29June2008
Posted by Jerry Kidd under: Cool Freebies; Product Reviews.
According to a M:Metrics press release dated May 21, 2008, “AMERICANS SPEND MORE THAN 4.5 HOURS PER MONTH BROWSING ON SMARTPHONES…Social networking and commerce draw consumers into the mobile Web“
Why is this important? Given the huge popularity of the iPhone, Windows Smart Phones and the Treo line of phones, many Americans can now browse the Web with their phones. If you are one of these people, you know just how awful the experience can be if you visit a web site that is meant to be viewed on a computer, and not on a phone. When you use a phone to visit a website most of the time what you see is a confusing mess with everything jumbled up and placed on the screen in ways that make it difficult to decipher. This is because the web browsers on phones do not display html in the same way it gets displayed on a larger computer screen. Some phones, like the iPhone do a good job of rendering the html on the small screens, but most don’t.
If you have a web site that you would like to have viewed on a phone, you can hire your webmaster to create a separate mobile web site for people with phones to view. Then after you finish paying them for that, you can pay them to install “redirect code” on each page of your web site so that if a mobile phone user should happen to browse to your site they automatically get sent to the mobile site.
Or, you could go to www.MoFuse.com and get it done for FREE!. That is exactly what I have done with this blog. Go ahead and take your mobile phone, open the browser and type in my URL, http://RealtyTechBytes.com and see what happens! My blog can detect that you are using a mobile phone and will automatically redirect your browser to the mobile version of my blog hosted on MoFuse’s servers. You can also look to the sidebar and type your mobile number into the box there and MoFuse will send you a text message, to your phone, with the link to my mobile site in the message. Just click on that link and you are sent to the blog.
So, what you get is the ability to service visitors to your web site just like the “big boys” in a way that allows your users to connect in the way that works best for them.
This service is free, and works on both web sites and blogs, but for $3.00 a month you can get the Professional service which adds some great features. The following info is from the MoFuse website and does a good job of explaining further, so I’ll let them do so.
What is MoFuse
MoFuse, or Mobile Fusion, is a web application that allows content publishers to easily and instantly create a mobile version of their blog or website.
How Does It Work
If your blog or website has an RSS feed, we will use that as the main source of content for your new mobile site. This will allow you to create your mobile site using MoFuse and forget about updating it. All you have to do is keep posting to your blog!
You can also create static content pages. This gives you the ability to have pages like About the Blog, Contact, etc.
Users can customize almost every aspect of their mobile site using our AJAX color picker tool. They can also upload their own custom logo or header image!
We just recently introduced our WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) page editor for even more customization of your mobile-friendly site!
Make Money Using MoFuse
You can make money from your blog right? Well why not make money from your mobile version! MoFuse has a revenue sharing program that everyone is able to enroll in. With just a few clicks of the mouse your mobile site can start earning you revenue.
Our revenue sharing program uses Google AdSense Mobile to display mobile specific advertisements on your mobile site. If you choose to enroll in this program, your Google AdSense Publisher ID will be shown 50% of the time, and ours the other 50% of the time.
How Do Visitors Get to My Mobile Site
MoFuse will create a static link to your mobile site for you to share, it’ll look something like this: http://myblog.mofuse.mobi. You can put a link to your mobile site on your blog for your mobile visitors to click to be redirected to your mobile version.
We also offer you a PHP code snippet to paste at the top of your index.php or header.php file that will automatically detect and redirect your mobile visitors to your mobile site.
You can also use our SMS widget to allow your users to enter in their mobile phone number and get an SMS message with the link to your MoFuse mobile site.
And if that’s not enough, you can use your very own domain name. One of our favorite blogs, Read/Write Web has a MoFuse mobile site at http://m.readwriteweb.com. Your users won’t think you’re using any outside application to mobilize your content!
Some Stats
2,500+ registered users in the past 30 days.
60,000+ mobile page views served in a week on average.
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22June2008
Posted by Jerry Kidd under: Cool Freebies; Product Reviews.
I spend a lot of my time on the road going from office to office to teach classes. Most people know that the best way to reach me is by email or text message, but there are times when a phone call is the best way. The trouble comes when they call when I am teaching a class or I am in a cell phone “black hole” where I have no reception. I’d have a message and not know it. Sometimes they’d leave a message that I wanted to save in a transaction file. It is very cumbersome to try to record a voice mail message into computer files to say the least.
