Every once in a while someone asks me how they can use vFlyer to post to eBay. This week, after a little bit of spring cleaning, I decide to sell a couple of items on eBay and illustrate the simplicity of posting items to eBay in this blog post.

1. Creating the Flyer
First you need to create a flyer for the item you are trying to auction. Since vFlyer supports over 40 different product categories, you should be able to find the right category for your item. I decided to auction off my wife’s Palm Z22 (don’t worry, like a good husband I asked her first). I created a flyer in the electronics category, and did the following to enhance my auction listing (and hopefully sell it for more).

• I added custom fields to give readers more information about the product. My custom fields included: Processor, RAM, Operating System and Processor speed – the basic information i found on in its manual.
• I added some links to reviews on the product, always a good idea, and eBay has no problem with links to third party sites.
• Since I have a Premium account thata supports video embedding, I decided to add a video clip. I went to YouTube, did a search on “Palm z22”, found a great education review video, and added it to my flyer.

Here is what my flyer looked like when i was done (See Flyer)

2. Posting into eBay
I logged into my eBay account, selected Sell an Item from the Sell menu and I was ready to go. After filling out the necessary information, I went into the main posting page. In the middle of the page was the Description textbox. I made sure I clicked on the HTML tab and I pasted the HTML code for my flyer into the box (I got te HTML from the Post tab of my flyer). I finished filling out the information on eBay and I was done!

Important Note: If you want to include large versions of your entire gallery then use the Craigslist Version of the HTML

Here is the auction item I created (See Auction)

3. Promoting your eBay Auction (Optional)
Now I had created and published my auction, I wanted to promote it on the many leading online marketplaces that vFlyer supports (such as Google Base, Vast, Oodle, and Edgeio).
I went back into vFlyer and edited my original flyer. I added a new link in the Links section to my newly created eBay Auction and I then Re-published my flyer. As a result, the latest version of my flyer (which contained the link to my auction) got distributed to the leading marketplaces so that visitors to my flyer can link on my auction link to bid on my item!

Premium Widgets are similar to existing Standard Widgets but can only be accessed by subscribers - another great reason to upgrade your account if you haven’t done so yet. A vFlyer Starter account gives you access to premium features such as premium widgets and themes, no advertising, bulk upload, more flyers and video for as little as $9.95/month.

The first of these is a gallery slider widget. To see how it works mouse over the main picture or one of the thumbnails at the bottom. You can also pause the slideshow or advance to the next or previous slides.

The second gallery premium widget is abanner gallery widget. This 728px x 90px widget conforms to the standard leaderboard IAB (Internet Advertising Bureau) ad unit was designed to be used a flash banner or banner ad at the top of your page.

Because of its size it doesn’t quite fit my blog post but you can use the scroll bar to see what it looks like. Mousing over an item, removes the transparent flap and pauses the slideshow!

You can find premium widgets by creating a widget and then scrolling to the bottom of the style list below and looking for the premium icon :

It has been a busy two weeks for Trulia, one of our good distribution network partners. Last week, Trulia moved out of Beta (Pete Flint, Trulia’s President and CEO, made the prediction at our Real Estate 2.0 dinner earlier this year) and announced two great new services: Trulia Voices - an interactive real estate question-and-answer service, and HousingWidgets - a central directory of real estate widgets. Yesterday the company announced Series C funding lead by one of Silicon Valley’s best known venture capital (VC) firms - Sequoia Capital! Congrats to Pete and the team at Trulia.

For industry watchers, I think it’s safe for me to make the following conclusions:

Community is Where its at!
Real estate players are moving quickly to build communities and capture market through “accelerating” community-building. Here is why:

• Community is hard to build, and its hard to start an online conversation - but “break the ice” by allowing people to ask and answer questions (something there is no shortage of) and “viola” you have a “instant” conversation which hopefully leads to community or at least better community. ActiveRain (Q&A), LinkedIn (Answers), and Zillow (Home Q&A) have all taken a similar path to help build or enhance their communities.
• Overlay community with commerce and you’ve got a winner! The next step in rolling out community is enabling some form of commercial activity. Whether its placing ads or buying services, the process is akin to building a stadium: Build it and they will come - and then they’ll stick around and buy something! But the trick is to build community first, then introduce commerce. Pete is super smart guy so I am sure Trulia has some interesting things in the works!

