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TOP TEN BUSINESS APPLICATIONS FOR EMPOWERING YOUR INNER GEEK JULY 2011

Often times, the tsunami-esque wave of all the newest widgets and gadgets being offered seems rather daunting and overwhelming. It feels like you’re trying to take a drink of water from a fire hydrant! Well, let’s just say that if I can embrace and implement emerging technology into my business, just about anyone can! As a local real estate broker here in Kitsap County WA, and a few years shy of my AARP membership, I’ve learned not to be intimidated by technology and have discovered many valuable tools that have helped to efficiently grow my business and made life easier along the way.

With so many apps popping up daily, many of them designed to compliment the latest advances in mobile device technology, the greatest challenge is knowing which ones are worth the investment of your valuable time, and offer the most practical help and benefit for your business.

The following is a brief overview of the Top Ten Business-related applications:

DropBox - Forget having to e-mail yourself large memory-hungry documents or files. A descendant of the Web-based version allows users to sync up their Dropbox files between desktop, mobile, and iPad and share links to documents in their Dropbox with just a few taps of the finger. Label a document as a favorite, and view it even when you don’t have an Internet connection. While the app is free, Dropbox’s service includes tiered monthly pricing for more than 2GB of storage. Download Dropbox.

Evernote- Keep track of everything that happens in your life with this app. Evernote lets you gather notes, voice memos, ideas, or snapshots on your iPhone, and it syncs them with your computer (PC or Mac). Extremely useful for creative minds, Evernote keeps your ideas organized and easy to review later. The best thing about Evernote is the smooth, harmonious synchronization it provides, as it adds all of your iPhone notes and items to the service’s Web version as well as to its PC and Mac applications. The app also offers a voice-recording module and takes advantage of the iPhone’s camera to snap photos of things you want to remember. Download from iTunes.

PhotoSnack - With PhotoSnack it’s easier than ever to add photos, create elegant flash photo slideshows with music, and share them with your friends and family. You will be amazed to see how intuitive the new PhotoSnack photo slideshow maker is and how useful the latest updates are  - add music to photo slideshows; add photos from Facebook, Flickr, Picasa, Photobucket and SmugMug; 24 slideshow templates to choose from, all free. Nothing to download.

PDF Expert - PDF Expert is the ultimate solution for all your PDF needs. It lets you read and annotate PDF documents, highlight text, make notes, draw with your finger and save these changes being compatible with Preview and Adobe Acrobat. PDF Expert is the only iPad application that can fill PDF forms! Download from iTunes.

Expensify - Keeping track of expenses (and holding on to receipts) while traveling is never pain-free, but Expensify makes it slightly less challenging. The free app lets you log mileage, file expense reports, and upload a limited number of receipts using your phone’s camera (a smart scanning system automatically extracts information like the date and the amount charged). Available on iPhone/iPad, Android, WebOS, and BlackBerry devices. Download from iTunes.

GoToMeeting - GoToMeeting is the easiest and most convenient way to attend online meetings no matter where you are. Downloading the app for free and joining a meeting on your iPad2 within seconds just by tapping the link in your invitation email is truly a joy to experience and will warm the hearts of many a seasoned road warrior. View slide presentations, design mockups, spreadsheets, reports and much more. Download GoToMeeting.

Dragon Dictation - Dragon Dictation is an easy-to-use voice recognition app powered by Dragon NaturallySpeaking that allows you to easily speak and instantly see your text or emails. With Dragon Dictation you can also dictate status updates directly to your Social Networking applications like Facebook and Twitter or send notes and reminders to yourself using your voice. Download from iTunes.

PrintCentral - Print Central is an app that directs your files to most WiFi/wireless printers without additional software. Print to All printers and any document type via your Mac/PC. Print remotely over 3G and in corporate/other networks where WiFi is not available. You can view, store and print email, documents, files, attachments, photos, contacts and web pages on your iPad 2. You can also transfer docs and files via iTunes using USB cable, and open documents stored in PrintCentral directly into iWork for easy editing. Price-$8.99. Download from iTunes.

Genius Scan - Genius Scan makes scanning a document an extremely simple process: take a photo with the camera; the app automatically detects the document’s edges for you (and then you can manually adjust them by dragging), then the final result is shown with automatic corrections made to the image such as lightening the background and correcting perspective distortion. Download from iTunes.