A lot of you may be using the new Voice Over IP (VOIP) phones that offer those features, but I don’t have that available to me at my office. The Vonage phone that I have at home can offer some of those features, but I am getting tired of the monthly fees for something that gets rare use. Then I discovered GrandCentral from Google.
Here is a screen shot of the GrandCentral Home page
GrandCentral is in private beta right now and is absolutely free. (Since it is a private beta, you have to request an “invitation”) I can’t speak for Google and what their plans for the future might be, but this product is good enough to pay for should Google decide to monetize this in the future.
Although they offer 12 great features, my favorites are the call screening feature, and the fact that I get a text message each time someone leaves me a message. I can open the text message, click on the included phone number and play it back though my phone. I realize that I could simply dial any normal cell phone voicemail box with 1 number ease, but this offers so much more. I can see who called, what number they called from and I also get an email message with a link to the call as well. I can log into my account using a web browser and download a file of the call if I wish. I can dial out through GrandCentral which has the advantage of allowing me to record outgoing calls as well incoming calls. These recorded calls can later be downloaded to my computer or forwarded on via email to others.
Here is a screen shot of the GrandCentral Features page
GrandCentral has a nifty tool that allowed me to import all 1457 of my Outlook contacts and can import contact info from a number of different contact managers. Since I had so many contacts, it took an hour or so to do this, but it worked flawlessly.
So, the bottom line is this: I have a business class phone system on my cell phone and I have one number that I can give to people. This will be great when I get my new iPhone next month and have to juggle two phones for a while. You can call my published number and I can answer on whichever phone I happen to be using that day. For free!
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15June2008
Posted by Jerry Kidd under: Fuel Economy; How to....
I don’t know about you, but these $75.00 trips to the gas station are getting to me. It would be more than $75.00, but Wells Fargo in it’s infinite wisdom, cuts me off at $75.00 and stops the pump. I have a 2007 GMC Envoy, which on a good day gets about 18 miles to the gallon. This means that for every mile I drive I am spending 25 cents. I’ll spend more per mile as the price of gas continues to go up. I notice that my pay check is not going up commensurately, and I am sure that yours is not either.
So, since I still have about 2 more years of payments left on the car, getting a hybrid is not an option, yet. So, I need to get this under control and soon! I did some research and have come up with some ideas to improve the fuel economy of my car. They may help you too. Here they are, in no particular order:
1. Go slower! Remember the 70s? When we had a national speed limit of 55? There was a reason for it then and there is a reason for it now. Opinions vary on how much a drop in speed will save, but it is worth doing. Ignore the one finger waves and the angry horns from your fellow drivers. 
2. Easy does it. Don’t mash the pedal to the floor when you start out. A slow acceleration will save gas. On short trips around town the extra time that it costs you to start up slowly and brake gently won’t amount to more than 5 minutes or so. More than enough time to make another hands free call to a client
3. Don’t idle your engine. If you are sitting with the engine running, turn it off.
4. You don’t need to warm that car up here in California. Start the engine, fasten your seat belt, and adjust the mirrors and go.
5. Cut down on the drag. Put the windows up, close the sun roof and take off the luggage rack! If you have a pick up truck, open the tailgate or remove it all together.
6. Take everything out of your trunk except for the spare and the jack. Do you really need all of the stuff that you haul around? I don’t think so. Remember, all of your forms are on line (so you can ditch that box of forms that are probably outdated anyhow) and if you have been a regular reader, you know how to work remotely by now.
7. Check that you have your tires inflated properly. Don’t over inflate as that will affect handling, safety and tire wear. Under inflation also increases drag and therefore lowers fuel economy.
8. Maintain your car! Change the oil according to the manufacturers specifications and at the same time change your air and fuel filters. Have your wheels aligned and replace any worn tires. Keep the engine tuned up and get to know your local mechanic. With all the extra money that they are going to make keeping all of our cars in great shape they can probably afford to buy a house from you.
9. This is a long shot, but keep the exterior of the car clean and have it waxed from time to time, as this will also cut down on air drag.
10. Finally, a car gets its best economy when it is in the garage. Try to combine trips. Plan “round-robin” trips where you get everything done in one or two trips. A really great technology tool for this is Microsoft Streets and Trips. This program allows you to input a list of stops and then arrange them visually so that you can create an economical trip routing.
11. Keep track of what you are doing so that you can see how effective you are at saving at the pump. By doing this, you can do more of what works and back off on what isn’t working. Here is an online tool that will help with that: http://www.FuelFrog.com
All though I have been somewhat whimsical in this post, the ideas are sound, and if you implement these ideas, you will save money at the pump because you will be visiting it less often!
