There’s a new blogging platform out there, and from what I’ve seen so far, it’s pretty very impressive…
Point 2 Agent, a supplier of real estate websites has introduced their long awaited blogging platform.
Though still in the trendy “Beta” stage, the release is highly functional. And it’s slick.
A Point 2 Agent member can get a blog set up and running with ease. I was able to get two blogs set up in the span of about 30 minutes – including seeding them with a few posts. And now that I am familiar with the interface, setting up other blogs will be even faster.
I suspect (though it’s pure speculation on my part) that the developers started with the open source WordPress code and went from there. The blogs have a WordPressy look and feel, but the admin “dashboard” is completely different than WordPress, and it’s far superior from everything I’ve seen so far.
Why is another blog platform newsworthy? Start with this fact — there are currently 100,529 100,536 real estate professionals using Point 2 web sites. That’s a lot of users. And they now have at their fingertips a simple to set up, simple to edit blogging platform. Does this mean we’re about to be inundated with 100,000 new real estate blogs? Of course not. For reasons I’ll never understand, the vast majority of Point 2 members do little to nothing with their web sites. So it stands to reason the vast majority will do little to nothing with their blogs. Despite that, the possibility is there. The blogtalk on the Point 2 user forum is increasing and it’s certainly safe to assume that many agents who’ve been intimidated at the thought of setting up a stand-alone version of a WordPress or TypePad blog will take advantage of the Point 2 platform.
I am fairly technically astute. Yet I’ll freely admit that setting up The Phoenix Real Estate Guy was at times a frustrating experience (sometimes it still is…). For many agents, it would be almost impossible. Start talking terms like “hosting”, “FTP”, “RSS Feeds”, “PHP/MySQL” and “plug-ins” and a significant percentage of the real estate professionals out there will look at you like you have two heads. But tell them to go into their Point 2 Office and “click this then click that” and you’re bound to find people willing to take on, and complete, that challenge.
In fact, standby for a second…….
I’m back. From the Point 2 Office, click on “Go to Blog”. Click on “Administration”. Click on “Blogs”. Click on “Create New Blog”. Type in a name and a URL. Click “Save”. In five clicks and about 15 seconds and I had a test blog created and activated (hint for the P2 developers–Add a “Create New Blog” tab to the dashboard and you could cut that to 3 clicks and eliminate the “how do I create a new blog” support calls). Less than four minutes later, I’d selected a theme, provided a title and meta tags, set a few options, created a post and had Test Blog up and on the Internet.
Now for those that have set up hosted WordPress blogs, compare that to trying to walk someone who doesn’t have your technical skills through purchasing a domain name, downloading Wordpress, setting up an FTP client, and INSTALLING WordPress so that it’s functional to the point of being able to post a blog entry. I’ll hand over my next five commission checks to anyone who can do it in less than 4 minutes. Heck, I’ll hand over my next FIFTY commission checks if you can do it in less than 30 minutes. Compare the instructions above for setting up a Point 2 Blog to these WordPress install instructions. There is no comparison.
This is a great thing for real estate blogging. The folks at Point 2 Agent have hit a home run with this one.
Full Disclosure: I am an authorized Point 2 Agent distributor. I get a small pittance if people upgrade their P2 sites through me. Click here if you’re interested in setting up a free Point 2 site, blog included.
[tags]real estate blog, Point 2 Agent, WordPress[/tags]
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That’s not WordPress. It’s all in ASP. Very nice, though. They look sweet.
Jay,
That was an awesome post about our Point2 sites and the new Blog addition capabilities. I’ll be the first one to admit…I sure love the ease and depth of the blog software Point2 has given us vs what I’ve been dealing with on WordPress. I like my WordPress web site…but I love my Point2 Blog software because its so easy to use. Good job Jay!
Thanks Greg, I guess the “.aspx” at the end of the URL should have been my first clue. Alas, though I claim “I am fairly technically astute” (boy, my college Advanced Writing professor would be cringing at that sentence!!) I really know just enough to be dangerous.