Widgets Rule!
HousingWidgets is a great idea since it provides a directory of real estate specific widgets. If you are hungry for more widgets, you may also want to check out the real estate category on WidgetBox as well. Here is why people love widgets and why widget will inherit the earth:

• Widget add functionality and interactivity to your site. Almost everyone has a blog or a website today! Widgets give bloggers and site owners a quick and easy way to add interactive and interesting content to their site! (Okay, maybe not everyone, but many people). Companies like Trulia and vFlyer have a growing number of widgets aimed at online sellers and real estate agents in particular. (Examples: vFlyer Widget, Trulia Widgets)
• Widgets let you take it with you. Widgets, like vFlyer’s commerce widgets, let you take your listings, inventory and other important information with you! That means you can embed the same widgets on your blog, your social network and your website, at the same time, driving people the the same listings or content.

I think many companies forget how important users and customers really are! Without them, where would we be? The other day I decided to pick up the phone and call some of our customer - just to check in and see how they were doing. I wanted to find out how they were using our service and if there was anything else we could do to build a better service or provide better support!

The experience was a blast. We are very fortunate to have such energetic, hard working and supportive users and it was nice of them to give me a couple minutes of their busy days to share their thoughts (note: real estate professionals and auto dealers are some of the busiest folks out there!). I had many great conversations and in the process I learned about new features we should add and other ways we could improve our service. Most importantly, I think those customers that I spoke with appreciate the effort (thanks Rick & Ines Team).

Obviously as our user-base continues to grow rapidly, it becomes more and more difficult reaching out to everyone, but I think it is important for companies to develop a culture of customer support and appreciation and there are many ways to do that. I would love to hear from our users and others how they reach out and make their customer feel important and appreciated and perhaps we can all learn from their experiences.

A growing number of vFlyer users are taking their flyers to MySpace. Users are using flyers in their profiles (Example) and blogs (Example), many are using flyers and widgets on their pages to sell real estate (Example: Darren Kittleson), promote their events (Example: Chola), hire employees, publicize organizations (Example: Stacy Orrico in African) or just sell stuff online (Example).

If you already on MySpace you probably know how the whole thing works. Adding flyers and widgets to the mix is simple, follow the directions on the Support Wiki to get started:

For those of who are online sellers, REALTORS, or business owners interested in joining MySpace to network and market your services here are several good resources:

• Brian Brady has an ActiveRain blog and frequent blogger on marketing on MySpace
• Yaro Starak of Entrepreneurs Journey has an good primer on the subject
• Greg Holden writes about eBay Seller success on MySpace in his AuctionBytes article

A number of Gen-X’s swear by MySpace. For Example, Michael DeMello in his recent blog post writes:

Liane Jamason, a REALTOR in Riverview, FL, writes in her blog:

Florida’s Sunday Morning Talk identifies a growing MySpace trend:

True, MySpace does appeal more to the younger generation but many have figured out how to use it to network and sell. Here are some points to keep in mind:

• Create a MySpace account, create a profile, upload your photos - make it attractive and engaging
• MySpace is about “collecting friends”! The more you can add the better! People usually find you by navigating through “friend lists” so the “friendlier” you are, the more traffic you’ll get
• Network and “connect” by joining groups (and there are many of them) and participate in forums
• Some people use more than one profile to target different niches
• Use videos, music, widgets from vFlyer and others to “dress up” your page and catch people’s interest
• Like everything else, it takes time to build credibility and a reputation so be patient
• Informally blog about your property listings or other items you want to sell, use vFlyers to make them stand out
• Consider that even companies like Apple, Brooklyn Museum, Jack in the Box, and Nike Soccer all have a presence on MySpace

Obviously MySpace isn’t for everyone - but its still a great place to post flyers and widgets!

Well almost! Stacie Orrico is a is Grammy-nominated and Dove Award-winning pop singer, songwriter, and occasional actress (See Wikipedia). If you regularly listen to the radio, you have probably heard her single “I’m Not Missing You” which peaked at #19 on the US Billboard charts and #8 on the UK R&B Singles Chart. Well in February 2007, Orrico left Virgin Records and started raising money to move to Africa to help children with AIDS. In March, we received an email from Thomas Michael, who works with Stacie, about using vFlyer to get the word out. Thomas wrote:

At vFlyer, we love a good cause, so we were delighted to help out! Thomas and others have done a great job of using both flyers and widgets on MySpace to spread the word and we are glad to be a part of it and we wish Stacie the best as she ventures to do something good and positive in the world!

