I’ll have a more objective stance on this once the excitement wears off.

Oh yes, the pic of the day:

When I caught wind of the fact that Facebook was going to start offering vanity URLs, I knew that my Friday night was going to be spent right in front of my computer. As soon as the clock struck midnight, I quickly grabbed the name I wanted.

Earlier today, at a manager’s meeting for my company, I told everyone about this event. Afterward, I was innundated with the same question: Why is this important??

As some of you may or may not know, I have developed a web-nemesis of sorts. He shares my name, and when you google it, HIS Twitter account shows up above a couple of my results. Why? Because the URL to find him on Twitter is twitter.com/zaneburnett. So, to me, it was not a question of whether or not I was going to get this, but rather a question of when. In case you’re wondering, it was Saturday, 13 June 2009 at 12:01:01. I was one of an estimated 500,000 users who grabbed their vanity URL within the first 15 minutes.

For Realtors, you now have the opportunity to tell your clients to look you up on Facebook in a very simple manner… provided someone else didn’t get your name first. More importantly, if the URL you chose matches your first and last name, it’s almost a given that you will now gain one more spot on the first page of Google.

Many people are just now learning about Twitter, so it comes as no surprise that there are a relative few who truly understand it. Especially in the Real Estate community, people are asking what the point of it all is. They want to know: Should I be on Twitter? Can I make money using Twitter? Does anyone care if I Tweet?

The answer to all of these questions is a very resounding “Yes”.

[I will] explain why.

On the map of Social Media Land, Twitter falls under the “microblogging” category. At its core, it’s very simple: say something in 140 characters or less, publish it, and you’re done!

Unfortunately, many people are at a loss when it comes to finding the utility in such a program. Some have said to me, “I got on Twitter, but now all I see is how my niece is eating a hamburger for dinner, how she’ s about to brush her teeth, how she’s about to shower, and how she’s about to go to sleep… I DON’T GET IT!!”

What I have to say is this: forget about your niece. The confusion over her constant tweets is worth enduring if you can, because Twitter offers yet another invaluable tool in the realm of Passive Marketing.

Twitter allows you to give constant updates to a group of people who have elected to “Follow” you, that is, they think what you have to say is worth hearing. Use that opportunity to establish yourself as an expert not only within the industry, but within your local marketplace as well. Do you think you know more about Downtown Brooklyn than the average Joe? Prove it! Follow this plan to effectively utilize Twitter for your Real Estate career:

1. It’s important not to be obnoxious with your Tweets, as people will generally come to disregard them. Think about it; have you ever met someone who always says they’re working on “something big”, but you’ve yet to see what it is? Constant Tweets follow that same mode of thought. Provide valuable insight to the Real Estate market via thoughts, observations, and links.

2. Start following people. You’ll never reach a large audience to influence if you’re not following anyone. Sometimes, people will follow you just because you’re following them. Also, there are plenty of national experts and organizations that use Twitter- this is an opportunity to hear what they have to say. Remember, your goal is to gather a large following. There are several ways to do this, all of which I’ll discuss in an upcoming article.

3. Tweet your open houses. Do this only after you’ve followed the first two steps! If you come out of the gate with a deluge of listing information, people are going to think you’re just another Realtor trying to advertise their listings. Remember: Twitter is effective in it’s ability to passively market. Involve yourself with the twitter community you belong to, follow people you find interesting, and gain the interest of others. Nobody wants to follow an Agent who does nothing but tweet their listings. After you’ve established a reputation for providing quality information, people will want to hear about your inventory.

**This is a repost of an article I wrote on my company’s blog**

Zane Burnett talks about how to keep your online identity safe

My company is holding an Intro to Social Media class this evening (with yours truly as the instructor). Only 55% of the people who registered for the session are members of Facebook, and 45% indicated that they didn’t belong to any social networks at all. As a matter of fact, some people claimed they were scared to join up on some of these networks because of the amount of info they felt as though they were required to input.

As Fillmore Real Estate tries to empower its agents by allowing them to recognize the vast power of social media, it is important to remember two things: not only is it beneficial to establish your online identity, it is potentially dangerous not to.

