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]
I'm Jay Thompson, and I have a little blogging problem... Welcome to The Phoenix Real Estate Guy, or "TPREG" as I fondly refer to it.
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