Today, Active Rain unveils the New and totally revamped Localism, "The World's Most Complete Neighborpedia," with new content, features and design!

The New Localism

ActiveRain, real estate's leading online community, has released a dramatically updated version of its Localism neighborhood portal, where local residents, potential residents, and area merchants connect. Billed as the "World's Most Complete Neighborpedia," Localism already contains over 200,000 articles and photos.  The site opened up to contributions from ActiveRain members today and will be accepting contributions from other local merchants and consumers beginning in August.

"No one has captured the essence and flavor of local communities online on a large scale," said Jonathan Washburn, CEO of Active Rain. "All the data points, pie charts, graphs and widgets in the world can't tell the complete story of a place. It takes content from the people who live and work there – which we have in abundance – to bring things to life. There are plenty of local review sites out there, but we're going beyond that to capture the full range of things that make communities unique."

The site, which covers the entire United States, allows users to go well beyond the typical city or ZIP code level to explore specific niche communities. Moreover, Localism manages to the avoid the proverbial "chicken and egg" dilemma that many who have attempted to enter this space have faced, due to its vast store of existing content and already impressive search engine performance, which helped deliver over 280,000 visits in June.

Key Attributes

Some of the key attributes to Localism include:

"Top Neighbors". The top content contributors for each neighborhood are ranked and displayed as the "Top Neighbors" for their community.

Unique photographs. Localism features over 100,000 photos of communities that cannot be found on any other site.

Human editorial involvement. ActiveRain editors will manually review every single article to ensure that they add value to their intended community and audience.

Community sponsorships. Real estate professionals and other business people may purchase sponsorships of one or more communities within Localism for a small monthly fee.

"Our growing Active Rain community of over 95,000 real estate professionals knows America's communities down to the last speed bump and corner store," said ActiveRain community evangelist Bob Stewart. "Their collective knowledge provides us with a tremendous jump start in providing relevant, useful information and will be built upon by the contributions of consumers and merchants nationwide."

"Localism converges art and function, consumer and professional, neighbor and seeker," concludes Washburn. "This space has seen its share of failures and we've taken those to heart in creating a destination that includes all the key elements needed for true online community."

About ActiveRain

Active Rain is a real estate technology company based in the Pacific Northwest founded in 2003. The company launched its online community for real estate professionals in June of 2006 and quickly established it as the leading real estate social network. The community currently has over 95,000 members. The company released Localism in beta in 2007. The company, which has just nine employees, secured $2.75 million in funding in December of 2007.

If you've just crawled out from underneath a rock, or spent the last 6 weeks living in a cave, then you probably aren't aware of the current ActiveRain Event of the Year - the Makeover2Takeover Team Competition!

Here's a quick refresher course if you haven't been following our Weekly Challenges:

Whether your Real Estate career has just begun, or is in dire needed a complete overhaul, here's your chance!

Think "Top Chef," less the cooking.

                           Or "Extreme Home Make-Over," but without Ty and his annoying megaphone.
                                           The Biggest Loser, only you're a Winner!

From the same folks that brought you 'Project Blogger" comes the latest reality 'realty' event....

The Contest is simple: We selected 16 'Makeover' Teams, each comprised of one (1) seasoned real estate veteran (Mentor), and their chosen apprentice. Over the course of this 8 week adventure (leading up to the 2008 SF Inman Connect), the Mentor/Apprentices (M2T Teams) are facing a series of weekly challenges, aimed specifically at developing the apprentice's image/abilities as a top performing real estate agent.

The mentors and apprentices are chronicling their experiences on the official 'MakeoverToTakeover' blog.

Competition Began:   Friday, May 16th    

Competition Ends: The 3rd week of July. The Winning Team will be announced at Inman's SF Blogger's Connect 2008

 
Weekly Challenges:  Each week the Teams have been facing difficult elimination challenges designed to develop and hone the Apprentice's professional skills, and to test the Mentor's ability to teach/guide the Apprentice.

ActiveRain Members can view the Weekly Challenge Results on the official 'Makerover2Takeover' blog.

Scoring: The last three teams standing will be invited to join us at Inman Connect in San Francisco where the winning team will be announced. In addition to the final challenge, the overall body of work will also be evaluated to determine the winning team.

Judging Criteria: Each week, when that weeks challenge is announced, judging criteria will be spelled out. Our panel of distinguished Judges will score each Team based on that criteria.

Prizes:  Points and prizes are awarded to the first place team for each Weekly challenge. The grand prize will be a Web2.0 Marketing package worth many 1000's of dollars. You can look forward to prizes from the who's who of online real estate.

