After a lengthy wait, the new Localism.com has finally arrived…
After some of the launch day bugs were worked out late last night, the site seems to be running pretty smoothly all things considered. The new face of Localism (a sister site to Activerain.com), is at first look very impressive. In the older site, the information was organized in a very sterile manner that simply corresponded directly with blog posts on Activerain.
In my opinion, the most valuable change has to do with aesthetics, but also with the way the blog posts actually render on the location pages.
Each major city, with a population over 40,000 will now have a sponsorship opportunity, that allows one agent to pay for a special picture, location description, and contact information like this sample city:
Sponsorship opportunities will open officially on July 31st at 12pm. You can read more about it on Rich’s Activerain blog.
Another significant change is the article review process. According to Jonathan Washburn (one of Activerain’s founders), each article and picture submited to Localism will now have to pass a human review process. The quality of posts was really becoming a problem on the old site, and this is a great addition although it will slow down the publishing process.
One obvious feature that is missing in the release are the Localism categories from the earlier version. I don’t see any section to look at posts about individual listings, or market reports. This is a very important feature that I hope they implement eventually. It’s nice to have community information, but it would be such a waste if they threw out all that content.
Great job guys! I look forward to the evolution of the new site, and hope you listen to the members of Activerain to make adjustments and improvements. The loyal AR community members are still the number one reason for AR’s success…
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July 15th, 2008 at 10:24 am
I have always like active rain it is a valid network of professionals. I do think that it is going to beneficial that it goes through moderation by humans. As always the more valid the content the better. One of the great things about the internet is access to information, though it can also be its own deficit.
July 16th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
Social media networks are great for anyone in real estate. I’ve been using them for quite a while and they work great. Human moderation works, especially on sites like digg.
Jackson Hole, well put on accessing the information. However, information overload and attention deficit is becoming a huge factor for everyone.
Peter
July 24th, 2008 at 7:31 pm
Localism is a great resource. Using activerain and localism is a double win for anyone working in the real estate industry.
August 6th, 2008 at 1:03 am
Localism is the key to advertising on the web and in search engines.
August 19th, 2008 at 1:02 am
Looks like a great community resource - thank you for posting this