Jerry – as you know, I’m a big Point 2 fan and supporter. Often times I get quite irritated at both members and non-members that slam the product. For what we pay, it is indeed an amazing value. And it just got more amazinger. (that’s for Dr. Paula Marks too!)
Thanks for the review, I am always hunting for applications that will make blogging easier. As for me I really love typepad and after having set up a wordpress blog have concluded that typepad is easier.
Awesome review!
RE: “For reasons I’ll never understand, the vast majority of Point 2 members do little to nothing with their web sites. So it stands to reason the vast majority will do little to nothing with their blogs. Despite that, the possibility is there.”
I may be wrong, but I see it as: the tools available on the internet are simply that, tools. It is never the hammer that builds the home, it is the carpenter. Most real estate websites that have been sold, have been done so by showing what astute carpenters have done with the hammer – not how to build the house yourself.
Blogs are going to be a much worse example of this. Blogs demand lots of hammering, and unless there are services that encourage, train and guide clients to do so, then we’ll end up with another 100,000 ghost blogs.
I like it and I don’t.
Yes it’s great that you can get it up and running instantly, the downside is that I bet that they all look like cookie cutter blog pages.
I’ve had that exact same feeling about Blogger.com stuff. It’s so easy my (smart) 7 and 9 year olds have created a blogsite for themselves, but my own blog looked just blah until I started hanging out with the blogger underworld and started hacking the template.
Effort is the currency of bloggerdom.
Jim – *excellent* analogy! And you are, as usual, spot on. Love the Tomato flavored blogs BTW. And I believe you’ve “hit the nail on the head” (pun sort of intended) with the services you provide. I have no doubt you’ll be wildly successful.
Athol – I think the jury is out on just how cookie-cutterish the P2 blog platform will look. There are numerous themes available (though many are just color variations). Time will tell…. P2 has been pretty good about providing tools to customize their web sites. Hopefully they’ll continue the trend with their blog platform.
“Effort is the currency of bloggerdom” – I love that!
Great blog BTW, I’ve got you on my “add to the blogroll list”…
Jay,
It’s good to see you are in favour of the P2 Blogs platform. I have been reading your blogs for a few weeks now and I am very impressed by your knowledge and insight on different articles. I also think your P2 website is one of the best I have seen. I am also a member of P2 and have recently created my blog. As I am new to blogging I hope to be able to add content on a regular basis. As you mentioned out of 100,000 plus members of P2 only a small percentage utilize their sites to the full potential. They don’t know what their missing.
The look is clean and easy to move around, but I’m not seeing it as a real estate blog service?
It is a blog… and it is sold to real estate. So I guess it is a real estate blogsite.
It looks like a Fantastico installed blog or CMS. I’m assuming there is some sort of behind the scenes real estate options or perhaps it hooks up to the basic real estate site already setup at Point2, at which those would be nifty time-saving features for the Point2 user base (no one can argue with a business model of giving more features to your existing user base)
Nifty!
I still struggle with wordpress. I don’t know of a single other agent in my marketplace (metro Detroit) who has taken a blog any further than blogger. Wordpress is not for the feint of heart.
I’ve been asking for 2 years for some template provider to but a blog on my web site. No one could do it. I would like the two on the same domain, and I don’t have the skills to build my own site to that point.
If I decide to take a second look at P2A, I will be back to visit you Jay.
George – thanks for the compliments. Many many hours went into that P2 site. But it’s well worth the effort.
Barry – you wrote, “The look is clean and easy to move around, but I’m not seeing it as a real estate blog service?”
I can see why anyone would think that. From the “outside” the P2 blogs do appear to be… just a blog. What makes it a “real estate blog” in my opinion is how it interfaces with Point 2 real estate web sites. Adding listings to a blog (as I’ve done with the “Our Listings” blog) is as simple as checking a box on the P2 listing entry page. Adding a “feed” from the blog to your P2 site is also integrated (example here). At some point, I suspect P2 will add features like dumping contacts from the blog into the Point 2 contact management system and even tighter integration with the P2 web sites.
