New Jersey Realtors dive into cyberspace
Group buys virtual land, offers podcasts
By Inman News, Wednesday, July 2, 2008.Bookmarking Sites
The New Jersey Association of Realtors is diving deeper into cyberspace, purchasing virtual real estate in the online world of Second Life, building profiles on networking sites LinkedIn and Facebook, and rolling out audio podcasts for members.
The association announced that it has opened a virtual office in Second Life at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Lamprey/182/37/21. Second Life is a three-dimensional, interactive online world. Other real estate entities, including Coldwell Banker and the California Association of Realtors, are also among the "inhabitants" of Second Life.
NJAR created a profile on Facebook that allows visitors to view pictures and read about events, according to the announcement.
The association also announced that it has created automated electronic feeds for its weekly association newsletter and updates at its Web site. "The RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds make it possible for people to keep up with the NJAR Web site in an automated manner that can be directed into special programs or filtered displays on their computers." Members of the public can subscribe to NJAR's public announcements at NJAR.com/rss.php.
"More and more Realtors and consumers are drawn to the Internet and the latest technological gadgets to research, market, buy and sell real estate," added Grasso. "NJAR's use of these new tools will ensure that we are in lock-step with the ever-changing needs of our membership and the public."
The podcasts can be downloaded by members as .mp3 files. An audio newsletter is now available to members and "in the coming months more programming will be made available to consumers," the association announced. The association has an estimated 53,000 members.
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Submitted by Jay Thompson on July 2, 2008 - 3:19pm.
It will be interesting to see how many NJAR members subscribe to the RSS feeds. Our association can't even get people to subscribe via email, much less RSS.
I suspect saying something like, "The RSS feeds make it possible for people to keep up with the NJAR Web site in an automated manner that can be directed into special programs or filtered displays on their computers" will frighten the less technically astute into thinking this is something difficult or takes tech skills to implement.
If I were the NJAR, and clearly I'm not, I would have embedded the CommonCraft "RSS Feeds in Plain English" video. It's far less scary to those not-so-technically inclined.
And here I thought Second Life was so 2007.... ;)
Jay Thompson
Broker / Owner
Thompson's Realty
Blog: www.PhoenixRealEstateGuy.com
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Submitted by Deborah Madey on July 4, 2008 - 9:09pm.
Thanks, Jay! I will include the CommonCraft link in this week's agent memo. BTW, yes, I did subscribe to NJAR's RSS feed.
Submitted by Corey Leong on July 10, 2008 - 5:42pm.
This is incorrect, "Second Life is a three-dimensional, interactive online world."
Second life is 3-D virtual world created by its Residents.
http://secondlife.com/whatis/
In addition, you forgot the Real Estate Metaverse Association, Remeta Association, is also located in SL and other virtual worlds such as Kaneva, There, and Whyville.
Thanks,
Corey Leong
Founder and President
Remeta Association
Second Life Community Convention 2008 Real Estate Committee Chair