Many vFlyer users embed their flyers directly on their blogs or websites. This lets prospective customers see what they have for sale or rent. There are 4 ways to do this:

1. Cut and Paste HTML
This involves clicking on the Post tab of your flyer, selecting the Other Sites HTML version of the HTML code, copying the code and pasting it into your blog post or web page. This method works on most online blogging services such as ActiveRain, Blogger, MySpace Blog, TagWorld Blog, TypePad, RealTown, and Wordpress.org. For more info on embedding flyers, visit our Support Wiki.

2. Javascript Include
Last week, Oliver talked about the Flyer ID and how to go about finding it. Using the Flyer ID and one line of javascript code you can dynamically have flyers inserted on your blog post (your blogging software or service must support Javascript!). The format for doing this is:

Just replace the {vFlyerId} with your flyer’s ID. Your final line of javascript should look like this:

Copy and paste this code into your blog post or web page and you are done. Your flyer will now appear. When you republish your flyer you do not need to update the HTML since each time the page loads it retrieves the most recent version of your flyer!

3. Wordpress Plugin

If you are using Wordpress to run your blog, you can use the vFlyer Insert Wordpress Plugin which can be found on vFlyerLabs. Download the plugin and follow the instructions on the Support Wiki to install it. Once the plugin is installed, embedding flyers on your blog is super easy! Simply type the following in a post (use your own Flyer ID of course), save it and you are done. This approach also dynamically loads your flyer, so it fetches the latest version of your flyer each time the page loads.

4. Integration
If you are looking for other options or approaches to seamlessly integrate your gallery or flyers with your blog or website, please contact our professional services organization. They regularly work with customers to help them implement custom solutions in HTML, Javascript, PHP, Java, ASP.NET and other programming languages.

Another special thank you to the wonderful folks at Activerain who are always working hard to improve their platform! The latest release of ActiveRain now supports all the tags you’ll need to embed vFlyers in your blog post. Here is an example of what they look like!

Embedding flyers is simple! Follow the straight forward instructions on the Support Wiki. Simply go to the Post tab of your flyer, copy the HTML in the Other Sites HTML tab, make sure the HTML tab of your ActiveRain post is selected, paste the HTML and voila – this is what it looks like - a thing of beauty. In addition to the professional standard themes to choose from, you can create and customize your own new themes so the sky is the limit.

I know a number of vFlyer users on ActiveRain have been asking for months when this issue would be resolved, so today is bright day for all of us!

Each day, we get all sorts of great ideas (both internally and from customers) on new features and tools we should add to our service. vFlyer Labs showcases cool tools and technologies for online sellers that were developed internally by us or by outside partners based on many of these ideas!

The types of tools and technologies on vFlyer Labs generally fall into 3 categories:

• Future features that will eventually make it into our service
• Tools and technologies that are useful to vFlyer users and online sellers
• Interesting products and services we are testing to better understand how customers would potentially use them

Many of these tools are not yet ready for prime time but you can help by testing them, sharing your feedback and suggestions and even submitting your own tools. If we think it’s cool or useful, we’ll post it. We hope you find the vFlyer Labs a useful and interesting resource and we’ll update date you as new tools become available.

The labs concept is one a growing number of companies use to test new product ideas (Google Labs, Adobe Labs, Mozilla Labs, Reuters Labs and Digg Labs just to name a few), including several real estate technology players (Zillow Labs, Trulia, and Eppraisal).

The vFlyer Star program identifies and recognizes our biggest and most active users, supporters and advocates. Last month we featured Maureen Henry, who runs a successful home staging company in Rockland County, NY, as our first vFlyer Star. This month, we feature Missy Caulk - a tech savvy REALTOR with RE/MAX Platinum in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

I initially “ran” into Missy Caulk by following her many posts on the “blogosphere” and soon discovered that she, like Maureen, was a Flyer “superuser,” fan and online cheerleader! When she isn’t busy selling, Missy is generously sharing great tips, advice and information with other agents on the Web!

Here is what Missy has to say about her office:

RE/MAX Platinum is home to great agents, who sell more homes per agent than any other company in the area. We average 11.5 homes per year per agent in sales…Other companies in the area, average only 3 to 7…The Ann Arbor office, is like a big, happy family! We share ideas and don’t try to keep new things to ourselves. It is a positive environment to work in.

Thanks Missy! We appreciate your support.