For every milestone in technology, there will always be those who seek to exploit the users of that technology who aren’t thoroughly familiar with it. The same can be said for social media. Increasingly, people over the age of 50 are joining the ranks of Facebook’s ever-growing community. Unfortunately, this is the exact demographic that scammers are targeting. I came across an interesting article here. It tells the story of someone who fell victim to “Facebook Identity Theft”. I encourage you to read the article. After doing so, remember these key points to protecting yourself online:

1. Look at the URL of Your Login Page: The most common way for “phishers” to steal your information is by creating fake login screens. These pages look exactly like the Facebook login page your accustomed to, with one key difference. If you look at the address bar in your browser when you login to facebook, you should see something like this:Notice that the domain is “facebook.com”. This is ALL your address bar should say. Sometimes there will be a “/login.php” extension, and that is acceptable. Observe the difference in this URL:
   Notice the difference? If you were to fill out your login info on this page, it would get sent to a person collecting Facebook logins, and not to Facebook. Once you click submit on the phisher’s page, it will redirect you to the actual Facebook login page, where people just assume their connection hiccupped and they login again, thinking nothing of it. Just remember, if it doesn’t begin with www.facebook.com, it isn’t really facebook!
   
2. Use Common Sense: I once received this message from a friend:
   
   It was clear to me at once that her account had been hacked. Why? First and foremost, the subject made absolutely no sense to me. Secondly, it was sent to several different people in a manner that didn’t make much sense.

   You know who your friends are, so if something seems a bit out of place, message them back before you actually click on the link. Ask them if they meant to send it to you… you won’t be hurting anyone’s feelings. If anything, you may be making them aware of the fact that their account was compromised.

3. If you don’t have an account, GET ONE!: As part of my demonstration for a class I once did I, I tried to show the true danger of not having an account. Beforehand, I perused the company website. There was a nice section of all the employees along with their individual picture. I selected my target and checked to see if he was registered with Facebook. After confirming that he wasn’t, I simply took his picture from the website and used it to create a profile on Facebook. I had his name, his picture, some minor info, and that was all I needed…First, I searched everyone else in the company and friend requested them. Then, as I made more friends on Facebook, people started sending me friend requests. Before long, I had a list of about 85 friends, all of whom thought I was someone I wasn’t! Now, what would’ve happened if I sent each and every single one of them the following message: “You won’t believe what happened to me last night! While I was sleeping, a couple of burglars came into my house and took so many things… they took some of my jewelry, some silverware, and they even managed to take my wallet off of the nightstand. I was so terrified, I didn’t know what to do.Listen, I hate to ask you this, and I’m certainly too embarassed to ask you in person, but do you think you could send me some money via Western Union? If not, I completely understand. If so, a hundred dollars should do the trick until I sort all of this craziness out (I’ll definitely pay you back). Either way, let’s just please act as though I never asked you when we see each other in person. It would be way too embarrassing for me.”Certainly, if your friend sent you this message, it would make some sense. If I followed through with sending a message like that, I guarantee you at least one person would have sent money. As a matter of fact, when I informed the class that they weren’t actually friends with the example person I used, they were shocked… imagine if I had sent them the “I need money” message!

The moral of the story is this: in order to protect yourself, you have to be aware, be informed, and be online!!

To say it in practical terms, Facebook Connect is what could be compared to a virtual European Union. Several entities are providing the capability for users to streamline various media outlets and sites via Facebook as a platform.

What does this mean to you? If you’re not familiar with Digg, I suggest you vist their site here. For those already familar, it will place what your friends have dugg into their news feed for you to see.

If your feed is anything like mine, there are tons of news links posted everyday that I have to sort through, deciding what’s worth clicking and what isn’t.  With this new feature, I’ll now be able to see what news pieces are popular amongst my friends, giving at least some indication of my level of desire to actually click through to the new post.

Facebook Connect also partnered with a few other sites, such as tech crunch and joost.

Zane Burnett reviews Google Voice, Part Deux

This segment of the overview, installment 2 of 3, will go over Google Voice’s voicemail capabilities.

The voicemail functions described by Google offer the user with many options, mostly designed to increase the level of ease with which one can access their voice messages.

Voicemail Transcripts
With the transcript functionality enabled, Google utilizes it’s innovative speech-to-text technology to transcribe voicemails that are left for you. Admittedly, the technology isn’t perfect, so Google warns users that they may encounter a few transcription errors every once in a while. Enabling/disabling this feature is simple, as it requires the user to either check or uncheck a box, telling Google what your preference is.

Perhaps even more fascinating is the potential that this type of technology has. While the speech-to-text craze finally seemed to gain a solid foothold at the beginning of 2009, the race now seems to be towards who can perfect it. Currently, Google uses the same technology for this feature as it does for its free directory service, Goog-411. With such a precise technology in place, it could potentially unlock countless possibilities for people who cannot hear by allowing them to see transcribed versions of their voicemails. Conversely, it could also work in the favor of those who cannot see, as the technology is also aimed to render text-to-speech.

