November 28, 2007
It’s official as of today- I’m now a Licensed California Real Estate Broker! I feel better about the countless hours of business planning that I’ve been doing, not even having that little piece of paper in my hand.
Now comes the painful part, giving money to the many different vendors required to start this venture. You’d be surprised at the expense. Let me give you a list of expenses that I can think of off of the top of my head. Lets see, if you’re a broker pursuing the loan side you have to consider this:
Loan origination Software, Website and/or Web design, (hopefully one that has an integrated 1033 that interfaces with your website), lead generating systems and/or strategic alliances, back-office software, HR software, business planning software, computer hardware, office hardware, office supplices, Business-number/Toll-free number, Incorporating fees, Business licensing fees, All different types of insurance, Broker/Lender package fees, netbranching expenses (necessary if you’re new to mortgage industry)Broker exam/licensing fees, fingerprinting fees, DBA fees, NAMB - CAMB membership fees, traditional marketing expenses. All of this without generating one cent of income. And that’s just the mortgage side.
If you decide to do the real estate side, there are additional expenses!
Thank god I got into this at the height of the market, LOL.
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November 16, 2007
I’ve been MIA for quite some time while I worked on a CA real estate license. Finally done, so hopefully I’ll get to post on my experiences with social media, web dev, etc in that area.
Sphere: Related Content Posted by Rick Garcia in Drupal, CMS Realty, Joomla, Open Realty, Real Estate SEO, Mortgage SEO 1 Comment »
May 11, 2007
Podcast. This is a very interesting word to me. It’s a word none less interesting than, say, widget. Apparently, in order to be inducted into social media mainstream use, the word in question has to sound like it comes from a far, far away, fantasy land. I’m sure to get into the strange words of social media and SM networks in the near future; but for now I digress. This post is intended to be a primer for anyone that is interested in podcasting from a business standpoint.
A gentleman named Ben Hammersley first coined the term “Podcast” in 2004 as a synonym to audioblogging. He combined broadcasting with iPod and came up with the term as we know it today.
Since then, other organizations have added to the definition. I won’t get more into the history of podcasting; I’ll instead let you know the gist of the whole thing. Podcasting is a system that lets subscribers of podcast channels be delivered the most relevant, up to date, audio or video content. A podcast is a set of related media files that is tied to an RSS/Atom feed. When new content for the podcast is available, subscribers are notified via their podcast software and can then view or download the latest content. If you’re familiar with Google Reader, then it should be easy for your to understand the feed concept - just apply it to audio/video media instead of news. This content is available for use on a subscribers computer or may be in a portable format for use on certain portable devices. You can think of a podcast as your personal radio show on the Internet that can be downloaded, streamed, and is portable. A more elaborate definition can be found on wikipedia.
What can a podcast do for a business? Think of podcasting as another marketing channel. Like all social media tools, podcasts can extend a companies market reach. Podcasts can create loyal followers. Podcasts can help “sell” your business, your services, and your products. Podcasts CAN lead to conversions. Podcasting can be direct, relevant, targeted marketing for existing and potential clients.
There is a lot of data out there that shows just how many podcast listeners there are. Let’s just say the number is projected to be in the tens of millions in a few years. So you ask yourself, “Is it worth it?” Remember, these listeners will pull your messages, as they have to opt in to your shows. You can’t get any more relevant targeted marketing than that. If you learn to do it yourself, the ROI from podcasting can be enormous.
There are a couple of ways you can go about creating your own podcast. One way is to hire podcasting consultants. PodWorx is a consulting firm that created the Four P’s of Podcasting, and specializes in podcasting for business. You can also create your own podcast. Here is How to create your own podcast.
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May 10, 2007
Pretty entertaining rant by Loren Feldman. Don’t know what this has to do with social media, except they both use it.
Posted by Rick Garcia in Personal, Fun No Comments »
May 4, 2007
YouTube took a big step yesterday by announcing partnerships with several of it’s most popular members.
Up until now there’s been a distinction between the content you create and the content created by YouTube’s professional content partners. We want to start changing some of the perception here. Which is why we’re adding several of the most popular and prolific original content creators from the YouTube community to our partnership program. Now some of your favorite YouTube members, including LisaNova, renetto, HappySlip, smosh, and valsartdiary, will begin to participate in the same revenue sharing and promotional opportunities that are available to YouTube’s other partners.