At the end of 5 weeks of competitive elimination challenges, only 8 Teams remain:

The Huntsville Duo - Kimberly Grant & Elizabeth Ramsey Cooper

Team Tex/LA - Liz Carter & Josh Lazaro

The KW Dynamic Divas - Darleen McCullen & Penny Robinson

The DREAMWEAVERS - Debra Brooks & Melissa Grant

Team Manna - Desiree Daniels & Brian Block

The SF Bay Area Duo - Hank Perry & Vickie Nagy

The Next Evolution - Midori Miller & Jeannete Neerpat

Caulk Wood, Bonding for Success - Missy Caulk & Kim Wood

Tomorrow morning when you wake up, our site will probably have a bunch of bugs.

Now that we have the bad news out of the way.............how about some great news! The site should be twice as fast because we are going to have twice as much computing power behind it. Tonight, we will be transitioning the site to all new, state-of-the-art servers. This will be the final step of a six month process where we have invested time and resources to bring stability and speed to ActiveRain.

This doesn't mean we are going to stop here because ActiveRain is quickly growing. We will no doubt start our next round of performance enhancements soon as it's a never ending cycle for a rapidly growing site.

The Details:

ActiveRain will be taken offline tonight at Midnight Pacific Standard Time and will be down for at least five hours. This is a MAJOR undertaking and some components are very difficult to test in a staging environment so we do expect a fair amount of bugs.

As you encounter bugs tomorrow, please use the 'Contact ActiveRain' link at the bottom of any page to report the issue. The more thorough you are in reporting the bug, the more quickly we can remedy the situation. In reporting your issue, please include what browser type and version you are using.

We want to apologize in advance for the inconvenience this may cause you.

Godspeed,

SS ActiveRain

Let the Games Begin!

Today marks the official start of our 'Makeover2Takeover' Team Contest Event.

To follow all the weekly 'Happenings,' be sure to the join the 'Makeover2Takeover Group.

The field of 16 Teams, comprised of both seasoned Real Estate veterans (Mentors) and their eager Apprentices, will face weekly elimination challenges leading up to the 2008 Inman SF Connect, where only 3 Teams will remain, and the Last Team standing will be crowned the Winner!

It's only been a few days since the list of official Teams were made public, but the fun-spirited boasting and competitive 'taunting' has already begun in earnest. No doubt, the competition promises to be extremely intense and highly entertaining! Top Chef, pack your Knives, because here comes the "Makeover2Takeover" Teams!

~ o ~ o ~ o ~ o ~ o ~

WEEK ONE CHALLENGE

One of the most basic and fundamental elements/tools of a highly successful real estate professional is a database. A well organized and consistently updated database serves to focus our energies, determine our daily tasks, and provide measurable results. Some refer to their database as the SOI (Sphere of Influence), but most see their database as incorporating much, much, more. A good database can make or break your business. It stops you from always being re-active, and instead, makes you pro-active.

It's up to each individual Team to determine how they will organize, categorize, and implement their database. A big part of this competition is for the Mentors/Apprentices to think outside the proverbial box, be resourceful, and creative. We will allow the Teams to determine the full depth and scope of their database.

One good piece of advice in creating your database is to "Begin with the End in Mind." Where will this database, and its implementation take you. Where will you ultimately arrive? What will your life/business look like? And remember, keep your own unique market in mind as you create/organize/implement your database. Who are you reaching now, who do you want to target for the future? How will you do this? You have past and current clients. How do you keep track of them? How do you build them into a referral network?

THE WEEK ONE CHALLENGE WILL REQUIRE OUR TEAMS TO SUCCESSFULLY ACCOMPLISH THE FOLLOWING:

1. Identify/select a database program/software/platform along with a brief explanation why it was selected.

2. Write a typed 2-page thesis (double-spaced) on the value (why) of an agent database and how you plan to utilize it. Be sure to include any research references.

3. Provide an outline of the various fields/channels/categories/events/goals/tasks/that your database will contain. What kind of contacts will you input? What specific information about each contact will you include?

4. Submit a single page copy of one of your database entries.

All assignments/documentation shall be scanned & converted to .pdf file format, and e-mailed to rich@activerain.com

Any problems, issues, or questions, please contact Rich by e-mail or phone at 360.440.4758.

(Food for Thought: Do you Farm? Do you market to a very narrow, specialize niche market? How do you 'touch' them regularly?)

(Word to the Wise: Teams are encouraged to continue working on their databases throughout the competition)

(Stay Out of Jail:  Just a reminder, all work and effort must be performed completely by the respective Team members only. Also remember, the fruit of your labor and your positive attitudes will serve as a shining inspiration to those who would follow in your footsteps!)

