Tag Archives: Dustin-Luther

Dustin Luther and ARDELL's butt make "the news"

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22

[photopress:dustin_1_2.jpg,thumb,alignright]The BIG news today is that Inman named Dustin Luther, Owner and Founder of Rain City Guide among many other things, one of the Top TEN People to Watch in 2008

  1. Errol Samuelson, president, Realtor.com
  2. Sheila Bair, chairwoman, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp
  3. Lockhart Steele, founder and publisher Curbed.com
  4. Sam Zell, Chicago billionaire
  5. Kerry Killinger, CEO, Washington Mutual Inc.
  6. Andrew Cuomo, New York attorney general
  7. Dustin Luther, founder, 4realz.net
  8. Lawrence Yun, chief economist, National Association of Realtors
  9. Ben Bernanke, chairman, Federal Reserve
  10. Kurt Pfotenhauer, CEO, American Land Title Association

Those with an Inman subscription can catch it here for those who can’t see that link, the blurb on Dustin is reposted here.

Of lesser import, my butt appears to be the opening shot of Joe and Rudy’s great video posted yesterday, over at Sellsius of  San Francisco Inman Connect/end of Blog Tour USA.

Congratulations Dustin!!!  I agree that you are clearly one to be watching in 2008.  We certainly will be watching you.  I find myself becoming addicted to 4Realz.net very quickly, though I think that site is just a speck of what we will be seeing and hearing from you in 2008.

Happy New Year!

 

Grasping for pebbles & listening for grasshoppers

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[photopress:grasshopper.jpg,thumb,alignright]Gordon Stephenson of RPA asked me the other day for blog setup advice. Although I consider myself good friends with the master of real estate blogging, I am a blogging grasshopper compared to many folks. You see, I have never set up a blog before. Sure, I’m a contributor on RCG, I comment on popular real estate blogs, and I even write Virtual Earth based IDX/MLS systems (w/ geocoded RSS feeds) for fun and profit. However, I’m sure Dustin sets up more blogs before 10 AM in a typical day, than I do in a year. Hence, the reason for my post. Besides, as another real estate blogging master has pointed out to me, blogging about blogging is always a good topic.

Anyway, I essentially told Gordon the following…

  1. I’d pick up a copy of the Realty Blogging book and read it. It’s probably out of date, (like most technology related books are) but I suspect it’s as good a starting point as any.
  2. I’d recommend finding a good shared hosting company that sets up & hosts WordPress or Typepad blogs.
  3. Most importantly, I’d ask other bloggers what they think!

I feel that’s good advice, however my clients deserve superior advice, and I don’t feel qualified to give it. Besides, Master Dustin took his pebbles when he left Seattle. 😉

Anyway, I really don’t want to host their blog. Besides, Zillow hosts their blog on Typepad, Move hosts their WordPress blog with Inmotion Hosting, and ShackPrices hosts their WordPress blog with Dreamhost, so I know I’m not alone in my thinking that they are better off out-sourcing to a shared hosting company that does blogs. So I have the following questions for the blogging masters.

Real Estate Blogging Questions

  1. What value / features do Real Estate targeted blogging platforms (Blogging Systems, Ubertor, etc) provide over general purpose alternatives (WordPress, Typepad, Community Server, dasBlog, subText)?
  2. ActiveRain or Real Town Blogs – To join or not to join, that’s my question…
  3. Are free blogging platforms, such as Blogger or Live Spaces, considered the blogging equivalent of using aol.com or hotmail.com for your e-mail?

General Blogging Questions

  1. What blogging platforms do you like or dislike and why? I know most of the masters recommend WordPress, so I’m more interested in hearing from folks who use something else and are happy with it.
  2. What company would you recommend or avoid for blog hosting? There’s a million of them out there, everybody uses somebody different.
  3. Do these companies provide tools that make it easy to setup? What about analytics, back-up, comment spam blocking, and everything else you want to do?
  4. Any good books or blog posts you’d recommend?

Geek Blogging Questions

  1. If I were crazy enough to host my own blog, what’s the best blog platform if you want to host on IIS/SQL Server/Windows?
  2. What blog platforms or plug-ins do you recommend for code syntax highlighting?
  3. Is there a way to get WordPress to not mangle, HTML/Javascript in a blog post?

Thanks for your help,

Your humble grasshopper