Adapted from Radar via Babyrazzi | Suri Cruise + Maddox Pitt-Jolie

Today’s brats youth will one day become your future home buyer and home seller clients. Well, duh! But what does this have to do with what real estate agents should be doing today? Well, it got me thinking about my first experiences in the real estate market about a decade ago. Whoa. That sounds so long ago. Anyways……

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Today we added video commenting functionality to the Trulia blog. If you have a webcam, it’s a fun way to make your comment come to life. Text comments can be interpreted in many different ways. Often times, a reader may misinterpret the authors tone or message. In turn, they may leave a not so pleasant comment which can lead to a huge misunderstanding. We all know what can happen in this situation - real estate blog wars. So, can a video comment help make the dialogue more efficient and fun? I’m not sure but we’ll give it a try. Will you?

The wordpress video comment plugin was created by Seesmic, a Twitter-like video service aimed at connecting people and communities through video.

Additionally, you can add a video directly to your blog post with the Seesmic plugin. Sweet!

Thanks to Loren from the Future of Real Estate Technology blog for the inspiration.

Add a Video Comment On the Trulia Blog “}

We’re speaking with Dustin Luther from 4Realz today at 3pm est about his upcoming 4Realz seminar this Thursday in Orange County.

Phone Number: (724) 444-7444
Call ID: 17945

If you have a moment, please stop by.

Update:

Listen to the podcast here.

Note* I published the podcast early and was speaking to myself for the first 3-4 minutes. That was fun Thanks to Todd Carpenter for jumping in on the call. Todd has a host of experience in the space and it almost felt like I was talking to Dustin. I guess we’ll call him the fake Dustin Luther Todd actually has some experience with that by the way.

Update # 2:

Dustin will be LIVE on Trulia Voices tomorrow, April 16th from 9am to 10am PDT. If you have any specific questions for him or just want to converse with him in real time, tomorrow is the day to do so. Just open your question with ‘For Dustin:’ and submit it under the Agent2Agent section.

If you’re looking to get an inside scoop on the real estate industry, Dustin Luther always has great stuff to say over at 4Realz. Having started Rain City Guide and worked at Move.com, he definitely knows his way around the online real estate space.

Now he’s teaming up with Jim Marks of Virtual Results to help agents more effectively market themselves online with their 4Realz Internet Marketing Seminar . The seminar will talk about ways to attract more traffic to your real estate web site or blog. Learn tips and tricks on how to close more business from your online pipeline, how to engage in social networks, how to evaluate your online marketing activities – and so much more!

Trulia is excited about sponsoring the event. If you’re able to get to Orange County on April 17th, it should be a great morning. We’ll be there and would love to meet you face to face.

Please sign up for 4Realz and let us know if you’re coming!

After successfully integrating Google street view into Trulia last week, we thought we’d actually hit the streets of New York to get consumers take on our new Google mapping tool. The feedback was very positive. Thanks to all those who shared their opinions with us.

Was ReTechSouth a success? I’d say so. Here’s the scenario. What happens, when you put some of the nations top online real estate personalities together, in one room, with some local real estate superstars, for 8 hours straight? An amazing conversation that’s what. You often hear about how the best conversations happen in the hallways at real estate conferences. This may be true, but given the proper setting, some magic actually can happen between the audience and speakers.

ReTechSouth was the place to be last Thursday. Unlike many other larger conference formats, this event had a homey feel to it - pun intended. Imagine being in a room full of your friends and their friends and just having a big ol’ conversation about real estate stuff. Essentially, that is what it was like. I was really impressed with everyone’s enthusiasm as well as the camaraderie amongst the speakers and attendees. Lot’s of positive vibes.

As the resident Social Media Guru at Trulia, I participated on 4 panels including blogging, video, social networking and real estate listing syndication. Although I was fighting what turned out to be a major cold, it was an absolute delight to share the stage with some of our industries finest thought leaders. You can’t help but learn something from each of them. That alone, was worth the trip.

Here’s a sample of some of the amazing people I met from the packed audience including Desiree Scales of Bella Web Design, Kathy Kirby Seger from RE/MAX, Michael Fournier from Living Charlotte, Bob Woods from eCREsystems, Lawrence Cohen from Real Estate Magazine, Mark Devon Hendricks from The Hendriks Group Real Estate, DeJuan Miller from Hartman Imbriale Attorneys, Sally Hamby from Sunshine Mortgage, Melissa Tatum from Sunshine Mortgage and Tom Royce from The Real Estate Bloggers.com. I look forward to connecting with them on Trulia Voices, LinkedIn and Facebook.

Matt and Brad had Atlanta Dwellings TV shooting the event so I’m sure we’ll see some cool footage soon. We thought we’d show some of the fun stuff that happened behind the scenes at ReTechSouth. So, sit back, relax and grab a diet coke, some Swedish fish and enjoy the 5 minute behind the scenes video re-cap.

Trulia was a proud sponsor of ReTechSouth. Thanks to Matt and Brad for pulling off an amazing event in such a short time.

More ReTechSouth Coverage:

ReTechSouth - The Day After

My Personal Takeaways from the ReTechSouth Conference

ReTechSouth - Conference 2.0

ReTechSouth Coming to Atlanta

Just Love’n the Link Love….

ReTechSouth was a huge Success

ReTechSouth Round Up

Brad Nix and Matt Fagioli Pull it Off!

