Last week, Inman member Stefan Swanepoel held the opening ceremonies for the first Real Estate Olympics in the Inman Community.  This week, the nominations are in, and the medals are set to be given for, "Real Estate Pacesetter 2008."  There are 8 finalists in the medal round, and your votes are needed to determine the winner.  Here are the finalists:

1) Obeo

2) Roost

3) Condo Domain

4) Agent Sheild

5) Goomzee

6) eShowings

7) Bug Realty

8) Beat You There

All you have to do is go to the Real Estate Olympics post in the Community section, and vote for your choices for the gold, silver, and bronze medals.  The medalists will be announced after the voting closes on Friday.  Show your support for these industry pacesetters, and go vote!

(Photo Credit:  MICHAEL KAPPELER/AFP/Getty Images)

One of the great things about the members of the Inman Community is that they are very creative folks.  They are always offering great insight and input, and coming up with all sorts of creative ideas.  The latest of which has come from Stefan Swanepoel.  

Stefan has started a very interesting thread in the Real Estate Trends group that coincides with the XXIX Olympiad.  He has proposed a Real Estate Olympics in order to determine the "Real Estate Pacesetter 2008."  According to the post, here is how it works:  

"This week, till Friday 6PM Pacific, the Trends Community Blog will accept nominations of Companies that you consider to be one of the industry premier Pacesetters in our industry. Companies that are creating and leading our industry towards change.

Then over the coming weekend I will select among all the nominations the Top 8 finalists that will be posted next Monday the 18th. Next week all members of the Inman Trends Community will each have one vote to help determine which three companies are our medal winners for the title: Real Estate Pacesetter 2008."

So there you have it.  The first Real Estate Olympics are being held right here at Inman.com.  Now is your chance to nominate the companies that you think are leading the industry.  Head on over to the group in the Community section, and make your nominations.  There are already some coming in, so don't miss out.  Then, check back next week so you can vote.

The new Inman.com got a little bit of a facelift over the weekend; fixing bugs, adding some new features and tweaking others. We've spent a lot of time over the last few months listening to your feedback and have tried hard to incorporate as many of the suggestions as we could, in order to make your daily visits more enjoyable.

Here's just some of the things we included in this release:

New Home page - We designed the revamped home page with one thing in mind... creating a single destination where you can quickly scan all the activity on Inman.com. The home page now brings you all the news stories, videos, blog posts and opinion articles all into one central location. A quick glance over the page should be all you need to get up to speed and then point you in the right direction to read/watch the rest of the news.

New Navigation - We've condensed our top navigation bar to eliminate redundant entries and focus on the key elements of Inman.com. Links that disappeared (News, Blog, Opinion, etc.) can now be accessed from the home page through the View More... links in their respective sections. 

Special Reports - Premium Members of Inman.com now have much easier access to our award-winning industry special reports - right from the home page. Log in to your Member account and you'll find the links right there waiting for you. These premium PDF downloads go deep into specific topic areas and are beautifully formatted and ready for you to print.

Columnists - Our columnists write fantastic, engaging content - so it stands to reason they should have a unique spot on our home page. So we built a new view to dynamically pull the most recent articles from our Columnists. So now, if you're looking for Marc Davison's latest piece or Lou Barnes' latest column, for example - just head to the home page and you'll find them right there. 

Video - We've built out a brand new video section on Inman.com that includes our popular InmanTV video shorts and that now, most excitingly, includes all of the videos from our past Real Estate Connect events. Only Premium Members have access to Connect videos though, so upgrade today and start watching!

Store - Many people have been asking us how they can buy our consumer news Columnists' special reports. So we built a whole new storefront that pulls together these reports for one-click purchase. We also built a view on the home page that highlights the most recent report. Stop on by the store and see what we have to offer... we plan on offering other real-estate related items there shortly.

The rest of the site has not been sitting static either. Our Community section is alive and growing and new areas like our Real Estate Job Search page are becoming increasingly popular. If you haven't visited either recently I'd encourage you to check out those as well.

Let me know what you think of the new Inman.com. Email me your thoughts at joel@inman.com.

Thanks!