CLARIFICATION:  The Teams will only turn in the required assignments/documentation for the Apprentice ONLY. The Weekly Challenges, while performed by both Mentors & Apprentices collectively, only need to be submitted as they apply to the Apprentice.

The Week One Challenge is due by 3PM (PST) Sunday May 25th. The Teams that will move onto the next Round, as well as the Team who has been eliminated, will be announced at Noon, Monday May 26th (PST) by vLog on the AR Official Blog.

~ Best of Luck to all the Teams! ~

Okay, so here's the news that you all have been patiently waiting for - the announcement of which Teams have made the cut to compete in the upcoming 'Makeover2Takeover' Contest.

We had some great responses to this event, making the decision of narrowing the field to 16 teams a very challenging task. But we feel confident that these Teams represent the best selections based on the applications that were received.

Drum roll, please!..........

The Teams chosen to participate in ActiveRain's 2008 "Makeove2Takeover" Competition are as follows:

Mentor: Maureen Francis of SKBK Sotheby's International Realty, Wayne County, MI

Apprentice: Karen Moorhead of Keller Williams Realty, Ann Arbor, MI

Mentor: Tina Merritt of Long & Foster Oceanfront, Virginia Beach, VA

Apprentice: Myra Spano of Long & Foster Oceanfront, Virginia Beach, VA

Mentor: Kimberly Grant of Exit Leon Crawford Realty, Huntsvilee, AL

Apprentice: Elizabeth Ramsey Cooper of RE/MAX Huntsville/Madison, AL

Mentor: Darleen McCullen of Keller Williams North Raleigh, NC

Apprentice: Penny Robinson of Keller Williams North Raleigh, NC

Mentor: Debra Brooks of Brooks Prime Properties, Huntsville, TX

Apprentice: Melissa Grant of Third Tennessee Realty, Crossville, TN

Mentor: Diane Aurit of RE/MAX at the Lake, Mooresville, NC

Apprentice: Heather Hosegood of RE/MAX at the Lake, Mooresville, NC

Mentor: Catarina Bannier of Evers & Company, Washington, D.C.

Apprentice: Patricia Kennedy of Evers & Company, Washington, D.C.

Mentor: Liz Carter of Liz Carter & Team Realty, Katy, TX

Apprentice: Josh Lazaro of Prudential Gardner Realtors, Metairie, LA

Mentor: Connie Harvey of Prudential Woodmont, Nashville, TN

Apprentice: Emily Lowe of Prudential Woodmont, Nashville, TN

Mentor: Dawn Workman of DPR Realty, Ahwatukee, AZ

Apprentice: Chelsea Miller of DPR Realty, Ahwatukee, AZ

Mentor: Midori Miller of Century 21 Sundance, Daytona Beach, FL

Apprentice: Jeannete Neerpat of London Realty Corp., Coral Springs, FL

Mentor: Hank Perry of Empire Realty Associates, Danville, CA

Apprentice: Vickie Nagy of Empire Realty Associates, Danville, CA

Mentor: Jessica Horton of Brio Realty, Bellevue, WA

Apprentice: Ann Casey of Brio Realty, Bothell, WA

Mentor: Missy Caulk of Keller Williams, Ann Arbor, MI

Apprentice: Kim Wood of RE/MAX Main Line, West Chester, PA

Mentor: Desiree Daniels of RE/MAX Tri-County, Robbinsville, NJ

Apprentice: Brian Block of RE/MAX Allegiance, Alexandria, VA

Mentor: Margaret Woda of RE/MAX Vision, Crofton, MD

Apprentice: Karen Luke of Keller Williams, Stockbridge, GA

The first Team challenge will be announced shortly. Best of Luck to all the Teams!

UPDATE:  There was an oversight in our application review. One of the Team entries was misplaced during the selection process. Based upon the merits of their application, they would have easily made the cut. So, rather than drop one of the Teams, out of fairness, we are going to increase the field to 16 Teams. We have added them to our list.

 Whether your Real Estate career has just begun,

or is in dire needed a complete overhaul,

here's your chance!

Think "Top Chef," less the cooking.

                           Or "Extreme Home Make-Over," but without Ty and his annoying megaphone.
                                           The Biggest Loser, only you're a Winner!

From the same folks that brought you 'Project Blogger" comes the latest reality 'realty' event....

The Contest is simple: We will be selecting up to 15 'Makeover' Teams, comprised of one (1) seasoned real estate veteran (Mentor), and their chosen apprentice. Over the course of the next 8 weeks (leading up to the 2008 SF Inman Connect), the Mentor/Apprentices will face a series of weekly challenges, aimed specifically at developing the apprentice's image/abilities as a top performing real estate agent.

