There’s a phenomena popping up all around the country called Real Estate BarCamp. If you’ve been thinking you’d like some fresh ideas for marketing and managing your business online or maybe you don’t even know where to begin – this was created for you.

The way Real Estate BarCamps developed is very similar to the way they work: someone had a great idea and ran with it, others added their expertise and it became something really special. The inspiration for Real Estate BarCamp came from the tech barcamps and “unconferences” in the bay area where Andy Kaufman lives. Andy thought it would work well for real estate and decided to try one the day before Inman Connect San Francisco 2008. When he announced it on Daniel Rothamel’s Zebra talk radio show, Todd Carpenter immediately called with an offer to build a Real Estate BarCamp website. The rest of RE.net fell in love with the idea and here we are — Real Estate BarCamp has even become popular enough not to need the draw of a conference to draw attendees. In fact, I’ll be driving six hours myself to attend REBCVA and I can’t wait!

BarCamps are fast paced, fun and extremely educational. (And strangely enough, they don’t take place in bars, although you can usually find a few attendees who would be glad to help you find one afterward.) You’ll learn about the newest tools and fresh ways to make use of what you’ve already got. You’ll find a great mix of Real Estate Rock Stars and those just starting out, and the ideas from all blend and create something new we wouldn’t have had otherwise. It’s an amazing thing to take part in a BarCamp!

All this and they’re FREE to attend! I hope there’s one near you and that you’ll give it a try. Here’s a list of some upcoming BarCamps, please click for more details:

• Fredericksburg, VA March 3
• Los Angeles, CA April 2
• Portland, OR April 23
• Phoenix, AZ April 23
• Denver, CO May 22
• San Francisco, CA August 4

Each of these BarCamps will have a free Real Estate Shows subscription up for grabs! (It’s worth attending just for all you’ll learn, but a chance to win a year of free RES isn’t bad either.) If you win you’ll be given my contact information and I’ll personally help you set up your account and get you started.

Go, learn, have a great time and tell me all about it, OK?

I will be speaking or appearing on panels every day at the National Association of REALTORS® National Convention. Here’s the schedule:

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Intro To Real Estate Shows & Preferred Agent
Chase Booth – Main Convention Hall – Booth #4427

I’d love to see as many of our Real Estate Shows clients as possible!

Friday, November 7
4:15 PM & 6:15 PM
Saturday, November 8
9:15 AM, 1:00 PM & 2:30 PM
Sunday, November 9
1:30 PM & 3:00 PM
Monday, November 10
9:45 AM & 11:45 AM

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Using Social Media to Engage Clients
Sunday, November 11 from 11:00 AM – 12:30 PM
Location: Orange County Convention Center, West Building, Valencia Room W415D

Determine how to use social media tools and websites including Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, to market yourself and generate business. Identify ways to use social networks to manage and protect your online identity and successfully engage with online communities.

Dustin Luther, Rudy Bachraty and I are planning a “different” kind of presentation.
Be sure to bookmark this in your event planner.

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Web 2.0 Panel
Saturday, November 8 at 11 AM
Sponsored by Diamond Dwellings
In the Exhibitor Presentation Theater inside the Exhibit Hall, Booth 4840

Joining me will be:

Teresa Boardman @TBoard from StPaulRealEstateBlog.com
Cyndee Haydon @cyndeehaydon from SandbarstoSunsets.com
Ines Hegedus-Garcia @ines from Miamism.com

For other updates about events at the 2008 REALTORS® Conference, be sure to follow @nar2008 on Twitter.

I had the extreme pleasure of being invited to the Virginia Association of Realtors Convention in Baltimore, MD over the weekend. Yes, Virginia Realtors met in Maryland. No, I do not live in Virginia nor am I still an active Realtor. STILL. I drove a little over six hours to meet a bunch of completely fabulous people and it was WORTH it!

The Virginia agents invited many of us from outside their association and welcomed us with open arms. I got to sit in on a blogger session and visit the trade fair and learned about some pretty neat new ways for a real estate agent to be found and market their listings. The agents in Virginia have a special knack for using technology to their advantage, and they don’t mind sharing what they learn. I have some thinking to do!

But of course the best part of any convention is the PEOPLE. I want to thank the wonderful people of VAR08 for inviting me and helping me feel so at home — you guys ROCK!! Here’s a little peek at my time at VAR08 in (what else?) the form of a Real Estate Show.

Real Estate Shows moved back into the top 100 in the latest monthly ranking of real estate web sites released by Web metrics company Hitwise.

Inman.com reported the recent real estate rankings this morning, noting that “Move Inc.’s category-leading site Realtor.com, which is operated through an agreement with the National Association of Realtors, had a 7.3 percent market share of visits to the category in July, compared with second-place Yahoo Real Estate, at realestate.yahoo.com, which had a 3.06 percent market share.”

Other real estate category sties entering the top-100 list in July include: my.realtor.com, themls.com, realtyusa.com, movoto.com, curbed.com, circlepix.com, realtor.org and foreclosure.com.