Listen to Voicemail
Those of you with an iPhone are very familiar with the ability to see a sorted list of voicemails by name, giving you the capability to quickly scan which ones you want to listen to by simply pressing the “play” button. This enables the user  to quickly access the desired voicemail without having to cycle through prompts on their phone.

Google Voice takes this a step further. In your Google Voice inbox, you will not only see a list similar to that of an iPhone’s, but you will also see the transcribed version of all voicemails beneath each person’s name. You have the option to read the transcription and/or listen to the actual voicemail at will. Furthermore, you can search for a voicemail. For example, if you were looking for the voicemail that your boss left you last week, you could simply enter “boss” on your Google Voice search bar and it would return all saved voicemails that were left by him/her.

Notifications
This feature is fairly self explanatory. Depending on your settings, Google will alert you via SMS and/or email once a voicemail has been left on your Google numbers. The message will include a text rendering of the voicemail itself, along with the ability to play it aloud.

Personalized Greetings

Just another night out with Ivanka and Keira…

Every budding professional is tasked with the excruciating decision of whether or not they should abandon their youthful livelihood and change their obnoxious voice mail greeting from “Shouldn’t you be out partying right now?!?!?! I AM!!! LEAVE A MESSAGE!!!”

…to the more sterile “Hello. You have reached the voicemail of Zane Burnett. I’m currently away from my phone (because I’m professional) so please leave your name, number, and a short message, and I will get back to you as soon as I can.Thanks a lot.”

Thankfully, with Google Voice, you can maintain all aspects of your personality accordingly and without compromise. In the admin panel, users can select custom greetings by individual or group. Meaning, if you want

your boss to hear one voicemail greeting, but would like your mother to hear a more personalized, tender version of why you can’t pick up the phone, it’s quite simple to do. On the same note, you can select custom greetings by group. Using the same example, one can opt to have all contacts listed as “work” hear one voicemail greeting, while contacts listed under “family” hear a completely different one.

Share Voicemail

Lastly, Google Voice gives you the opportunity to share your voicemails with the world.  You can forward the voicemail as an email, you can download the voicemail for storage, or you can embed the voicemail onto your own personal website or blog… creating yet another reason to listen to your best friend at 3:00am and never, never, never dial anyone who isn’t listed as “Taxi” in your phonebook.

Zane Burnett reviews Google Voice

Ok, so a lot of people have been asking me about Google Voice. In it’s never ending quest to eventually rule the world (which is fine by me), Google bought a company known as GrandCentral. Currently, it is in closed beta testing, and not yet avaiable for public use. I am breaking down the overview of Google Voice into three parts. If you would like to watch all of the videos provided by Google, you can simply go to http://www.google.com/voice

The concept behind Google Voice is simple: you have one number, and that is the number you give to everyone you come into contact with. This does NOT take the place of your work, home, or mobile phone. Rather, it gives its users the ability to route calls based on who’s calling. I’ll cover the basics of your Google Number in this first article.

Forwarding Phones
The first step in utilizing Google Voice is to set up your forwarded phones. This is done by settings>phone>Add a new number. From here, one would input all of their phone numbers that they would want Google Voice to access. You can custom label each phone (i.e. iPhone, Orange Sidekick, etc.) and enter it’s type (home phone, mobile phone, work phone.) It is important to note that, by default, each newly entered phone is set to ring when ANY group calls. We’ll dive into groups later.

Phone Routing
Once you have all of your phone numbers entered into Google Voice, the next step would be to route calls. For example, if you want all of your contacts under the group labeled “Work” to ring only your desk phone, this would be the spot to tell Google Voice to do that. This is done by going to settings>phone. You can also set groups to ring all phones.

Let’s say you go to a work conference and give out your Google Number. When anyone from work calls 212-555-5555, only your desk phone would ring. If, however, you wanted to be sure that you never missed a family call, when someone in that group calls the same number, ALL phones could be set to ring.

You can set phone routing settings on an individual basis as well. By selecting a specific contact, you have the additional options of sending that number straight to voice mail, treating it as spam, or simply blocking that number altogether… which brings us to the next feature.

Blocking Calls
If you can’t find a way to stop those persistent exes from calling, the need to periodically get a new cell phone number has been eradicated by Google Voice!! Of course, there are probably other reasons out there for blocking specific phone numbers, I just haven’t come across any yet.

When anyone under the call block feature tries to call you, they  will hear an operator tone followed by the message, “We’re sorry, you have reached a number that has either been disconnected or is no longer in service.”

Take that, Jenny Robinson.

Taking Calls
Just as you get used to giving out one number while still paying for three, people will begin calling. This is when the Google magic kicks in.