The mentors and apprentices will be chronicling their experiences on the 'MakeoverToTakeover' ActiveRain blog.

Each of the selected teams will receive a free Flip Video Camera to help document/share their progress.

 M2T Team Submissions Deadline:   Monday, May 12th. MakeOver Teams shall submit an application with the following information:

• Names of both Mentor and Apprentice.
• A short description of the why the apprentice feels their business needs to be made over.
• Send email entries to Rich Jacobson (his first name @ activerain.com)

Competition Begins:   Friday, May 16th    

Competition Ends: July 18th. The Winning Team will be announced at Inman's SF Blogger's Connect 2008

 
Judging: Each week the contestants will be given challenges for that week. Our panel of judges will review the contestants entries for each competition and in true 'reality' show fashion, teams will be eliminated each week.

Scoring: The last three teams standing will be invited to join us at Inman Connect in San Francisco where the winning team will be announced. In addition to the final challenge, the overall body of work will be evaluated to determine the winning team. So if your team doesn't fair well one week, but you avoid being eliminated, you have the ability to bounce back and still make a strong showing toward the final announcement. 

Judging Criteria: Each week, when that weeks challenge is announced, judging criteria for that particular challenge will be spelled out. The overall judging criteria will look at the how far the makeover of the Apprentice has come and how their participation has changed the face of their business. We will talk more about the criteria as the contest unfolds.

Prizes: We will award small weekly prizes to the first place team for each challenge. The grand prize will be a Web2.0 Marketing package worth many 1000's of dollars. You can look forward to prizes from the who's who of online real estate. 

EDITED: The nature of some of the weekly challenges will make it such that it may be an advantage to have the Mentor and the apprentice in the same geographical area. Depending on the number of applicants we get, we may give preference to teams where the Mentor and Apprentice are in close geographic proximity. Having a team that is not in the same geographical area will not completely disqualify you, but it may make the process more challenging. However, some of the veteran members of our community are extremely gifted, technology-wise, and could probably mentor from any location! 

* * * * * * * * * * * *

UPDATE:   We are extending the deadline for Team Submissions until Midnight (PST) Wednesday, May 14th. We have had a good turnout of applications so far, but in talking with a number of our members, we felt additional time was needed to allow some further entries. The competing Teams will be announced later in the week. If anyone is looking for a Mentor or an Apprentice, you can pair up at the Makeover2Takeover Group. Best of Luck!

After working nearly an all night shift last night releasing a new upgrade for ActiveRain, our development team awoke this morning to a few system bugs and more than a few bewildered Rainers. Fortunately the development team persevered through the day and successfully tracked down the causes of all of the bugs and have programmed the fixes. However, to "debug", we've got to take the site down for a couple minutes to upload the remedies to the main servers. To minimize as much lost work as possible we decided to wait until midnight PST to take ActiveRain down and upload the fixes.

Recap: ActiveRain will go offline at midnight. All unsaved work (including blog posts, comments, etc.) will be lost.  When ActiveRain comes back online - bugs will be fixed and harmony restored... hopefully.

                                                                                                                                ~jon

We did a release to the site early this morning and it looks like there are a few bugs. (I'm a get the bad out of the way first kind of person) We have had people report that they can not upload pictures......the spell check still isn't working (this was suppose to be fixed in the release), one person lost the icon bar on their blog post page and in their comments.

We are aware of these issues. If you have seen other issues, can you let us know. Please include what browser you are using along with the version of that browser. Thank you and sorry for the inconvenience. We hope to have this addresses shortly.

The good news is, we made some serious improvements to the database and you should be able to find these new bugs with much greater speed :-)

Seriously, you should see better site performance and it will only get better over the next few weeks. We have a really solid programming team in place and we'll introduce you to the new guys once they get settled in a little :-) 

EDITED:

The picture upload issue can be resolved if you clear your cache

We will taking the site down in the early morning of Friday May 9th from 1am-4am Pacific Time. (4am-7am on the East Coast). The site will be down as we put a build up with some significant performance enhancements.

I could go into the details, but I can't decipher what the Heck Diego and Matt are talking about........so I probably wouldn't get it right anyway. What I do know is that many of the issues around site performance are being addressed in this release so you should see increased performance when the site comes back online Friday morning at 4am Pacific Time.

If you are working on anything at the time the site goes down, your work will be lost........so please help us spread the word to those late night/early morning ActiveRainers you know to frequent the site at these late/early hours.

Thank you everyone!