The Future of Real Estate and Technology is Now

ReTechSouth - Widgets, Plugins and Tools

Selling Real Estate in a YouTube World

Source: WellcomeMat

Over the next 5 months, we will be attending some pretty significant real estate educational conferences and seminars. Some of today’s most well known online real estate personalities will be taking stage and sharing their personal experiences, tips, knowledge and strategies about online real estate marketing and technology.

This is a great opportunity for our relatively small but growing online real estate community to come together and support each other. Together, we can help educate and inspire more agents to join the real estate conversation.

Here’s the list:

March 27, 2008 | RE Tech South

April 17, 2008 | 4RealzEd

May 17th-20th, 2008 | Bloodhound Unchained

July 22, 2008 | RE Barcamp

July 23, 2008 | Inman SF Connect

If you plan on attending any of these events, we’d love to meet up with you. Email me at rudy [at] trulia [dot] com

Changes on the horizon

The political and real estate landscape will see plenty of changes in 2008. New players in each are emerging and really shaking things up. It’s a battle between old school and new school thought leaders. Some are utilizing Web 2.0 technology and social media to their advantage while others are left scratching their heads.

Does experience matter?

The short answer is maybe? If you’ve been following the presidential candidates duke it out recently, then you’ve probably heard them talk about their qualifying experience. Some have a longer track record with more accomplishments under their belt than others. Does this make them better suited for the job? Perhaps. Or can someone who has less practical experience but is full of fresh ideas bring more to the table? Time will tell.

How is this relevant to the real estate industry?

Many of today’s Gen-X and Gen-Y consumers and agents are embracing web 2.0. In comparison, old school traditional brokers and agents have generally been a tad slower at adopting newer technologies. These old school agents have many years of practical offline in-the-trenches experience which you can’t buy anywhere. Traditionally, their marketing has been via word-of-mouth and print advertising. But how much longer can that alone keep working for them?

On the other hand, the new school agents, some with less experience, are embracing web 2.0 and growing their businesses a little differently - online. They are eliminating print advertising and are getting word-of-mouth referrals from relationships built on blogs and social networks. By establishing their online presence, they are expanding their reach and brand awareness more cost effectively too. But can this alone make them successful?

A shift is occurring. Times are a changing. So does experience still matter? I wonder how today’s buyers and sellers are selecting their real estate agents? Is it based on their years of experience? Good ol’ word of mouth? Cool website or blog? Trustworthiness? Knowledge of technology and modern marketing strategies? Google juice?

Trulia has been hitting the road, making connections with agents across the U.S. First, we hit up Atlanta with Keller Williams at their annual Family Reunion. We talked with over a thousand agents, sharing the benefits of marketing online with a free MyTrulia account. Many agents signed up for their accounts right at the booth – one agent signed up to immediately respond to a Trulia Voices question about the exact street she lives on! (We think she qualifies as the neighborhood expert there, don’t you?)

Next, we traveled to Orlando for the 10-day Realogy extravaganza, meeting agents from Coldwell Banker, ERA and Century 21. Again, agents were excited about the opportunities to connect directly with buyers and sellers on Trulia, signing up for MyTrulia accounts on the spot. And you never know who you’ll meet at a trade show: we had great time with Mark and Cathy Alba (yes, parents of Jessica Alba), and helped them get on Trulia Voices to expand their online marketing efforts.

But the coolest thing about all of these shows is the testimonials we hear from agents closing more business with the help of Trulia:

Century 21 International Trade Show and Convention

ERA International Trade Show and Convention

Keller Williams Family Reunion, Trade Show and Convention

Pretty awesome, huh? And look out – there’s more to come! We’ll be at the Prudential event in New Orleans, so stop by and give us your testimonial if you’re around.

Times Square - NYC - January 2008

Part I - Daniel drops some knowledge

Daniel Rothamel, also known as the Real Estate Zebra, hosted a fantastic and quite inspirational real estate podcast on Friday. By providing concrete real world examples, he always manages to get his point across in way that’s easy to understand. If you want to find out what a real estate superstar is and learn some tips on what it takes to become one, please set aside some time to listen to the podcast. It’s well worth it.

Part II - RE Barcamp

Andy Kaufman updates everyone about the upcoming 2008 San Francisco RE Bar Camp event. If you’d like to attend or even participate, please visit the official wiki. Trulia is participating, will you?

Part III - The Real Estate Conversation

The last part of the podcast is where some real magic happened. Some of the top voices in the real estate blogosphere participated in the virtual real estate round table discussion. The starting line-up included our host Daniel Rothamel from The Real Estate Zebra, Andy Kaufman from My East Bay Agent, Benn Rosales from Agent Genius, Michael Price from MLBroadcast, Jeff Turner from Real Estate Shows, Ben Martin from VARBuzz and myself.

The discussion started out with everyone sharing their thoughts on how they plan on participating in RE Barcamp. Everyone chimed in with some great ideas which, not surprisingly, took us in another direction. Imagine that? Positive thoughts and energy elevating the conversation. The energy was amazing. We started to discuss the possibilities of creating more regional bar camp events. I could feel the wheels turning in everyone’s heads. We had lot’s of great back and forth. No ego’s. Just a bunch of great guys who love real estate discussing how we could help make some changes in the industry.

So here’s the challenge: How can we, as a collaborative group, get more real estate professionals and consumers to join the online conversation?

“If you are what say you are, a superstar, then have no fear, the camera’s here” - Lupe Fiasco

P.S. I love that superstar song…..my new theme song….