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Copyright, Creative Commons and you

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 03:00:44 +0000

One of the questions that comes up a lot in the hands on classes that I teach has to do with Copyright. People either want to know how to protect their work, or they want to know how they can use work done by others. So, I thought that I’d share some of the resources that I use to answer those questions.

Bur first, a disclaimer. I am not an attorney. And, if I was, which I am not, I am not your attorney. This is not legal advice. You use this information at your own risk and after having thoroughly investigated every link I present here. To be on the REALLY safe side, consult an attorney. Preferably one who is conversant with Copyright Law.

Now that I have that little bit of nastiness is out of the way, let me tell you how I deal with these questions.

To start with, it would be a very good idea if you took a few minutes to check out all of the free information there is on the web. Instead of ending up a some random web site that offers questionable advice, why not go straight to the source? If you are in the US, the US Copyright Office is conveniently located at http://www.copyright.gov/. If you are a fan of multimedia learning, go straight to Taking the Mystery Out of Copyright located at http://www.loc.gov/teachers/copyrightmystery/ which is a animation designed for teachers and students. I found it to be a good resource for a quick understanding. You can also get a plain text version of the animation at http://www.loc.gov/teachers/copyrightmystery/text/. Another good page to check out is the FAQ page at http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/

There is much more to read on the site, but as a minimum, reading the suggested pages will get you off to a good understanding.

While Copyright law covers much of what you want to do on line, there is yet another type of non-governmental protection available through something called Creative Commons. You can learn about that at http://creativecommons.org/.

Essentially, Creative Commons has created standardized licensing procedures that allow you to modify your Copyright rights. Here is the link to a page on that site which explains what it is, why it came into being and how you might benefit from Creative Commons licensing: http://creativecommons.org/about/what-is-cc. Be sure to take the time to watch the videos there and you will not only get informed, but you’ll be entertained along the way.

Finally, you could always just ask someone for permission to use their material. Novel concept, but it works. I often will purchase photos from www.istockphoto.com to use on this blog, but occasionally I have found the perfect photo on www.flickr.com. In order to use the flickr photos, I just emailed the photographer and asked for permission. When I got the ok back, I just went ahead and used the picture.

If you are publishing a blog, or laying music down with a home tour that you built (I am not talking about the third party tours that come with music), you’ll definitely want to check out the US Copyright Office and the Creative Commons websites and save yourself a load of trouble.

Copyright 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 - All rights reserved - http://RealtyTechBytes.com Did you know that I have arranged for readers of my blog to receive licensed software for free? And that there is something new everyday? Click on the link to go to the blog and look for Give Away of the day in the sidebar.

Copyright, Creative Commons and you

Let Google help you grow your business

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 03:00:15 +0000

Lest you think that I am Google’s payroll (I am not, but that’s not a bad idea!) I want to tell you about a page that Google has just for you, the Real Estate Professional.

You NEED to click on this link: Google Tools for Real Estate Professionals now and read every word and follow the instructions that it contains.

Here is what Google has to say:

Here’s why it pays to use Google to connect to home buyers and sellers:

Google can help generate real estate referrals and leads.

Google has more real estate searches than other search engines combined, and more unique visitors than all real estate specific web sites.

Google is the most-used search engine for researching and purchasing real estate information and services.

The Google Network reaches over 80% of U.S. Internet users.

Because I think that it is so important that you do so, I am going to keep this very short. Take the time that you normally spend reading RealtyTechBytes and go read Google Tools for Real Estate Professionals instead. You can thank me later!

About the Author: Jerry is a 23 year veteran of the real estate industry and has done it all from listing and selling, to managing single and multiple offices. He has been the IT Director for a major SF Bay Area company, and has also been the Training Director for another major SF Bay Area company. In addition to writing this blog, Jerry is the Principal of Jerry Kidd Training and Consulting, specializing in showing real estate professionals how to utilize today’s exciting social tools to create and nurture relationships with home buyers and sellers. Visit http://www.JerryKidd.com to learn more about the training and consulting services offered.