After you answer your phone, Google will announce who is calling. While the caller unsupsectingly listens to droning ring tones on the other end, you will have the option to do one of five things. You can either accept the call, reject it,  accept and record the call, send the call to voicemail, or listen in on the voicemail (more on that function soon).

Placing Calls
In order to maintain the allure of having only one phone number, we obviously want that number to pop up on the caller ID when you call. For this, placing a call is no longer as simple as picking up the phone and dialing. The good news, however, is that we’ve never had so many different ways to make a phone call.

To place a call from your phone, you would simply dial your Google Number and select Option 2. After doing this, you would then dial the number you wish to call. With this feature, calls can be made from anywhere that a phone is available.

Calls can also be made from the web in your Google Voice homepage. You can select a number from a contact, or you can manually input the number yourself. The phone of your choice will then ring, and Google will connect that phone to the destination number.

SMS
Users can receive text messages to their Google Number at any mobile device. All text messages received are stored in the Google Voice inbox. You can reply with a text to any voicemails in your inbox. You also have the ability to directly text anyone with your Google Voice number via the web.

Call Screening
With the call screening feature,  Google Voice does everything it can to make sure you know who is calling before you answer the phone. If a contact dials your Google Number, their name will be announced to you, giving you the option to handle the call accordingly.  You have the choice to select between screening all unknown callers, or blocked calls only. In either case, when an unknown number calls, Google will ask that they record their name before connecting the call to you. Your phone will then ring, announcing the name of the caller.

Listen In
I have saved the best feature in this section for last. Do you remember the pre-caller ID days, when you’d sit on your couch and let the answering machine pick up? If it was somebody calling to offer you magazine subscriptions at an UNBELIEVABLE rate, you’d simply go back to watching the Star Trek marathon. If, however, it was somebody like Jenny Robinson, I mean… somebody important, you’d leap off of the couch faster than a frog on a lily-pad and pray to the phone gods that you’d be able to pick the phone up in time before the person calling finished leaving their voice mail.

Well, thanks to caller ID, we no longer have to wait for the answering machine to pick up before we can decide whether or not the call is worth taking. In the spirit of what I can only see as nostalgia, however, Google Voice has offered the listen in capability. Personally, I think it seems a bit creepy, but to each their own.

After a cursory glance at the caller ID, you may decide not to take a call. If the mood strikes you, with the Listen In feature, you can opt to listen to the voice mail that the person you just callously ignored is leaving as they are leaving it. If you retro-actively decide that the call is worth taking, you can press the number 3 and automatically be connected to the call.

That’s it for the section 1 review of Google Voice. Stay tuned for section 2, where I go over all features of Google Voicemail.

Granted, he wasn’t looking directly at me when he said it. And, to be fair, the distance between the stage upon which his podium rested and my seat was about 30 feet. And in the spirit of disclosure, he was addressing about 500 people. So, it is actually quite possible that he wasn’t really talking to me, per se, but for the sake of my ego and imagination, I will pretend like he was.

The opening session of Leading Real Estate Companies of the World’s annual conference in Scottsdale, Arizona was an inspiring one to Realtors, Brokers, and any one else who is in any way connected to the Real Estate industry. I will detail some of the key points that I took from this conference, but I’m going to do it when my laptop screen is fixed and I don’t have to pay 40 cents a minute to gift the world with my words of genius brilliance.

For now, however, I will touch upon one of the best moments for me personally. John Reinhardt, President and CEO of Fillmore Real Estate, the largest independent Real Estate Broker in the state of New York (he also happens to be my boss), really pumped up the crowd at the opening session. He talked about the “GREAT recession”, as opposed to the standard and ultimately overused “great recession”, and how it was probably the most opportune moments of time for him in his real estate career. Because of the economic duress we are all finding ourselves in, agents, managers, and department heads alike are more willing to universally come together and explore ideas that would have otherwise been scoffed at. As he so aptly said, we can’t tell agents we’re saving money, but rather that we are redirecting company resources towards more proftiable forms of marketing. The substance of his speech was in the specific examples of strategies implemented that led  Fillmore Real Estate to have over a 6% increase in sales transactions in February 2009 over the same month 2008.

I will leave you with the YouTube footage of his speech that was captured by an anonymous spectator (who was sitting about 30 feet from the stage upon which John’s podium rested). In his speech, he graciously dropped my name for all the world to hear. And that means more than any shout out from a media exec, imaginary or otherwise.

The first official entry will be outlining my experience at the 2009 annual Leading Real Estate Companies of the World conference in Scottsdale, Az.

I will also be announcing the first of many many monthly contests, so get ready for the fun to begin!