To Chain or Unchain That Is The Question

I've been receiving a lot of email regarding the upcoming Unchained conference. Here's an example of query I received from a direct twitter notification earlier today.

"yes or no Mike, is the Bloodhound Unchained event in Pheonix 5/18 - 5/20 a good investment?"

I've also been asked by a number of other contacts in the RE.net if we will be participating. We're still in the decision stage as to what level of involvement we will be able to have but that's more of a financial and logistics issue than anything else.

For those who would ask if they should invest the time and expense to attend, I would have to say yes. I will endorse any worthwhile effort that I think is designed to help real estate professionals command the new rules and new tools of the web. That also includes Dustin Luther's program, which I also feel strongly will go a long way toward helping people demystify web 2.0.

I spent a bit of time on the phone with Brian Brady the other day and I left that conversation with the feeling that Unchained is being designed to have a quantifiable impact on the attendees. Our efforts over the last 18 months dovetail perfectly with the conversations that will be taking place and we feel it incumbent upon us to be a part of it in some way.

Bloodhound Blog Launches Real Estate Weblogging 101

The dog pound takes the wraps off a "book in beta blog format" today entitled Real Estate Weblogging 101. It's a learning resource for real estate professionals that culls the history of blogging related posts in digest format from the BloodHound blog.

I'm glad to see anything out there that tries to do something to help real estate professionals understand the tenets of blogging. Essentially this "book" moves one of the categories of the Bloodhound blog into it's own domain. I think it's a good resource for anyone that needs to start or improve a blogging endeavor.

I usually agree with most of what Greg has to say about the issue of real estate blogging. Exploding some of the myths of blogging is a worthwhile endeavor and I'm glad to see somebody develop a learning resource that detours some of the hype and bad advice I see all too often. I've seen real estate blogging advice that gives step by step instruction on how to be extremely unprofessional, all for the sake of creating blog traffic. Amazing. There are many other instances of advice that are centered solely on the idea of quantity over quality. That kind of effort will rarely result in any kind of meaningful, long term business results.

It will be interesting to see how WL101 progresses. I wonder if Greg has plans to eventually print the blog as "dead tree" book?

Carnival of Real Estate #34

Mike's Corner is proud to host this week's Carnival of Real Estate. Submissions trickled in during the week with most showing up Saturday and Sunday. We only received a total of 28 entries. I'm assuming it's due to the fact that it's spring break in many parts of the country.

Congratulations to this week's winner, Trulia Blog for the funny 3 part series that chronicles the sale of a Trulia team member's property. Our number 2 selection is from Brian Brady of the Bloodhound blog for his take on the sub-prime meltdown and its effect on retirement income. Pick number 3 is Pat Kitano of Transparent Real Estate's philosophical waxing regarding the RE.Net and cooperation amongst bloggers. While I disagree with Pat on his opinion that non-blogging Realtors will eventually be invisible to search engines, I whole heartedly agree that diplomatic networking amongst bloggers will become critical to the RE.Net as whole.

Win: Heather Fernandez presents (Mis)adventures in home selling, part 3: The End posted at Trulia Blog"Roger, a software engineer at Trulia.com, chronicles his home selling (mis)adventure on TruliaBlog in funny three-part series. His experience included fielding low ball offers, MOLD (the inspection scare du jour) and finally the Escrow close."

Place: Brian Brady presents BAD LOANS: Buried In The Back Of The BreadBox posted at BloodhoundBlog

Show: Pat Kitano of Transparent Real Estate presents Spirit of Community

Other Selections In No Particular Order:

Craig Schiller presents THINK CRUSTY THOUGHTS...when taking pictures of homes for sale posted at HOME STAGING, Rants & Ravings, saying, "Knowing that photography is going to get to be MORE AND MORE critical in marketing properties online...

Steve Faber presents Subprime Lenders Reaping What They Sowed posted at Debt Free

Nigel Swaby presents Who Does a Down Payment Benefit? posted at Salt Lake Real Estate Blog.

David J Edwards presents The Do-Not-Mail Movement is a Bad Idea posted at Renton Real Estate Info Source

Daniel Rothamel presents When You Are Being Judged By Your Actions, Act Accordingly posted at The Real Estate Zebra

Silicon Valley Blogger presents 6 Ways To Protect Yourself From Different Types Of Mortgage Fraud posted at The Digerati Life

A. Grey presents Linking Real Estate Content With User Context: Basic Concepts of Data and Metadata posted at For Sale By Locals: A New Real Estate Approach

Thanks to everyone that participated. Next week's host is Maureen Francis of the MiOakland County Blog Be sure to get your submissions in by Sunday to give Maureen plenty of time to evaluate your excellent content. Cheers! ~MP

The Canine Brigade & Carnival # 28

The Bloodhound gang is all dolled up to host this week's Carnival of Real Estate. Decision by committee was the order of the day and it looks like the menu selection was full of choice meats, no kibble here. Due to our recent windfall of work, I had nothing worthy to submit. Looks like I have plenty of reading to do though. This week looks like it will shape up to be just as crazy but we promise some new blog content real soon. Until then the Carnival should provide you with some "no byproduct" filler.