A few things to do to kick off 2010 the right way!

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 03:00:46 +0000

2009 is finally over and 2010 is here. The New Year holiday has always felt like new opportunity for me. I enter January with high hopes for the things that I want to accomplish in the year ahead and this year is no different. Many of you have journeyed with me last year as I started my own business. That was a goal that had been simmering in the back of my mind for a few years. At the end of October I was able to finally accomplish it! Since then I have been on the path of telling everyone what I am doing and have enjoyed the fruits of that endeavor.

In 2008 I had set a goal of losing 60 pounds by Christmas of 2008. That goal was met by the end of October 2008. So, I have “borrowed” the strategies that I used that kept me focused to help me with this year’s goals.

The simple act of communicating my weight loss goal, more than anything else, kept me on the straight and narrow. The thought of having to go around and tell you that I didn’t achieve the goal kept me focused on the result that I wanted. In other words, I made myself accountable.

How about you? What are you willing to be accountable for this year? Why not write down an income goal that seems a little out of reach and then communicate that to family and friends…people who may be able to help you achieve the goal.

Next I would suggest that you determine how many sales sides you will need to accomplish to get to that income goal. And finally, determine how many prospects you will need to get that number of sales. My Jump Start Your Business Class will give you some help in figuring these things out, as will your manager. The key to success here is to WRITE down the Income goal, the number of sides needed and the number of prospects you will need to ask to do business with you. If you don’t write it down and communicate it to another person then all you have is a wish…

Don’t forget to stay in close contact with your past client base and your sphere of influence. Drop them a hand written note asking them how their holidays were and telling them about yours. Don’t forget to enclose a business card…who knows, they may have a referral for you! Even better, drop by or call them (in compliance with the DNC Laws of course). Talk to them about their FORD and they will ask you about yours in return. They don’t have a FORD? Of course they do. FORD is an acronym for Family, Occupation, Recreation and Dreams.

Some of you are probably saying to yourselves that this is old news and you already know it. True enough, but do you actually do it? Faithfully? Or do you get sidetracked like most of us by life? You’ve heard about the road to “….” As being paved with good intentions haven’t you? Here is another area where being accountable will pay off with big dividends.

And finally, take it one step further, when you call them, or write to them or drop by, ask them if they would like to subscribe to your email newsletter, or read your blog, or follow you on Twitter, or even keep up with you on Facebook.

If these concepts are foreign to you, take a class! Watch http://www.JerryKidd.com for the appearance of my new website (Due this week) which will detail all of the classes that I have. You’ll be able to see what’s on offer and how you can attend.

2010 can be a great year! It’s entirely up to you.

iPhone 3G pet peeve solved!

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 03:00:27 +0000

I was one of those people who stood in line for over 6 hours in July of 2008 to buy the iPhone 3G when it came out. I wasn’t happy to do it, but I endured the wait because the reward was so worth it.

Then Apple came out with the iPhone 3GS. It had a feature that I really wanted and that was the ability to shoot video with the built in camera, something the 3G lacked, even though it’s camera and hardware was completely capable of doing it! I didn’t rush out to get the 3GS because I wasn’t “seasoned” enough in my contract with AT&T and would have had to buy my way out the contract so that I could enter into a new one with AT&T for the new phone. I wasn’t willing to do that.

There was another option for me to be able to shoot video on my iPhone 3G and that was to “jailbreak” my phone. Jail breaking a phone is the process of installing some software that allows you to install other software that permits the phone to do things that Apple and AT&T did not want done. Like shooting video!

The problem with jail breaking a phone is that it possibly violates the warranty and the possibility of “bricking” the phone is very real. “Bricking” is a term used to describe the phenomenon of rendering your phone unusable and irreparable. Even as geeky as I am, I didn’t want to risk that. So, I contented myself with the thought that I had to stick to my Flip camera for mobile video. I like the Flip and and have used it frequently. but it means carrying another device all the time.