Let me know what ideas you have for saving gas and I’ll share them with the other readers.
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9June2008
Posted by Jerry Kidd under: Apple Information; Buying Technology Tools.
At today’s Apple Worldwide Developers Conference being held June 9-13, 2008, in San Francisco, at Moscone West, Steve Jobs announced the new iPhone 3G. This is the long rumored and long awaited successor to the iPhone. Although there are many cool new features, perhaps the most interesting to us as users of Microsoft Exchange email is the ability for this phone to connect to the Exchange server.
The phone, using ActiveSync technology licensed from Microsoft, will be able to receive “push” email, sync with the Exchange Calendar, access the Global Address List of contacts, and sync with your local contacts created in Outlook. (and synced to Exchange)
Although Apple announced that the phone will be available worldwide on July 11th, and provided a long list of International Carriers, including T-Mobile, it will only be available for use on AT&T’s 3G network here in the US. T-Mobile does not have a 3G network, relying on the older and slower EDGE network.
The phone will come in two colors, white and black and in two versions, 8GB and 16GB. (The 8GB model comes in black, only) Of course there are two prices as well! $199.00 for the 8 GB model and $299.00 for the 16 GB model. Apple says on their web site: “Twice the speed, half the price!”
The phone also features a 2 megapixel camera, GPS, the ability to open a wide variety of email attachments, high speed web surfing and much more.
Here are the links to various pages on the Apple web site where you can learn more:
Although the AT&T Wireless web site was not responsive when I checked, Engadet reports that the pricing for Voice and data plans are as follows: “On AT&T unlimited iPhone 3G data plans for consumers will be available for $30 a month, on top of voice plans starting at $39.99 a month. Unlimited 3G data for business users will be $45 a month, on top of voice.” You’ll need to verify that on your own.
Bottom line? If you can live with AT&T and if you want the latest and greatest phone on the market, get in line on July 10th at your AT&T store so you can get one on the 11th…or wait a few weeks until the frenzy dies down and then get yours. You know you want one!
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8June2008
Posted by Jerry Kidd under: Cool Freebies; Product Reviews.
I’ve just returned from a week’s vacation down in Newport Beach and in preparation for this week’s posting, I discovered that I couldn’t find where I had stored something on my hard drive. I fired up one of this week’s little gems (Google Desktop Search) and soon had what I was looking to find. That got me to thinking about some of the other search tools that I use and I thought that you’d like to know about them, too. Go check them out and in keeping with the economic times, they are free!
~ Hard to Find 800 #’s ~
www.HardToFind800Numbers.com Have you ever needed to find a phone number for customer service from a company and not been able to turn it up? And then when you did find it, it wasn’t an 800/866 number which meant that you’d have to pay for the privilege of being kept on hold! Not any more! When you go there you will see their slogan: “You keep them in business. Yet they hide from you. Until now.“
I love it! They also say this about themselves: “Our sole purpose is to help customers reach companies whose numbers are often buried deep within a large corporate site.” The home page is a Top 5 of frequently requested numbers and there is also an alphabetical index to help you find the company that you are looking to locate. You can even input numbers that you know that they don’t know about, which will make this service a keeper long into the future.
~ AllMyFaves.com ~
www.AllMyFaves.com Go to this site and you will find pages of icons from every conceivable company and web site…there is nothing quite like it on the web as far as I know. It truly makes searching for a company or website as easy as clicking your mouse. Here is what they have to say about themselves: “How often have you visited search engines and couldn’t find exactly what you wanted? You searched the web for a specific site and found only sites that had nothing to do with your actual request.
Why search? Our team of experts did the search for you! We have searched the web and provided you with a visual directory that includes the best sites in each category! We know we don’t have everything, but we are trying hard to get you the most of what you need, in a unique and innovative way.”
~ Google Desktop ~
http://desktop.google.com/features.html Have you ever spent tons of time searching for something that you know is on your computer but who knows where? I have. Windows comes with a pretty lame search facility built in, but truly, in my experience, it was never good enough. Enter the fine folks at Google with their Google Desktop product that brings the power of Google Search to your desktop! There are versions for Linux and Mac, too.
Here is what Google has to say about it: “Google Desktop makes searching your computer as easy as searching the web with Google. It’s a desktop search application that provides full text search over your email, files, music, photos, chats, Gmail, web pages that you’ve viewed, and more. By making your computer searchable, Desktop puts your information easily within your reach and frees you from having to manually organize your files, emails and bookmarks.”