The selected YouTube partners will be able to select which videos they want to monetize, and then YouTube will place appropriate advertisements next to the videos. It’s not really clear how the users will get paid - per click, per action, impressions, combination…I would assume that YouTube might employ different strategies to see which are the most beneficial for the user partners.
I personally think the move is excellent because it encourages user original content creation by setting examples of valued users. The message from YouTube is simple - Create great content that attracts a significant following and you too might get paid.
Btw, I’m extremely happy for HappySlip, as I’ve been a subscriber of her page for several months. You can see her in action on Rick Garcia homepage. Click on SplashCast player, Click on Channel Guide, Select YouTube Original Artists, 4th video is HappySlip singing “Your Love”.
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May 3, 2007
The recent Digg controversy is an example of the effectiveness of social media as a viral tool. While many observers view the Digg issue in a negative light, I prefer to look at these latest events as a study in how a Web 2.0 company can use social media to gather user or viewer input in order to aid in the decision making process.
Truth be told, it seems that the apparent blunders of Digg staff have not only angered some of the regular Digg community memebers, but has created publicity for the site that many a company would greatly accept. The news aggregator has one of its’ biggest stories ever, and the story is about itself! Digg has learned a valuable lesson; the individual user voice can become the voice of many. Now hopefully they will be able to turn the negative publicity into a positive.
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May 1, 2007
It’s Widget Madness! They’ve proliferated the social media landscape like a wild batch of mushrooms in a country field. And the marketers are scrambling to get on the widget bandwagon. So far though, there have been few, if any wildly successful widget monetizing strategies, most likely because of the yet-to-be-solved issues associated with Widget marketing. Before we get into that, let’s take a step back and discuss what exactly widgets are, why they’re growing in popularity on social media sites, and social networking sites, and what marketers envision with the use of these new marketing channels.
You can look at a widget as a mini web-page that is located within another web-page. Widgets are software tools, typically created from a Widget software developer, that allow users to quickly, and more efficiently share user content. Widgets are essentially pre-made bits of web code (html or otherwise) that are embedded within the code of other web pages. Widgets have paved the path for distributed media and have become vital outlets which content producers use to spread their web-based information, messages, and and other pitches. Viewers of a web page with an embedded widget can many times grab the code for the widget to embed into their own web spaces. This viral form of widget dispersion is a strategy that content producers and widget manufacturers embrace, as the free advertising is seldom rejected.
The most prominent example of a widget to date is the YouTube widget, that enabled the millions of YouTube users to share their favorite videos on the even more prominent social network, MySpace. Other notable widgets are the Photobucket widget, Twitter widget, game widgets, RSS feed widgets, music player widgets, etc. These widgets allow users (people that embed the widget code into their personal websites) to share information that they think might be interesting to the people in their social networks, blog-rolls, or random viewers. The common widget user or enabler views widgets as something that enables them to show other people what they’re into - that bit of personalization and customization ability is the reason why widgets have become so popular.
Used by marketers, widgets are social media tools that can help in consumer feedback for service/product improvement, customer service efforts, branding initiatives, drive qualified traffic to targeted websites, and extend their web presence and reach virally. From the consumer standpoint, widgets can show the consumers brand loyalty thereby contributing to the effectiveness of the overall marketing campaign.
With all of the opportunity that widgets present to the savvy social marketer, problems with effectiveness as marketing tools still exist. My concerns with widgets are as follows:
1. Relevancy of advertising to viewers. I would bet Google and Yahoo! are hashing this one out now.
2. ROI of the widget considering all costs (hosting, bandwidth, development, marketing, etc.)
3. Conflicting associations (your company widget spreading virally across every porn site)
4. User’s and viewers might be turned off by blatant advertising in or on widgets.
5. Monetizing strategies are evolving but not proven.
Even with the current issues with widget marketing and advertising, I believe that widgets will continue to gain traction as valuable marketing tools to not overlook.
Rick Garcia’s favorite Widget
7000+Widgets
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April 26, 2007
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April 23, 2007
As a father of 3 young boys, I’m constantly having to find new ways to amuse them. The latest trend making stuff out of paper. You would not believe how many airplanes I’m building these days. I’ve built some of the coolest airplanes for my kids, all in the name of fun for the kids, and I admit, myself.
A much more technical dad shared an experience with his own son. He described how on Saturday’s the two go out for a special breakfast at a local restaurant. During these outings, his 4 year old son draws battle scenes on the back of the paper place-mat. His son recently asked if he could make a video game out of the drawing - His answer, of course, was yes. Here’s the dad and son’s place-mat game. And my kids think I’m great? haha
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