I just ran across the answer to problem. Ustream has released an iPhone app that will allow my iPhone 3G (and the 3GS) to shoot live video and upload it to their website and make it available to be watched by others and embedded into my blog or Facebook page.

And, it’s FREE! It’s called Ustream Broadcaster and you get it at the iPhone App Store. You’ve got to have iTunes installed on your computer to get it.

They have a very extensive help page to get you up and running so you should be able to get this done in short order.

So, problem solved, angst with the iPhone reduced, but not gone. (When can I tether my iPhone to my laptop? Come on Apple and AT&T, get with it!)

How might you use this feature? I’m thinking it makes for a great tool when out on tour. If you see something your client might like, whip out your phone, shoot a quick video and Tweet about it or load it to your Facebook page (Both features are built into the app) and let your client know.

How are you going to use it? Share your ideas by leaving a comment.

Realtors® guide to making a living in a Web 2.0 World Part Twelve ~ YouTube

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 03:00:04 +0000

The next step along the way to utilizing Web 2.0 tools to enhance your business is to utilize video. In a previous post I talked about the Flip video camera, which in my opinion, is tailor made for real estate agents. Go here to check it out http://realtytechbytes.com/video-made-simple/. Once you’ve got your hands on this little gem you are ready to go.

You may be wondering why I think that online video is a necessary component for your Web 2.0 marketing. I’ve heard it bandied about that YouTube is now the number 2 search engine behind Google. Never one to just blindly believe that sort of thing, I went looking around to find the source of the statement. Along the way I ran into this site http://www.alexa.com/topsites which ranks the top 500 sites on the web. At the time of this writing, YouTube was number 4. (I did find the original reference to the claim that YouTube is the number 2 search engine, but there is some controversy there about whether YouTube IS a search engine or whether it simply HAS a search engine – who cares? A lot of people look at YouTube, daily.)

That makes me think that it cannot hurt you to have videos on YouTube. Since YouTube allows you to have keywords listed with each video submission, and since you can link the videos back to your blog, and since once a video is on YouTube it can be emailed to anyone or embedded in your blog or uploaded to Facebook…why wouldn’t you just do it?

Getting started is easy. Go to http://www.YouTube.com and just log in. If you don’t have an account, just follow the prompts to create an account. Once the account is created, log in. Then double click on your name to enter the Channel editing location. This is where you can spruce up your Channel (What other people see when they search for you or your videos on YouTube). You can upload your picture or logo, set background colors and choose what you will display about yourself.

YouTube has an excellent help section which you can find here:
http://www.youtube.com/t/yt_handbook_produce. As you might expect, most of the help is in video format.

Now you just need to create some videos. If you are using the Flip, just get to it. The Flip makes getting the video out of the camera and up to YouTube a very easy process. Once it’s there, why not embed it into a blog post? Or email it to clients, prospects and other agents (if it’s of your new listing)? Some of the things that you might want to video are your listings (of course) and neighborhood tours or highlights. You could do interviews with lenders, inspectors, title companies, escrow companies or even do “man on the street” interviews with people at neighborhood events.

Get creative. Get started. Go for it. But, if you are feeling overwhelmed, get in touch with me. I can help get you set up. It’s part of what my new company does for real estate agents.

And if you are already using video in your business, won’t you please share what you have done by posting some links in the comments?

Realtor’s® guide to making a living in a Web 2.0 World ~ Part Eleven ~ Facebook

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 03:00:08 +0000

Did you know that Facebook has doubled it’s users from 150 million in January to over 300 million September? (Facebook press info) And did you know that 50% of the active users log on to Facebook in any given day and that The fastest growing demographic is those 35 years old and older? (Facebook statistics info)

How about these facts:

The average user has 130 friends on the site
More than 8 billion minutes are spent on Facebook each day (worldwide)
More than 45 million status updates each day
More than 10 million users become fans of Pages each day

I don’t know about you, but these little facts scream to me that Facebook has gone mainstream and that this is a way of reaching people that I should be paying attention to.