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1June2008
Posted by Jerry Kidd under: Apple Information; Buying Technology Tools; Computer Maintenance; Computer Security; Cool Freebies; How to...; Product Reviews; Sales Tips.
I’ve been on vacation since Friday afternoon. Actually, I spent all of Friday afternoon and part of Friday evening driving the 482 miles from Orinda, California to Newport Coast, California down the El Camino Real, otherwise known as US Hwy 101.
During the 7, almost 8, hour drive I had plenty of time to reflect on this week’s blog post and what I would talk about. I had several good ideas, but the most compelling idea was to recap what I have talked about to date.
When I started out to do this blog my main purpose was to show real estate agents how they could use tech tools to enhance their businesses and along the way provide better service to their clients. According to the WordPress dashboard, I have made 34 posts in 8 Categories in the 4 months that I have been blogging, and if I may be so bold as to say this, think that I have been true to my purpose.
The Categories are:
Apple Information - Posts about Apple products including computers and the iPhone
Buying Technology Tools - This category contains posts about cool tools that I think you should know about, and how to buy them.
Computer Maintenance - We all hate it but we all need to maintain our equipment
Computer Security - Let’s all practice safe computing
Cool Freebies - This category contains info on useful tools that are free!
How to… - Curious about how to do something? Look here.
Product Reviews - Here is where I give you my take on products that I use and think that you should too!
Sales Tips - Let’s face it, we are all sales people. Here are some tech related sales tips.
If you look through these categories, you may notice that a dominant theme is working remotely or working while mobile. This is no accident, as I believe that the future of our business lies outside of our bricks and mortar offices. The agent of tomorrow will need to bring the transaction, from end to end to the client…no matter where that may be. I have written many of my posts on that topic and you will learn about the tools that I use to work from wherever I happen to be that has an Internet connection.
So, take a few minutes and look through the categories to remind yourself of where the goodies are while I go sit by the pool!
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25May2008
Posted by Jerry Kidd under: Apple Information; Buying Technology Tools; How to...; Product Reviews.
Spring is in the air (although you couldn’t prove it today) and to paraphrase Lord Tennyson, it seems like a Realtor’s® fancy has turned to … purchasing a new computer? In the past 7 days I received no less than 4 separate requests for help or information on how to purchase a computer. I think several of the requestors actually wanted me to go to the store with them! While that might have been fun, it sure isn’t practical.
A lot of people assume that I would automatically know what the right computer for them to buy would be. Some wanted me to offer an opinion on Computer A vs Computer B. That isn’t practical either as in order to do so, I would have had to have been on top of the ever changing computer market place. (I am not)
So, what I thought I’d do to help those who made the requests and to also help those of you considering a similar purchase, was to teach you how to buy a computer. I hope to make this general enough so that it withstands the test of time, and yet detailed enough so that you will feel empowered to make good choices when faced with the question of how to buy a new computer.
Given that there are desktops and laptops, PCs and Macs, Tablets and Convertible laptops to choose from, starting with what you want is a good beginning. I have located a free web resource that will help you make some of the basic decisions in the form of taking a simple survey. I’ve tried it, I like it and I recommend it to you. Although this is a good start, it isn’t the final answer, but go here anyway, take the survey and come back: http://www.pc.com/Shop/matchmaker#
Were you surprised at the number of possibilities that were presented? That is why I couldn’t possibly make specific a recommendation to you. Let’s narrow the field a little by tackling the minimum installed hardware that I do think should be in any Realtor’s® computer. To start with, whether you are looking at Mac, PC, Desktop, Laptop, Tablet or Convertible, stick with Intel brand processors. You could save a few dollars on an AMD equipped machine, but the Intel chips are faster and therefore the better bet.
Next, you will be much happier with a machine that has 2 Gigs of Random Access Memory (RAM) as it will allow the computer to do more and do it faster than a machine with less RAM. In the case of RAM, more is always better. Don’t attempt to save money by accepting less RAM.
You will want a large hard drive, as this is where your pictures, video, music, programs and other data are stored. A good minimum size is 200 GB. Hard drives are also rated in rotational speed. The current fastest drive generally available is 7,200 RPM (Although 10,000 RPM drives are available, they are hard to locate). An acceptable drive would be one that operates at 5,400 RPM, but hold out for the largest drive that runs at 7,200 RPM that you can find.
In order to get programs into your machine, it should have a CD drive installed as a minimum. You REALLY want it to have the capability of reading and burning both CDs and DVDs. Burning is useful if you want to create CDs or DVDs of your listings or marketing materials. The drive you want is called a CDR/DVDR drive. Sometimes called a Combo drive.