I know that a lot of you maintain a presence on a lot of different social media sites. You probably can't fit links to all of your profiles in your email signature, or easily on your blog or website. That's where retaggr comes in.

Retaggr is a site that allows you to enter the information for all of your online profiles in one place. The best part is that retaggr uses the information you input to generate an "interactive Web 2.0 social and business card." You can then embed the card on your blog, website, or email, and then when people view it, they can click on the icons and be taken instantly to the site of their choice, where they will land on your profile.

Ok, but here is the BEST part. If you have an Inman.com profile (you do have one, don't you?), you can enter the information into retaggr for inclusion on your profile card. How cool is that?

Here is how it works:

Go to retaggr and sign up for an account.

Click on the "customise profile card" tab, and then start entering in your personal and business information (you can include a photo, too).

Be sure to visit "websites you use." This is where you enter all of the information for the sites on which you maintain a profile.

Included in the list of sites is a classification for "real estate." The list will look like this:

 In the box for Inman.com, you will need to enter your Inman username. This is where I had some difficulty. In order to find out exactly how to enter the information, go to http://www.inman.com/community/members and do a search for yourself. When you click on the link, the URL of your profile will be revealed. It will look something like this: http://www.inman.com/community/members/daniel-rothamel-inman-community-manager

You just want to enter everything after the "members/" classification into the Inman box on retaggr. I had to enter "daniel-rothamel-inman-community-manager" Sounds funny, but that is the way it works.

Once you have put in all of the information, you can save it, and take a look at your profile card. It will look something like this:

There are then instructions for embedding the card on your website, blog, or even including it in your email signature. The whole card wouldn't fit in the sidebar of my blog, so I opted to embed the retaggr badge, which looks like this:

When people click on it, my profile card comes up, and people can connect to me through there.

Overall, retaggr is a pretty cool service. It certainly makes it easier to point people to one place that shows all of your social networking participation. And now, it makes it easier to show people that you are one of the dedicated real estate industry professionals that participates in the Inman Community.

Couldn't make it out to San Francisco last week? Missed any of the sessions because you were caught up in meetings?

I'm pretty excited to announce you can now watch videos of Real Estate Connect sessions online.

We've built a brand new video section on Inman.com where you can access all the Connect videos from Connect SF2008 and past events. Just click on the 'Video' tab in navigation and it'll bring you right there. Not so fast though...

Real Estate Connect videos are only available to Premium Members on Inman.com. If you hold a current Premium Membership, please make sure you are logged in to your account.

Not a Premium Member? Think about joining today to gain instant access to our library of Real Estate Connect Videos.

For your viewing pleasure: "The Porter," a winner of The Chase Legacy of Homeownership Film Challenge, a competition for aspiring filmmakers.

According to a synopsis of the film, by Vincent Singleton, it's a "character study examining a family's three generational struggle to become homeowners. A Pullman Porter is faced with eviction from the company property that his family calls home. He passes on the importance of home ownership to his son, who grows and tries to buy his own home. However, Chicago in the 1970's has segregating communities down to a science and the son is forced to once again pass on the dream. Finally, in the present, the grandson of the Porter is able to purchase a home, though the significance of the moment is lost on him."

In a press release, Chase said it worked with HBO and Blackfilm.com "to discover emerging filmmakers in Atlanta, Chicago, Houston and New York to share their vision of legacy preservation through homeownership within the African-American community."

Chase and parent company JPMorgan Chase & Co. are among 17 major lenders that were sued last year by the NAACP, which claimed in a press release publicizing demonstrations this month that "African American borrowers were given loans with higher interest rates and other poor terms solely because of their race."

The NAACP cited data collected under the authority of the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act that shows blacks and Hispanics are more likely to take out higher cost loans than whites. There's some debate whether minorities are targeted for such loans or if other criteria lenders use in making underwriting decisions -- such as credit scores, loan-to-value and debt-to-income ratios -- are also factors (see stories).

Participate in an Inman News Poll.

Participate in a new Inman News Poll: "What are the chances that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac must tap into their new, temporary line of credit to the government?"

An earlier poll, "Which type of real estate transaction is most difficult to close in your market area these days?" found that short sales are typically the toughest real transactions to close.