So, how do you begin? Simple. Go to http://www.facebook.com and fill in your first and last names, your email address, select a password, choose your gender, select a password and provide your birthday. Click on “Sign Up” and you are done. Be sure to make the password at least 6 characters long or you’ll have to circle back and correct it before you move on. Don’t worry about providing your full birth date, you can choose to not show the year of your birth in your profile. Facebook will send you a confirmation email which you must open. Click on the link that is provided in the email and your account will be opened.

It may be tempting to start the search for people that you know on Facebook right away, but I’d like to suggest that you fill out your profile COMPLETELY before you start the search for friends. The reason for that is because if you try to friend someone with an incomplete profile, they may not recognize you and think that you are trying to spam them or worse. You could end up by having that person block you from ever contacting them. Better to take the time to fill in the profile. Click Here to go to a page on Facebook that explains the process.

Once you have the Profile setup, go here to learn about setting up your Privacy controls. Once that is done it’s time to search for some friends. Facebook has a pretty good help section on how to do that. Click here to go there.

The last step to take on your initial journey into Facebook is to visit the Explore Facebook page.

That’s it. you now have a Facebook profile setup, so now you can start telling everyone about what a wonderful Realtor® you are and all about your listings, open houses and services. Right? Not so fast!

There are two reasons why that is not the way to go about it.

The first is that it may violate several of Facebook’s Terms of Use. Such as Section 3.1 or Section 4.2 (Go ahead and read it, it’s why I provided the link).

The second reason is equally important. No one wants to be spammed by any business on their Facebook Wall. If you do so, people can un-follow you, block you or hide your posts. And, you will never know that it happened because Facebook doesn’t notify you if someone blocks, hides or un-follows you. You just lose that person as a friend. Do that often enough and you’ll find yourself all alone on facebook.

So, how does a business (YOU are a business) use Facebook? That’s also simple. Facebook created Pages for the express purpose of giving businesses a way to reach people. There are also ads that you can purchase on facebook.

Let’s start with Pages. Here is Facebook’s Step By Step Guide to creating pages. The Guide is in 4 parts, Overview, Prepare, Step by Step and Find new Fans. If you follow this carefully, you’ll be able to create a Facebook Business page where you will be welcome to tout your services, open houses, new listings, past sales and anything else that would help you promote yourself as a real estate agent par excellence! Also, if you do this, you’ll be able to keep your personal life and your business life separate.

You can also advertise on Facebook. This may be the bargain of the century. Facebook ads work like the ads that you see on Google on the right hand side of the search results page when you do a search on Google. In other words, you only pay for the ad when someone actually clicks on it. You don’t pay for them to just LOOK at the ad. Hmmm, 300 million users. 150 million on line every day… And, they are less expensive that Google AdWords!

You can target your ads to a certain geographic area. You can target your ads to a social profile. You can target keywords in profiles. You can have as many ads as you want. You can direct people to your blog or to your any web site, even to your Facebook business page. Again, Facebook has provided a 4 part guide on how to do Facebook Advertising. You are given an Overview, how to Prepare, a Step by Step guide and then there are some case studies so that you can see how others are using this.

If you take the time to set up your Facebook profile and business pages, I think you will find that it becomes an important part of your Web 2.0 marketing presence.

Since I am now able to consult with any real estate agent, please feel free to contact me to learn how I can assist you with setting up any part of what I have talked about in this series of articles. I’d be happy to spend some time with you, at no charge (Initial call only), to see how I could help you.

In the meantime, if you are already on Facebook, won’t you please share with us your successes (and frustrations) via the comments?

Realtor’s® guide to making a living in a Web 2.0 World ~ Part Nine ~ 10 easy ways to promote your blog

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 02:48:23 +0000

If you have been following along these past 2 months (and actually taking action!) you have built a blog and you have some articles on it. And you are probably wondering where are all of your readers!

Sad to say, for most of us, success at blogging is usually not an overnight phenomenon.

Even though blogs garner special favor from the search engines, you still need to “prime the pump” so to speak.