Planning on working remotely? Then you will want WiFi installed. Having Bluetooth installed is nice too so that you can connect your phone wirelessly to the computer. I’d stay away from the computers with built in AirCards or cellular modems as you end up being tied to a particular carrier. Better to use an add on USB AirCard for that purpose.
There’s more, but the info above is what I consider to be a baseline of hardware.
Now comes the sticky part…Mac or PC. I have both. I also have a pure Tablet as well as a convertible laptop. Which machine do I absolutely love and take with me as often as possible? The MacBook Pro. It not only is a Mac, but it is also a Windows XP Pro machine. More on that in another post. Assuming that you want to stay with Windows, which operating system should you buy? I have an opinion here too, and that is to stick with XP Pro. All of my desktops and laptops and Tablets run XP Pro, with the exception of one desktop that runs Vista. Which machine do I hate? The Vista machine. Too many problems and too many weird behaviors from that box for me to recommend Vista to you. Yes, you can still buy an XP Pro machine, but you will have to do it online as opposed to in a retail store. Dell is still selling XP Pro on most of their line (As are HP and Lenovo), at least until June 18th of this year (better hurry!) even though Microsoft has said that manufacturers can sell XP Pro on new computers until June 30th of 2009. (Microsoft will allow the manufacturers to offer XP on into 2009, but after June 30th it will be a “downgrade” process.)
Another good source for information on a wide variety of consumer electronics as well as computers is www.FirstGlimpseMag.com. This is a magazine that regularly gives you product reviews and buying guides on all sorts of equipment. It is worth noting that they have a relationship with BestBuy.
I hope that this is helpful to you in your quest to purchase new computer. Go ahead and leave a comment if there is something that I didn’t cover well enough for you.
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18May2008
Posted by Jerry Kidd under: Sales Tips.
In fact, don’t do anything in the office at all! Except to meet your clients who want to meet in the office, attend office meetings and other management required office attendance. Other than that, you need to be spending your time where the clients are…and I have a news flash for you…they aren’t in your office.
If you have attended my Tech tools, Mobile Office or business development classes, you have heard me tell you that you might want to consider working from Starbucks or Peets or the Mall or some other public place. I’ve even devoted large portions of all of my GRI training classes to this topic.
I have spoken of an article that appeared on the front page of the Sunday San Francisco Examiner a little over a year ago that went on, at great length, about the new wave of business people who actually operate entire companies, as well as those just starting companies, from local coffee shops. Here is a link to that article. Go read it and then come back, because we have some work to do after you do.
Interesting article wasn’t it? After I read that, I spent some time thinking about how we could best take advantage of that phenomenon and here is what I think that you should do: STOP SPENDING TIME AT THE OFFICE. Your future clients are NOT at your office. Instead, they are out and about, busy leading their lives. It seems to me that we need to be where they are. In order to do that, you need to set up a mobile office. I have many posts on this blog that cover the ways to do that, just go up into the upper right corner and use the search feature to find what you want, or browse the Archives.
Basically, the scenario is this, you show up at Starbucks and set up your laptop, portable printer and portable scanner and do what you would normally do while in the office. The research, the paperwork, the return calls, writing personal notes, file maintenance and so on. If you need to make copies, do it at Kinkos… there is always a ton of people there. This works even better if you have the nerve to wear your name badge, or company logo wear or even set out your desk plate with your name and the company logo on it.
Why does that make this work better? Because it will invite someone to come up and ask you if you are in real estate. Your answer will be “why yes, thank you for asking.” As we know, in most cases they will then ask…”How’s the market?”. And if you’ve been to any of the classes I mentioned above, you will know that I like the old Tommy Hopkins line “Unbelievable! Are you thinking of buying or selling?” From there you are off to the “races”.
How much time, money and effort do you spend chasing after new business? Wouldn’t it be better to also be available for the chance encounter with someone who might be in the market? So, get up and get out of the office. Figure out where people are congregating and you be there too with your portable office so that you can show MLS information, write and print contracts and generally be the neighborhood real estate resource that people need and want.
See you at Starbucks!
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11May2008
Posted by Jerry Kidd under: How to...; Sales Tips.
Welcome to late spring! In about 4 weeks it will officially be summer and by now all of your listings should have offers on them or should be in escrow…right?
Hardly. This market is not recovered to the point where you can make general statements like that. In years past, it was commonly accepted knowledge that a home placed on the market in spring would have the best chance of selling, due to the larger number of home buyers present in the spring market. This year that is not always true.