The results to date:

48% Short sale
19% REO (real estate owned or bank-owned properties)
13% Luxury home sale
10% New home sale
10% Entry-level resale home sale

I finally made it home and had some time to process at least some of the information that I learned at Inman Connect San Francisco 2008.  Needless to say, there was a lot of it.  Between the actual panel discussions, and all of the conversations that I had with folks, my brain and my notebook were filled with issues that I want to think about in greater depth.

The great thing is that if you are feeling the same way, the Inman Community is the perfect place to do it.  Bill Wendel was at Connect SF '08, and he did an incredible job of live-blogging his way through the sessions and the conference.  He shared his thoughts and analysis as group topics in the Connect SF '08 group.  Take a look at some of the topics he brought up, and add to the discussion that is going on there.  

One of the great things about Connect is that it does raise a lot of very important issues in the real estate industry.  One of the great things about the Inman Community is that it provides the perfect place to continue that discussion with the professionals on the ground who have first-hand experience with all of these issues. 

Come see what issues were the hot topics at Connect SF '08, and feel free to add your own!

Bloggers Connect 2008

Bloggers Connect kicked off yesterday to a full house at the Palace Hotel. Over 200 people crowded in to the Gold Ballroom to hear how blogging has evolved as a marketing tool for brokers, lenders, vendors and agents. 

The conversation was spirited at times, but tempered too. A much different vibe than last year at Connect, when the room could barely contain its enthusiasm for this new medium.

I think what I felt is that many people are now taking a much harder look at the business return of blogging. The novelty has worn off - and the question is can this tool work for me in my business and deliver me real leads, real clients, real customers?

I think the general consensus was yes. With caveats.

A few observations I took away...

Photos. Many of the panelists felt that was the easiest way to quickly get content and that consumers/readers respond very positively to that type of content. So has the written word worn off? Are we going to see the rise of the Realtor photoblog instead? 

Use a social media marketing strategy to leave a trail of comments around the web and through social networks. David Gibbons outlined this strategy by explaining how you can reach a much wider audience than just waiting for people to come to your blog. The key is finding the right communities online to reach out to - so find your niche and go talk to them.

The legal concerns around blogging merited a whole discussion unto itself. The rule of thumb seemed to be; when writing on your real estate blog, speak in generalities. Don't name names. And as Todd Carpenter put it "You're not John Stossel..." - leave the investigative journalism to the pros. If you find something awry - bring in the local media, your job is to sell homes.

Finally, move beyond writing your blog for other Realtors. Get away from your computer. Get outside and engage real people. The best way to build an audience for your real estate blog is out in the real world not online. Jeff Turner coined the term YEO (You Engaging Others) to encompass this idea. It's time real estate bloggers move beyond writing for the search engines and start writing for people.

So what else did you learn?

The first day of Connect SF '08 was jammed full with action and information.  From the opening of the workshops and Bloggers Connect, to the final words of general session, much was shared, even more was learned, and relationships were fostered.  A lot of people who are here might wish that they could be multiple places at the same time, and those of you who are not here might wish that you were.  Either way, we can help.

Inman Member Bill Wendel did an incredible and extensive job live-blogging his way through the first day of Connect SF '08.  He shared his notes from the sessions he attended, along with many of the highlights, in the Connect SF '08 Group in the Community section of Inman.com.  If you go there right now and join the group, you can participate in the discussion around many of the topics being discussed right now at Connect.  It is something that you won't want to miss, and it is a place where you can not only get caught up on sessions that you couldn't attend, but also extend the learning and sharing that you might have already done.  Bill will be doing more of the same throughout the rest of Connect, so check back frequently for more updates.  

The Connect SF '08 Group is also where you can find the live Twitterstream of all the Twitter folks who are attending Connect.  I encourage you to not only read the current stream, but click the "more" button so that you can actually go back and view the posts from throughout the day.  There, you will find all kinds of tremendous insights from the folks who were at Connect and were sharing their thoughts as the events were happening.  

The fun, excitement, sharing and learning that has taken place through the first day of Connect SF '08 has been great, and it is sure to get even better for the rest of the event.  Inman.com and the Inman Community is the place to go if you want to keep up with everything and extend your experience even further.