Here are a few methods, some new and some tried and true:

1. This should be obvious, but put a link to your blog in your email signature file.
2. Mention your blog in your outgoing voice mail message
3. Place a link to your blog on your website (Link them to each other)
4. Put the URL to your blog on all print media. By that I mean flyers, brochures, print ads and of course your business cards.
5. Almost all blogs come with built in RSS feeds. Remind your readers to subscribe to your blog by having buttons or calls to action visible.
6. As cool as RSS is, most people will not use it. Instead, give them a way to subscribe via email. That way your blog posts show up as email in their in box and they don’t have to actually visit your blog on the web.
7. Print out copies of your best blog posts on the back of your listing flyers. You will be surprised how many people will keep the flyer so that they can check out the blog later. Even if they don’t actually visit the blog, they have kept the flyer!
8. Take your netbook computer and your MiFi card to your next open house. Open your browser to your blog and instead of having people sign in to a guest book, have them sign up for an email or RSS subscription to your blog.
9. Link your blog to your Facebook account so that when you post a new article on your blog it shows up as new Note on your Facebook profile.
10.Link your blog to your Twitter account so that a new Tweet announcing the article is sent when you post a new article on your blog.

If you will do these things consistently, over time your readership will grow. Even though I think this is a fairly good list, I’ll bet that some of you have some even better methods. We’d all love to hear them, so please feel free to share!

Realtor’s® guide to making a living in a Web 2.0 World ~ Part Six

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 02:00:13 +0000

In the first part of this series I detailed the 6 traits of successful agents (as I see it) and in the subsequent posts I have focused on trait number 5 at least as it pertains to some of the hardware and software systems they use. Then last week I talked about how successful agents are really the original social networkers because of trait number 5 – They create and nurture networks of people.

This week I want to talk a bit about how you can learn how to do the same thing. Instead of me telling you, I’d like to refer you to three books that do an excellent job of giving you the knowledge that you need to create a successful social networking presence.

There is a method to my reasoning here. First of all, they can do a much better job than I can as they are the experts, but also because I am on vacation in Maui and I’d like to quickly get back to the beach!

The first book is Socialnomics: How social media transforms the way we live and do business by erik qualman. From the inside cover of the dust jacket: “…Qualman offers a fascinating look at the impact of social media on business to to reveal what the future holds and how business can best take advantage of it.” This is a relatively quick book to read, being only 8 Chapters and just shy of 300 pages, but it offers a great look at how some businesses are using social media to their advantage and how others are not. Although he does not single out real estate in the book, much of what he says speaks directly to what we do to find and nurture client relationships.

The second book is “Trust Agents – using the web to build influence. improve reputation, and earn trust” by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith. This book is also an easy read, being 8 Chapters and again just shy of 300 pages. Brogan and Smith take a different approach in that they talk about the power that an individual can wield in the market place once they have established trust. This book then goes on to give you methods, strategies and techniques to help you get there.

Once you have learned from the first two books, it’s time to read “the digital handshake – seven proven strategies to grow your business using social media” by Paul Chaney. This book hits a grand slam in my opinion in that Chaney gives you the reasoning behind why you want and need to adopt a social media marketing plan, he then goes on to show you how to do it. He ties some of this directly into real estate so you will be able to relate. Again, this is an easy read being less than 300 pages divided into 18 Chapters

OK, it’s back to the beach for me, but I want to first pop in a disclaimer. If you click on the links in this post and buy a book from Amazon as result of doing that I will earn a small pittance. I will probably not earn enough to pay for the cost of the three books that I have just recommended, but you may earn enough from your improved business practices to make a real difference in your life!

Realtor’s® guide to making a living in a Web 2.0 World ~ Part Four

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 02:00:21 +0000

Over the last three weeks I have been talking about how a real estate agent can make a living in the Web 2.0 world. We started by setting the stage, talking about phones, then computers. This week I want to talk about the software that you will need on your computer.

There is a wide variety of software that you may wish to have including photo editing, PDF readers, money management, screen capture, MLS, ZipForms/Winforms and so on. But, in my opinion, the most important piece of software is the contact manager and calendar software.