However, there are some things that you can do to enhance the possibility of selling that listing that seems to be languishing on the market. If you have been diligent in your marketing efforts, and if the home is presentable and in good repair, then there is a good possibility that you don’t have the right price on the home. In many of our markets, we have seen multiple offers on well presented, well priced homes. So we know that buyers are out there and they are looking for bargains.
Obtaining a price reduction from today’s sellers is a necessity once the home has been on the market for 30 days with no offers and no sale. Beyond 30 days, the available pool of buyers has seen the home, either virtually or in person, and they have declined to make an offer. In order to attract fresh buyers (and even bring back previous lookers) you will need to adjust the price downwards.Obtaining price reductions has always been both an art and a science. The art is in your presentation and the science is in your ability to pull together the facts and make a compelling argument.
We have all heard that 80% (or more) of home buyers begin their search on the Internet. We have heard it from many sources, but perhaps the most strident voice is Realtor.com. They seem to have most of the listings on line and they do a very good job of tracking visits to each of the listings that they have on the site. But, did you know that you can get Realtor.com to give you a comprehensive report of the traffic to your listings? And that you can either email or print the report?
Here is how to obtain this "secret tool": First, go to Realtor.com, then…
-Click on Resource Center on the left side of the home page (Under “For Realtors”)
-Choose your MLS
-Put in your Agent MLS Identifier # (Generally your NRDS number)
-Put in your Agent MLS Identifier # again as your password (Unless you have changed your password previously)
-Click on Reporting and then click on Listing Traffic
-Click on MLS # (You have to have listings in the MLS for this to work)
-Then click on either printable version or email version
Here is what you will get: (I have removed all identifying information, but other than that, this is an actual report)
As you can see, there was a steady buildup of traffic over the first couple of weeks, but after that, traffic has steadily declined…and there have been no offers. Do you think that if this was your listing that you could take this report to the seller and convince them that if over 2500 people had viewed the listing and he still hadn’t gotten an offer, that a price reduction was in order? I’ll bet that you could!
Give it a try on your listings, go get a price reduction and get a closed sale before the end of summer!
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4May2008
Posted by Jerry Kidd under: How to...; Product Reviews; Sales Tips.
I know a lot of agents and brokers that do not like the emergence of online players such as Zillow and Trulia. I was involved in many "water cooler" talks when these sites first came out. In fact, many of those conversations revolved around the inaccuracy of the information contained on those sites. Many of us predicted the early demise of them because of the inaccurate data.
Then a funny thing happened, the public embraced those sites and started using them.
As professionals, we found it necessary to visit those sites before meeting with our clients just so that we could be prepared to answer questions. It also became necessary to help our clients understand what they had learned on those sites, and why the data was often inaccurate. Over time, the data has improved and customer acceptance has gone up based on web site traffic to both sites.
Pretty soon it became apparent that we would have to learn to work with them because they weren’t going to go away!
As it turns out, both Zillow and Trulia were anxious to work with us and began to offer tools to do just that.
On Zillow, you can register for a free account and then you can do some pretty cool things like submitting a listing with up to 50 pictures. If you wanted to spend some money on targeted ads, Zillow has a way for you to create targeted ads that will be made available to people looking in a certain zip code. They offer you a listing presentation piece that you can use to explain why you use Zillow to help market your listings. It’s available at: http://www.zillow.com/static/pdf/Why-Agents-Use-Zillow.pdf.
If you don’t have any current listings, you can use Zillow to "fish" for buyers and sellers by several different methods, not the least of which is to periodically log into the site and answer questions posed by other visitors to the site.
You can do many of the same things on Trulia as well. You can upload your listings manually or use a service such as Postlets. You can sign up to answer questions that are posed by visitors to the site and by doing so can be recognized as a local expert. You can also buy targeted ads as well.
Trulia also has a marketing piece that you can use, but you will probably not want to do so unless you are with one of the brokerages listed at the bottom of the piece. It’s available at: http://images.trulia.com/resources/Trulia_User_Profile.pdf
What they do have that I think is very interesting is that they offer 4 different widgets to add to your blog or web site…one for stats, a map, a search box and the "Home Roll" which lists the latest listings for an area. Tools like these on your blog or web site go a long way to making your site stickier.
My recommendation is that you take a few minutes and go visit these sites and sign up for both of them. Upload your listings. Answer some questions. Become part of the community and who knows, one of these "interlopers" may bring you your next transaction!
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