I had the pleasure of moderating a panel made up of Jim Cronin (Real Estate Tomato), Dustin Luther (4Realz.net), Daniel Rothamel (RealEstateZebra.com), and Nicole Nicolay (MyTechOpinion.com).

If you missed it, here’s the video from Inman.

We’re happy to announce that Inman News has launced their new Web site. But we’re even more excited to announce that with the launch comes the official word that our very own Jeff Turner was invited to be a part of their new new Community section to write “lively blog posts and podcasts” each week. The new contributors are:

• Teresa Boardman, an agent and licensed broker in St. Paul, Minn., and founder of the St. Paul Real Estate Blog
• Kris Berg, broker associate with Prudential California Realty in San Diego, and blogger at the San Diego Home Blog
• Jeff Turner, president of Real Estate Shows in Santa Clarita, Calif., and avid blogger at ActiveRain
• Daniel Rothamel, an agent with Strong Team Realtors in Charlottesville, Va., and founder of Real Estate Zebra.

Inman News is reporting today that Real Estate Shows has moved into the top 100 most visited real estate Web sites in December, according to the latest numbers from Hitwise. Real Estate Shows is at 99.

Realtor.com, the official site of the National Association of Realtors, retained its dominance at the top of the Hitwise rankings last month, with an 8.03 percent market share. Move.com moved up from fourth place to second place in December, with a 2.73 percent market share.

In case you missed the pevious announcements, I will be moderating the “Beyond The Written Word: Videoblogging And Podcasting” seminar at Bloggers Connect in New York.

The Bloggers Connect panel will consist of Douglas Heddings, Senior Vice President, Prudential Douglas Elliman; Rachel Natalie Klein, Founder, IntoTheBox.tv; Daniel Rothamel, Realtor, Strong Team REALTORS; Blogger, RealEstateZebra.com; and Mike Price, President, ML Broadcast. And I hope some of you will be able to attend.

I’ll also be joined by two other members of our Real Estate Shows team, Bill Leider and Joe Fenton.

If you’ll be at Connect, we must connect. (I have swiped most of this entire paragraph from Jay – The Phoenix Real Estate Guy) I’ll be at “Beer with Bloggers” on Tuesday evening ( Zillow is buying. They have VC money.). If we miss each other there, give me a call or text me at 818.917.8418 and we’ll get together.

Videoblogs, or vlogs, are relatively new to the real estate industry.

But there is a growing community of experienced videobloggers outside of the real estate industry. They make up the bulk of the users on the “by invitation only” Seesmic.com. After spending a few days on the site, my gut told me this community would be a good one to tap into to jump start a conversation around the theme of “Beyond The Written Word,” a panel I am moderating at Inman’s Bloggers Connect conference in NY.

The Bloggers Connect panel will consist of Douglas Heddings, Senior Vice President, Prudential Douglas Elliman; Rachel Natalie Klein, Founder, IntoTheBox.tv; Daniel Rothamel, Realtor, Strong Team REALTORS; Blogger, RealEstateZebra.com; and Mike Price, President, ML Broadcast.

We only have 45 minutes to discuss a very hot topic. So let’s start it early.

To help us, I asked the seasoned videobloggers on Seesmic what they might have to say about the potential upside and possible downside that video blogging and podcasting might have for real estate agents looking to use it to grow their business. This 14 minute video is an edited version of the discussion.

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

The goal of this video is to generate further discussion. The questions and comments you leave here will help move this discussion forward and may very well end up being part of the panel discussion in New York. So, comment away. If you’d like to add your video comment, you can upload a video anywhere you choose and include it as a link in the comments here, or you can add your video comments to the discussion the discussion video on Viddler.

Here are links to the full comments used for this video.

Jeff Turner | Real Estate Shows

• http://seesmic.com/VxW9jHhM95
• http://seesmic.com/YudjEHC5cP
• http://seesmic.com/COp2rZCILR

Deek Deekster | DeekDeekster.com

• http://seesmic.com/7iLwyHdB7u
• http://seesmic.com/ZyqkRZJnmB

Adam Jochum | Cafn8ed.tv

• http://seesmic.com/dqrVKHFMcG
• http://seesmic.com/6sirvwQqNX
• http://seesmic.com/uo7ayvUTPv

David Jacobs | TheConnectedWorld.net

• http://seesmic.com/AfUBDFSjdr
• http://seesmic.com/FuJnMVS4Ui

Nicole Spagnuolo | NicoleSpag.com

• http://seesmic.com/CvPvpZk5hu

Victor Cajiao | TypicalMacUser.com

• http://seesmic.com/zaKipGp6NV

Daniel Rothamel | RealEstateZebra.com

• http://seesmic.com/JQgRL9hmt9

Andy Kaufman | MyEastBayAgent.com

• http://seesmic.com/KliOhLXHoV

As further commentary, this video took a ridiculously long time to edit.