Prezi - Prezi differs from Powerpoint in that it is a web-based program that allows you to create more of a canvas presentation instead of a sequential slide presentation. Think non-linear. It allows you to incorporate not only text and pictures, but videos and other presentation objects.  You can create your presentation online and then download the final product so that you don’t require an internet connection to display the presentation. Nothing to download.

Two of my favorite resources for staying ahead of the technology learning curve are Mashable and TechCrunch. One word of caution: For every successful start-up launch, the new media landscape is littered with literally dozens of other apps/companies that have failed. Exercise discernment when investing valued time and energy into a particular platform. Nothing is worse than discovering all of your content/data is lost when someone gets their plug pulled!

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Rich Jacobson is a devoted husband & father; crabbing enthusiast; clam digger; blogger; social mediast; occasional thespian; and dashboard percussionist. In his day job as a licensed Real Estate Broker at Windermere, Rich provides knowledgeable empowerment and relentless representation for his clients of residential properties and vacant land throughout all of Kitsap County WA and portions of Pierce, Mason, and Jefferson Counties. You can find his ever-expanding digital footprint at places such as KitsapLife, SoundBiteBlog, CrabbingInTheHood, Everyday CK, Facebook, and Twitter.

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With technology changing and evolving so rapidly these days, as real estate professionals we’re hard-pressed keeping up to speed and knowing what technology tools are worth our time and investment.

Clearly, one of the most obvious tech ‘toys’ that offers tremendous practical value and benefit is the Apple iPad.

With so much of our core business becoming increasingly ‘mobile’ the Apple iPad empowers you to effectively/efficiently embrace and utilize the growing use of mobile apps and technology.

From Listing Presentations to drafting Purchase & Sales contracts, the Apple iPad allows you to quickly connect, communicate, and conduct business tasks with ease.

Shoot and edit HD video for that new high-end waterfront listing. Answer your Buyers questions immediately on-the-fly (What will my payment be? Where are the schools located? What services are nearby? What have other homes in the area recently sold for?)

And forget about lugging around that bulky dinosaur-esque laptop anymore. The new iPad 2 is 1.33 lbs of glorious time-saving, task-hungry heaven!

There are over 65,000 apps (and growing) for the iPad. Here’s just a few of the more popular ones geared towards real estate:

Top Ten iPad Apps for Real Estate

Keynote - This is Apple’s version of PowerPoint.  I love Keynote and this is the perfect app to “wow” your clients with a slick Buyer Consultation or Listing Presentation.

Open Home Pro – a great application for use during Open Houses that provides a Virtual Guest Book Sign-In Tool.

DropBox - is a free Web-based file hosting service that uses cloud computing to enable users to store/share files/folders with others across the Internet using file synchronization. It lets you bring all your photos, docs, and videos anywhere. After you install Dropbox on your computer, any file you save to your Dropbox will automatically save to all your computers, your iPad, and even the Dropbox website!

PDF Expert for iPad - PDF Expert is the ultimate solution for all your PDF needs. It lets you read and annotate PDF documents, highlight text, make notes, draw with your finger, and save those changes being compatible with Preview and Adobe Acrobat. PDF Expert is the only iPad application that can fill PDF forms!

DocuSign - Now, you have the power to send, track and sign documents while on the go! Add documents from Google docs, Box.net or use a pre-configured DocuSign Template. Instantly add iPhone photos of receipts to expense reports. Take a snapshot of a document, then drag and drop familiar “Sign Here” tabs on it for electronic signature.

Evernote - Ever have those ideas while you are out and about and before you can get a chance to write it down, you have forgotten it?  In comes Evernote!  This app will allow you to type or record a voice note.  If you use a smartphone with a camera, you can also create notes from photos.  Again, this app syncs your notes online so they are accessible everywhere (phone, computer, iPad).

Realtor.com - Find more homes for sale on your iPad with REALTOR.com® – the #1 real estate site. REALTOR.com® has more listings and updates them more often (every 15 minutes) than any other site. Features include: map search, saved searches and listings synchronized with the website, private ratings and notes and the ability to share listings with your friends, agent and social network.

Zillow – The Zillow on iPad Real Estate App delivers a bold real estate browsing experience built specifically for the iPad’s interactive multi-touch device. View photo galleries of homes on iPad’s large, eye-popping touch screen where your fingertips tap, swipe, pinch, and drag to see Zestimate® home values, Rent Zestimates, homes for sale, homes for rent, and much more!