Plus, as Maureen mentioned in the comment after yours, I believe Point 2 is the only real estate template site provider that allows one to have a blog URL like http://www.realestatesite/blog. I’m not a big fan of extensive marketing on a real estate blog, but it is nice to have the site and blog “talking” to each other and sharing the same domain.
So while it does indeed look like just another blog, it’s the interaction with a P2 real estate web site that makes this product a “real estate blog platform”, in my humble opinion.
Thanks to all for visitng and commenting!!
Jay,
Your comments regarding the new Point2 blog platform are correct, and should be an open invitation for an easier path to real estate blogging. I too had started and struggled with a WordPress blog, and like many of us, I know a “little about a lot” of the technical issues related to blog / web development. However, I spent way too much time trying to trouble shoot the latest WP plugin, or hack something that seemed way out of my reach. The new Point2 blogs are very user friendly, and will likely get better!
BTW, I have followed your blog and RE site for quite some time now, and your work is excellent.
Thanks for sharing your comments and tips, you are helping all of us who are trying to get better at RE blogging.
Mark Stambaugh
http://www.ruidoso-homes.com
Great article Jay. I can walk through an agent in 30 minutes about how to install WordPress blog:
SETTING UP DOMAIN AND HOSTING
1. Buy your domain name at GoDaddy.com for about $10/yr
2. Buy a basic hosting service at http://www.TotalchoiceHosting.com/web-hosting-plans.html (I have not affiliation with that company – just hosting a couple of RE sites) for $4/mo or $44/yr.
3. When receive instructions to your hosting account, go to GoDaddy.com – login into your account. On the right hand side click My Account, then select Manage Domains under the Domain Names. Select the domain name you already purchased and would like to direct to your new hosting server. On the right hand side under Domain Details expand Nameservers Summary section – click to Modify. Select Custom Name Servers radio button and copy Name Server 1 and Name Server 2 from your Hosting instructions into the appropriate fields (Name Servers are the same as DNS in the hosting email). New nameserver (DNS) will be propagated throughout Internet usually within 24 hours – this is when you’ll be able to access your new hosting server by your domain name.
INSTALLING WORDPRESS
4. To install WordPress you don’t have to wait untill your site is accessable by it’s domain name – you can access it by IP address mentioned in the instructions provided by TotalChoiceHosting
Sorry… pushed the wrong button…
Login into your hosting account which is managed by Cpanel. Scroll down and click Fantastico. Select WordPress from the list of available applications – fill out requested data (less then 10 fields) and latest version of WordPress will be installed and fully functional less then in 1 minute.
Probably the most complicating part in this short manual is buying the domain name and hosting service, but installation of WordPress will take you 2 minutes tops if you aready tried it ones. You can buy whichever hosting service and can do installation automatically as long as it includes Fantastico (a lot of shared hosting services do)
BTW, here is a link to Fantastico demo http://www.dmkproject.pl/cpdemo/frontend/x/fantastico/index.php.htm
Does this fit into 30 minutes?
Max – Hmmmm, I still think you’d go WAY beyond the 30 minutes with the vast majority of real estate agents. Many would get tripped up at this step:
1. Buy your domain name at GoDaddy.com for about $10/yr
Then there is:
3. When receive instructions to your hosting account, go to GoDaddy.com – login into your account.
Can’t tell you how many people I’ve tried to help do either of these two seemingly simple things and they have struggled.
Your instructions are no doubt MUCH simpler than trying to download and then FTP WordPress files to a host. But they are still no where near as simple as:
“From the Point 2 Office, click on “Go to Blog”. Click on “Administration”. Click on “Blogs”. Click on “Create New Blog”. Type in a name and a URL. Click “Save”.”
Then there is this:
“New nameserver (DNS) will be propagated throughout Internet usually within 24 hours – this is when you’ll be able to access your new hosting server by your domain name.”