	Name: Missy Caulk Company: RE/MAX Platinum See vFlyer | See Blog How I use vFlyer: I use vFlyer in several ways: I create a flyer and email it to all the RE/MAX agents to announce a new listing. I create a widget and post it on ActiveRain and Localism so the public can view it, when they are learning about Ann Arbor and Saline. I add comments. I then add it to my widget gallery and it keeps it current and fresh I notify my sellers of the post and send it to anyone else in my community that I feel needs to know about the new listing. I submit it to annarbor.craigslist.org and syndicate it to all the websites vFlyer publishes to. What I like best: I love it, it is so much fun to create professional brochures and be able to email them out. I love the widgets. (I learned all about them here). I was so impressed with the free offer, that I tried it and felt it was well worth investing in the product for one year. Now, I can create as many as I want. I have referred it out to everyone who asks “How did you do that?” I also use the vFlyer PDF in my homes instead of the boring MLS data sheet. One important thing - maybe the most important - is that the support is excellent. Someone gets right back to me. Once I sent a email and immediately, I got a call back. I mean within seconds of clicking “send”. Usage: vFlyer Star Badge

If you think you or someone else you know should be recognized as a vFlyer Star, let us know by sending an email to blog@vflyer.com

Thanks for all the responses and input to my original Real Estate 2.0 posting! As I mentioned in my post, the companies listed were only representative of the categories but since then I have started to compile a more comprehensive list of categories and companies which i will share in the next couple of weeks as time allows. There were a couple categories I missed (podcasting for example) as well as entries into categories like community that have been announced since (Trulia for example).

A number of individuals have ask to be notified as I update the list. I have setup a Yahoo Group (Real Estate 2.0 Group) for that purpose. If you want to receive uploads via email simply join below:

We appreciate all blog mentions we got from our partners and other folks on the list including Inman Blog, Zillow, HotPads, Altos Research, MyNextDeal, Jaxtr, Realty Baron, Eppraisal (RealtyThoughts) as well as other industry blogs such as Curbed, Rain City Guide, The Real Estate Tomato, Screenwerk, and many others.

We are a third place winner in SEOmoz’s Web 2.0 Awards 2007 in the Classifieds and Directories category and in the good company of both Craigslist and our partner Oodle. Some of our others partners like Zillow, Hotpads and PropSmart where either winners or honorable mentions in the Real Estate category. Congrats to all.

Real Estate 2.0: Web 2.0 Companies Realtors Should Care About!

At vFlyer we very much see ourselves moving steadily towards a new paradigm of classified ad distribution, and as a result, many times we find ourselves labeled as a “Web 2.0” or “Classifieds 2.0” company. Earlier this year, I started to identify and understand how other companies, particularly in the real estate space, were extending or introducing new paradigms of their own. Sometimes it’s convenient to try and divide companies (Web 2.0 companies in this case) into meaningful categories. For example, Pat Kitano talks about self-expression, relationships and collaboration in the Web 2.0 social networking space as potential groupings. This is my attempt to identify and communicate the functional categories that I think matter most to real estate professionals.

I am sure some of you are asking “What is Web 2.0?” Unfortunately, there is no one good definition, but to paraphrase the wikipedia: Web 2.0 is a term often applied to a perceived ongoing transition on the Web from a collection of static websites to a full-fledged computing platform serving web applications to end users. The companies I mention below are provided as representative examples only and are not necessarily comprehensive:

Aggregation
	Real estate search engines and aggregators help buyers find homes for sale or rent by collecting (or aggregating) listings from multiple sources into a single location. By crawling, indexing and then conveniently organizing and mapping listings, aggregators simplify and speed up the search process for online buyers. Trulia and PropSmart focus on homes, while HotPads focuses on apartments and rentals and MyNextDeal on commercial properties.
Blogging
	Blogs originally started as personal journal sites but have evolved into powerful business tools. Real estate blogs allow real estate professionals to communicate local real estate information as well as share knowledge and opinions. Companies in this category enable agents to manage and promote their blogs. ActiveRain, the 800-pound gorilla in this category, does this in the context of a great real estate community, while Blogging Systems, TomatoBlogs and RSS Pieces are blogging platforms and solution providers.
Community
	Real estate Communities allow real estate professionals to connect with each other on the Web. Second generation communities like ActiveRain allow users to collaborate and share information online through blogs, forums, and other forms of interactive communication. Others with an eye on building online real estate communities include Zillow, which has added Home Q&A as a community feature aimed at home buyers, owners, and sellers to its site, and is continuing to move in that direction. Inman’s Real Estate Connect is perhaps where online real estate community started and still thrives.
Communication
	Communication offerings range from instant messaging (IM) service aggregators like Meebo to click-to-call service providers like Jaxtr and ZiffTalk. These services make it easier for prospective buyers to contact real estate professionals via IM, phone or email. Most have widgets that can be embedded on websites or blogs to facilitate the communication process.
Distribution
	Distributors and syndicators like vFlyer, enable real estate professionals and online sellers to distribute their listings and classified ads to leading online marketplaces like Google Base, Oodle, Vast, Trulia, Edgeio, Propsmart, Hotpads and others. Point2 also has distribution tools for property ads, but vFlyer supports significantly more “delivery endpoints” including email, widgets, mobile and PDFs for offline use.
Mapping
	The companies build value-added service on top of mapping technology to deliver innovative, interactive or unique information that is interesting or important to prospective home buyers. Zillow maps home valuations on satellite maps, Neighboroo visualizes area demographics using color-coded “Information Maps”, Trulia uses “Heat Maps” to show pricing trends. Hotpads also uses heat maps to display census data for neighborhoods.
Reviews
	These sites either allow consumers (online buyers) to review or rate real estate agents or provide other metrics (such as homes sold, i.e.) to help home buyers find, evaluate and select a REALTOR®. Homethinking provides customer reviews, as well as current and past listings as indicators of performance. Realty Baron provides REALTORS with an AgentRankTM based on professional experience, recent home sales, and endorsements, while Incredible Agent provides a “unique rating system” designed to help “incredible agents” stand out.
Social Bookmarking
	Social bookmarking allows users to store, organize, share, search and most importantly rank bookmarks or links. Real Estate Voices is a real estate social bookmarking site that help users discover the most interesting articles of the day, as voted and suggested by fellow users, saving users time and exposing valuable knowledge quickly.
Social Networking
	Social networks build on community sites by highlighting individual user profiles, enabling and encouraging the adding of “friends,” contacts or associates, and balancing user interaction with group interaction. InmanNews probably best describes their true potential when it says “Social Networking websites present new opportunities for real estate brokers to find and recruit new agents, or find fresh sales leads. New agents might find them useful for gleaning business advice from other agents. Home buyers and sellers could tap them as a resource to find a real estate agent.” ActiveRain is the “MySpace of Real Estate,” while MyBlogLog connects users through their blogs.
Widgets
	Widgets allow real estate professionals to embed elements of core functionality directly on their websites, social networking sites, or blogs by simply copying and pasting HTML code. vFlyer’s listing widgets enable REALTORS® to list one or more properties for sale on their blogs, Trulia’s TruliaMap shows all the listings in a given location and WidgetBox is a general marketplace for widgets with several interesting categories.
Wikis
	Wikis are a shared central source of knowledge and information that usually anyone can contribute to. By allowing contributors to collaborate and by combining knowledge from diverse resources, the goal of a real estate wiki is to become an authoritative source of real estate information. Zillow Wiki was one of the first, InmanWiki which aims to be the “world’s largest real estate encyclopedia.”
Valuation
	These companies allow consumers to get, provide or understand real estate property valuation information. Zillow, eppraisals.com and HomeGain provide property valuation information. My-currency.com provides community-driven price predictions for homes, while others like Altos Research provides real-time market trend analysis. For real estate professionals, these services can help provide a “pricing context” and comparables for prospective buyers and lead to more educated decision-making.
Video
	These companies provide services that allow real estate professionals and online sellers to upload, manage and host video tours or other business videos. YouTube simply provides hosting (and in some cases, marketing exposure), while others like TurnHere and WellcomeMat provide other value-added services, including the ability to locate videographers or help with product.

To give credit where credit is due, I did get some early input from Kevin Boer of 3 Oceans, Pat Kitano of Transparent Real Estate, and Erik Hersman of RealtyThoughts.

If you think I’ve missed a category, let me know. I will do a follow on posting with your ideas and suggestions. Hope you find this list useful (or at least interesting).

Just last week, the Jacobsmedia Tech Poll found that the cellphones have become an integral part of American culture, and text messaging leads the way! Not surpisingly seventy six percent (76%) of those who own a cellphone say they have utilized texting – especially 18-34 year-olds - by far the most used feature on the phone! Internet browsing on the cell phone came in at 26%.  The report adds:

There are two ways to send flyers using text messaging. When you view or edit a flyer you’ll notice that the Email tab is now the Email and SMS tab. As long as you are a subscriber, you will be able to text potential buyers a link to your mobile flyer by simply entering their cellphone number and a short message.  You can also send a text message from vFlyer Mobile. After you select a flyer, you’ll have the option of viewing it, viewing its traffic activity, emailing or texting it! So next time you want to impress a tech saavy prospective buyer simply tell them “I’ll text you a link to my vFlyer!”.