Trulia - Designed specifically for the iPad, Trulia HD is the helpful house hunting app that makes finding your next home easy and fun. Search homes for sale and for rent with full-screen interactive maps, neighborhood-specific details, high-resolution photos, and more.

LoopNet - Looking for an investment property, lease space? Search the nation’s #1 marketplace with LoopNet’s Commercial Real Estate Search App – the first commercial real estate search application for your iPhone or iPad. Research millions of properties for owner, tenant, historical listings, mortgage info, etc.

For some additional helpful advice on going mobile in real estate, check out the following video by my friend Joel Burslem:

http://www.1000wattconsulting.com/presentations-and-publications/15-ways-to-make-your-marketing-mobile

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Rich Jacobson is a licensed real estate broker providing Knowledgeable Empowerment and Relentless Representation for his clients of residential properties and vacant land throughout all of Kitsap County WA and portions of Pierce, Mason, and Jefferson Counties. You can also find him at KitsapLife.com, ActiveRain.com, EverydayCK,  HomesByHarbors, and Crabbing in the Hood, or e-mail:  kitsapagent@gmail.com

 

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People often ask me,

“What online tools do you find to be the most beneficial to your business?”

With so many great technology tools available these days, it’s hard to sort through them all. But one of my most obvious choices would be Jing.

Jing by TechSmith is a fast, easy, and fun way to capture images and create videos of what you see on your computer screen, allowing you to add visual elements to your online conversations.

Founded in 1987 by President William Hamilton, TechSmith provides seven products in more than 30 countries that do anything from take screen captures, to screen recording, and managing consumer content.

Since the advent of Web 2.0, a wealth of helpful tools have emerged to help make the sharing of information online more effective and efficient.

Jing enables you to easily capture, edit, save, and distribute specific portions of information displayed on your computer screen.

Jing makes it easy to insert arrows, add text boxes, or highlight or frame text….

Jing also allows you the ability to create a video of your screen capture and add an audio element as well (referred to as a ‘Screencast) with up to 5 minutes recording time maximum:

2011-02-16_1138

http://soundbiteblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/2011-02-16_1138.swf

Your screen captures and video/audio captures (screencasts) can be easily distributed to several of the most popular social networking sites.

You can easily download the FREE version of Jing for both Windows and Mac by going to the Techsmith website:

http://www.techsmith.com/download/jing/

Once you’ve downloaded the program, the small yellow Jing orb will be superimposed at the top center of your screen, allowing for quick, easy access to the Jing tools.

For more information and helpful tips on how to best use Jing, follow their blog:

http://blog.jingproject.com/

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Rich Jacobson is a licensed real estate broker providing Knowledgeable Empowerment and Relentless Representation for his clients of residential properties and vacant land throughout all of Kitsap County WA and portions of Pierce, Mason, and Jefferson Counties. You can also find him at KitsapLife.com, ActiveRain, Everyday CK, HomesByHarbors, and Crabbing in the Hood, or e-mail:  kitsapagent@gmail.com

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Okay, so lately, everyone and their brother has been telling you how wonderful Facebook is for making meaningful connections within your sphere and attracting potential clients. And even though you’re still trying to adapt technology from the 90′s, you reluctantly relent, and join the ever-growing masses of Facebook friends.

Suddenly, you’re overwhelmed with an avalanche of questions:

• What’s the difference between a personal profile and a facebook page?

• Can everyone and God see my pictures or what I write ?

• Do people really care about what I’m doing? (Status Update)

• Why would I want to ‘Poke’ someone? And if I do, will it hurt?

• Does my profile picture make me look fat?

While I am personally a HUGE fan of Facebook and a firm believer that it can be effectively leveraged to grow and promote your business, I also realize that it can tend to be a bit overwhelming to those who are new to social media/networks.

Enter the beauty of Roost.

Roost is a San Francisco-based technology company that helps local real estate professionals get more business from social media, and in particular, through Facebook. Roost was founded in 2007.

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of chatting with Derek Overby, Senior Director of Marketing & Social Media at Roost. I’ve known Derek for a number of years through my involvement with various national events and conferences. He’s a 14-year veteran of the real estate and technology industry, having previously served as Vice President of Marketing for Intero Real Estate.

Derek is passionate about social media/blogging, but also understands how it can be practically applied to everyday business. Additionally, he is also responsible for broker and agent training on the Roost Social Media Toolkit which includes teaching webinars and producing training materials to help users better understand and implement the Roost tools.