Now obviously that’s beyond the control of Mr. Future Blogger, but with the P2 product, you can have a post on-line and visible to all inside of 4 minutes.
Jay – I started posting to the P2A Beta blog as soon as it came out. Some modifications are needed, but that is why is is in Beta. I think it will make a big difference having a blog within my site instead of one outside it. It will give me the ability to tell people about what’s up in Austin without having to leave my website. Good post!
Hi Jay,
First off great name. I just came across your blog and I am new to blogging and I can say working with wordpress is not that easy. I have always thought of my self as tech literate but when it comes to blogging I am learning every day. You were right when you said agents wouldn’t know RSS, Atom, feeds, mysql etc… It was all pretty Greek to me. I have been studying and learnig as much as I can. I enjoy the technical aspects of it more than actually sitting down and writing a blog. My wife likes to blog and she is a little more creative that me.
I would rather comment on issues that I can help with or learn from.
Thanks Jay
You shill… Just kidding.
I checked out point 2 at NAR in New Orleans a couple of weeks back. Looks like they have some nice products.
Jay, buying domain name and pointing it to your DNS servers is a non-avoidable step if you would like your own dedicated domain wherther it is P2A site or something else. Login into back end of a CPanel is not more difficult then login into other systems that requires user name and password. After that fully functional WordPress is only 2 clicks away small form to fill out. You’re may be right that what you’re talking about is simplier, but what I’m talking about is a stand alone site that you own for $54 a year and you can do with it whatever you want including installing other scripts and programming your own from scratch. For most of us this kind of site is only limited to our abilities and imagination
I don’t know if I have the energy to set up my blog at Point2. I wish it had been available when I was researching change from RT blogs. I lost some exposure when I changed to Typepad. I think people couldn’t figure out where I went! I don’t want to do that again! I did check out your new site and liked it.
I too interested in real estate…I wonder ,is there so many problems like this…ok.I quit my idea!
Don Lapre Lenny
webmaster@katesoriginals.com
http://www.katesoriginals.com
I think wordpress is very good, I have no problems with it. I also use text-pattern which can be fully customized and you can check it our here: http://www.mostlyforeclosures.com/
A year later and I’m curious to the numbers of agents you saw convert to this.
Bob – I really have no idea how many Professional and Premium level Point2 Agent members are utilizing the Point2 blogging platform.
About all I can say is, a lot. As with any platform, some are brilliant, some not-so-swift.
I’ll see if I can get some numbers from Point2…
Jay,
I’ve read this article a couple of times now, and am really glad that I decided to go with the P2 blog. I like how it is integrated with my site and automatically set up a page in my website with my most recent posts.
Question for you…as I keep reading about blogs, I’m finding all these great suggestions about adding blogrolls, buttons, etc to the side columns, and I can’t figure out how to do any editing other than changing the template theme. Is it possible to customize the P2 blog beyond just colors? If so, is it simple enough for non-technical people to do?
Karen
Hey that looks pretty good. But I like using wordpress. they have a lot of good widgets. I am working on a private label real estate blogging and CMS Set up.
If its a blog I always use wordpress. You just can get that type of community and community support elsewhere especially with a paid application that closes all its source.
As for me I do more than blog on my San Luis Obispo Blog. So I use drupal, its got a great community following just like wordpress it makes add-ons very easy. There are also a few real estate plug-ins that I haven’t yet taken advantage. Some that manage properties etc..
I don’t have the point 2 professional version. I have been using the free edition for about nine months now. I was considering upgrading to the professional version. Given this information about the blogging platform you may have swayed my decision.
I did use the Point 2 free version on occassion, but apparently you can only use IE to access the site. With my new MAC I only use Safari and Firefox, in fact there isn’t even a recent version of IE for MAC available. So I won’t be using this site anymore.
Wordpress is better for me, easy to costumize
Nice writing style. Looking forward to reading more from you