyes of the non-technical person.

Might be too much to worry about, or maybe worth waiting until rev: 2.1

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Morgan,

That sounds great, I have only limited experience with a blog from godaddy that I can never get formatted the way I want so just quit using it after a few days.

I've been wanting to get a blog going for our site and would be glad to be a beta tester.

Dave

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Dave Tucson Real Estate & Tucson Homes

I would enjoy testing as well. Count me in if you need an extra!

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Jessie: Panama City Beach Real Estate, Panama City Real Estate and Panama City Beach Condos