I still see agents walking around with paper calendars and paper contact lists! Some of those same agents even have smart phones! When asked, they often cite the fact that it’s easier and quicker for them to look at their contacts and calendars that way. I think I felt the same way until I learned how to really use contact management software. Also, if your paper calendar or contact list get misplaced I don’t know how you would ever recover from such a disaster.

Given that we live and die by our appointments and contacts it makes sense to do everything you can to maintain a handle on your time and contacts. So. let’s take a look at what is out there. Although this list is pretty comprehensive, it is not exhaustive. If you are using something that I didn’t talk about, please feel free to tell us in the comments.

There is a pretty wide universe of software available to help you corral your contacts and calendar. Some is free, most isn’t. Some is web based, some runs on your computer. All of them allow you to synchronize the data with your smart phone so that you always have it with you(Exceptions are Open Office and Palm Desktop which only syncs with Palm Devices). Aside from the financial hardship of losing a smart phone, your data is still available to you and so the loss is not nearly the disaster the loss of your paper records would be.

Let’s start with the de facto Gold Standard of real estate contact management, Top Producer. This product has been around for nearly as long as I have. In it’s current iteration, it’s an online product and is available by monthly subscription. It manages contacts, calendars, creates campaigns, flyers, marketing materials and also integrates with your MLS. Also, your data is stored and backed up on Top Producer’s servers which alleviates your need to perform backups. It starts at $39.95 a month and goes up. This is a very good product that a lot of agents swear by, but it does have a steep learning curve if you want to get the full benefit of the product.

Another very good product is Agent Office. This one is a software that you install on your computer. It performs almost all of the same functions of TopProducer. One of it’s key points is that your data is not in someone else’s hands – it’s on your hard drive. It also has a steep learning curve which you must accomplish if you want to get the most out of it. Currently it sells for $299.00

Next up is Microsoft Outlook. It is part of the Microsoft Office Family of products. If you have any version of Office (Except Home, Family and Student) you have Outlook. The Standard version of Office is $399.95. (Upgrade versions which will take you to Office 2007 are $239.95). If you don’t want the Microsoft Office product, but you’d still like Outlook, you can buy Outlook as a standalone product for $109.95.

Why would you want Outlook? Well, for several reasons. Outlook combines an email client (It will pick up Exchange, POP3 and IMAP4 email), a Contact Manager, a Calendar, Notes and a Task Manager all into one interface. That means that you can get most of what you need in a day by staying within one piece of software. The downside of Outlook is that it is not easy to customize, so if you wanted to have real estate specific fields in your contact manager, you would find that hard to do.

However, there are two add on products for Outlook that once purchased and installed along with Outlook, will give you TopProducer and AgentOffice like functionality.

The first one is Active Agent from Sonoma Enterprises. This is a $299.00 product that overlays Outlook with real estate specific fields in the Contact records and allows you to create and manage campaigns. A campaign is an automated work flow that essentially puts your business on autopilot. Once you enter a Contact and select a campaign, the program takes over and automatically will schedule calls, appointments, letters, postcards and so on for you.

The other Outlook add-on is Respond from Pat Zaby. It is currently $299.00, although the web site says that is a “Sale” price down from $399.00. It does many of the same things that Active Agent will do to Outlook.

The big advantage to these two products is that if you already own Outlook and are familiar with using it then the learning curve will not be as stiff as it would be if you were learning a new piece of software. In other words, you’ll be able to put them to work quicker!

Finally, let’s talk about a couple of free products. We all need a word processor for writing letters and reading letters sent to us by others. But, Microsoft office is a very expensive piece of software. This is where Sun Microsystems free OpenOffice comes in. It’s a free download that Sun claims is completely compatible with Microsoft office. In other words, if you have OpenOffice you will be able to open documents created in Microsoft Office and people with Microsoft Office will be able to open and read documents that you create in OpenOffice. Not a bad deal for free! It does not have an Outlook like equivalent, so for that you may wish to purchase a stand alone copy of Outlook.