According to Derek, Roost currently boasts over 23,000 users of its FREE basic level product.

During the recent NAR Convention in New Orleans, we offered attendees a discounted advance access to our Premium Toolkit (the official launch isn’t until November 23rd). We signed up more than 70 agents right there on the spot during the expo. People kept coming to our booth, listened to the value proposition, and pulled out their credit cards! Since the convention, we’ve had a couple hundred more who have signed up.

The Roost Social Media Toolkit, built for use within Facebook, empowers real estate agents, real estate brokers and other local service professionals who rely on word-of-mouth marketing to approach social media with greater confidence — and better results.

(Double-Click Images for Enlarged Viewing)

It consists of 1)  a Real Estate Tab for your Business Page:

This tab allows you to import data from Altos Research, Zillow, Education.com, and WalkScore. You can also upload four (4) of your own listings.

2)  A Publishing Feature that allows you to syndicate and time release content to your Page:

3)  And access to the Roost Academy, where you can attend FREE webinars, watch informative videos, or find helpful FAQ’s:

The Roost Academy offers FREE instruction on Facebook basics, not just Roost tools.

The Premium Roost product offers a number of value-added enhancements that easily justifies the reasonable monthly subscription fee:

The Roost Social Media Toolkit enables professionals to:

• Establish a professional, brand-enhancing presence on Facebook
• Deliver relevant, engaging data to their connections (and their connections too)
• Expand their sphere of influence & connect with new prospects
• Convert prospects to clients
• Leverage existing clients for online referrals
• Save time, rather than waste it

The Social Media Toolkit makes these processes simple and measurable so users can focus on what works. It is sophisticated enough for social media masters and easy for new users to understand.

For additional information, go to the Roost Website, or follow the Roost Blog HERE!

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Rich Jacobson is a licensed real estate professional providing Relentless Representation and Knowledgeable Empowerment for his clients of residential properties and vacant land throughout all of Kitsap County WA and portions of Pierce, Mason, and Jefferson Counties. You can also find him at KitsapLife.com, ActiveRain, Everyday CK, HomeByHarbors and Crabbing in the Hood, or e-mail:  kitsapagent@gmail.com

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If you’re like me, it’s hard to keep up on all the new social media tools that crop up daily and weed through the ones that offer some semblance of value or benefit to your business.

A while back, I came across a tweet on Twitter from Mariana Wagner gushing with props about a new social media toy, Flavors.me

Of course, I did what any self-respecting, social media-obsessed adopter would do, I joined flavors.me and created my own custom web page, which you can find HERE.

So what’s the big deal about yet another social media profile aggregator?

Think “Your Own Unique Social Media Business Card.” You throw up some basic bio info, enter in all your various SM profiles and outbound feeds (blogs, websites), then it aggregates/organizes them onto a simple splash page that you can personalize with custom formatting and your own image background. The whole process takes all of about 10 minutes without any coding skills.

from Flavors.me Designer, Jack Zerby:

“When we set out to create Flavors, we never expected that people would catch on to the vision so quickly. The uniqueness and personality of each page is why I believe everyone is a designer, but may not know how to bring the vision from their head to the screen. Web design “themes” don’t allow the user to think like a designer. We wanted users to build their personal pages just like a painter would, layer by layer. Using a combination of wireframes, backgrounds, colors, and fonts, the possibilities become limitless. The personal homepage died with the popularity of social network profiles, and we aim to bring it back.”

Flavors.me is simply one more tool for providing prospective clients or business associates with a quick snapshot of who you are and the various web/blog sites you author and social media platforms you frequent. It’s a fun and creative way to further distinguish youself from the masses of other agents out there. Embed a link to your Flavors.me profile on your website or your email signature!

To join Flavors.me, use the invite code ‘heat’

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Rich enjoys using the tools of social media to brag/boast about the quality of Life on the picturesque Kitsap Peninsula in scenic WA State. He is a licensed real estate professional providing knowledgeable empowerment and relentless representation for his clients of residential properties and vacant land throughout all of Kitsap County WA and portions of Pierce, Mason, and Jefferson Counties. You can also find him at KitsapLife.com, ActiveRain, Crabbing in the Hood, Everyday CK, Facebook,  Twitter, or e-mail:  kitsapagent@gmail.com

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