If all you want is a basic Contact manager, Calendar, To Do List and Notes manager, then you may find that the free Palm Desktop software is perfect for you. It was designed to allow users of Palm’s PalmPilot, Pre, and TREO telephones to have a desktop way of entering data. But, you do not need to have a Palm device to download and use the software. If you do have such a device then you already have the software. It may not be installed, but it is on the installation CD. Palm places no restrictions on who can download and use the software, so if this works for you, go and get a copy.

Click on the various logos to go get more information on the products that I have discussed, and by all means, if you are not using something these products now, please get started. It’s crucial to not let someone fall in the “cracks” and you never want to miss an appointment!

Next time we will start looking at social media in a real estate practice, so in preparation why not reread the previous three posts to make sure that you are up to speed? And by all means, tell all of us what you use…and why.

Realtor’s® guide to making a living in a Web 2.0 World ~ Part Three

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 02:00:58 +0000

Two weeks ago I introduced this multi-part series of posts on how successful Realtors® are making a living these days. In that post I talked about the 6 traits of successful agents and the one thing that none of them do. It will be important to keep those traits in mind as we talk about this week’s tool.

In case you have forgotten what I talked about in previous week’s or in case you are just joining us on this journey, here is the link to the first week’s article http://budurl.com/hywg , and here is the link to last week’s article: http://budurl.com/bjed

I want to talk about computers today. Although it is possible to be a successful real estate agent without one (and I do know a few who do not use one and who are successful by any one’s standards) I believe that the use of a computer in your real estate business is a necessity for most of us.

One of the most frequent questions that I get is “What computer should I buy?”. I always answer that question with a few of my own, because it’s impossible to give good advice until the following questions are answered:

How do you work? Do you work from home? Do you work from your broker’s office?
Do you ever meet clients at their home or place of employment? Do you ever meet clients at a coffee shop, or do you work from one?
What do you hope to gain from using a computer? Checking email? Surfing the web? Accessing MLS? Doing presentations?
Will you be editing and publishing pictures or videos?
Will you be writing a blog?
Although in most cases a laptop computer will be the correct machine for most real estate uses, what kind of laptop? Mac or Windows?
If a Windows machine, do you need the features of a full size laptop or will a Netbook do for you?

As you can see, some careful thought has to go into the choice. I have explored many of these options in previous posts and I invite you to revisit each article to get more detail on how to make your decision.

To start with, visit http://realtytechbytes.com/what-computer-should-i-buy/ to get a look at the larger picture.

Then you may want to visit http://realtytechbytes.com/what-laptop-should-i-buy-in-2008/ for some insight on buying a laptop.

To help you with the Netbook versus laptop question, visit http://realtytechbytes.com/your-next-laptop-is-a-netbook/

These three articles are clearly dated in terms of price, but they still offer sound advice on how to buy. My basic rule of thumb is this (applies to Windows and Mac, Laptop/Netbook and desktop machines): Buy as much RAM as the machine will hold. Get the biggest hard drive that you can get, if possible get a DVDR/RW drive as this will allow you to play and burn both DVDs and CDs. If you are going the portable route, get something with built in WiFi. Bluetooth would be nice but not necessary, and having 3 or more USB ports is a nice feature to have. If at all possible, get one with a built in web cam and microphone. Having these items opens up a whole new world of options that we’ll explore later in the series.

Finally, I wrote a three part series on converting from using a Windows PC to a Mac:

http://realtytechbytes.com/true-confessions-of-a-windows-user-in-a-mac-world-part-one/

http://realtytechbytes.com/true-confessions-of-a-windows-user-in-a-mac-world-part-two/

http://realtytechbytes.com/true-confessions-of-a-windows-user-in-a-mac-world-part-three/

The choice of a machine platform is crucial to your success and you should plan on spending some time in careful consideration.

Next time we’ll look at the software that I see the successful agents using to sustain and grow their businesses.

In the meantime, why not tell us all what computer you are using, why you are using it and what you like about it as well as what you don’t like! We can all learn from each other on this one!