New Comment Manager

October 6, 2007

Today we released a much-needed Comment Manager that allows for quick viewing and moderating of your blog's comments.

To manage your comments, click the "Comments" link under the "Manage" section in your Blog Manager.

The Comment Manager allows you to view all of the comments that have been posted to your Blog all on one page. The comments are ordered in reverse chronological order so the newest comments will always appear on top.

The Comment Manager will allow you to delete unwanted comments and approve new comments if you have comment moderation turned on.

The Comment Manager also provides a section to view all of the comments that you have written (including comments you have written on other Blogs at RealTown). This allows you to easily keep track of which blog entries you have participated on without the need to subscribe.

The Comment Manager was released early in an effort to provide you with basic comment moderation abilities directly from your Blog Manager while we continue to add additional features. Future plans for the Comment Manager include a reply feature and direct comment editing.

If you have any suggestions for the Comment Manager or have any questions, please let me know.

View more entries tagged with: Realtown Blogs, Realtown, Blogs, New Features, Comments, Comment Moderation

RealTown Blogs BETA

September 11, 2007

We have been heavily focused on improving your blogging experience with RealTown and have developed an entirely new public interface for you and your visitors.

We value and respect your opinions as professional bloggers and look forward to hearing your responses. Please read this entire document before responding as it may answer some of your concerns about the changes.

The biggest change to RealTown Blogs is its location on the Web. In order to increase the overall Search Engine Optimization (SEO) value of RealTown Blogs (and every blog within it), we have decided to migrate the entire public side of RealTown Blogs to the RealTown.com real estate portal. In other words, your Blog's web address will change from http://[username].realtownblogs.com to http://www.realtown.com/[username]/blog.

Before any panic sets in, please let me explain why we are doing this and how it will affect your blog.

As many of you may already know, the RealTown.com real estate site is becoming one of the most popular and respected sources for real estate information on the Web. With over 62,000 members, we believe that your Blog, if placed under the "Blogs" tab on RealTown.com, will benefit greatly from RealTown's success. In return, RealTown.com will also benefit from having your Blog under its domain. As far as SEO is concerned, it's a win-win situation.

We understand that many of you have well-respected and established Blogs at your current web address. When the new RealTown Blogs goes live and your Blog's web address changes, your current Blog web address will remain active and automatically redirect visitors to the new address. We will use a 301 redirect to inform Google and other search engines that your Blog has permanently moved to the new location. All of your entries, stickies, categories, and settings will be migrated in the transition. Your Blog will simply have a new home with a stronger foundation and will benefit from all of the features currently in place at RealTown.com.

To preview the beta version of the new RealTown Blogs, visit http://beta.realtown.com/blogs

We have also created a new default template for all of the Blogs on RealTown.com. At release, there will be two template modes to choose from: RealTown and Custom. Currently, all RealTown Blogs are using a "custom" template. As current RealTown Blogs members, your custom template will remain active. However, the RealTown template is considered by us to be very powerful and is designed to fit nicely in the Blogs tab of RealTown.com. You can decide to switch to the RealTown template at any time (this option will be available within your Blog Manager).

For the purposes of this beta test only, each Blog is temporarily set to use the RealTown template. This is to help you preview your Blog with the RealTown template and get a feel for its new features. To preview your blog with the new RealTown template, visit http://beta.realtown.com/[username]/blog and replace [username] with your RealTown Username.

For those of you who would like to see what your custom template would look like under the new web address, you can append "?template=custom" to the end of the web address, such as http://beta.realtown.com/[username]/blog?template=custom

Please remember that on the day of the official launch, your Blog will automatically be set to use your custom template and will appear identical to its current form. If you wish to switch to using the new RealTown template, you will need to log in to your Blog Manager and change this setting under Templates.

Here's a brief summary of some of the new features found in the new RealTown Blogs.

New Features

Fully maintained templates

• The default template has been changed to a totally new "RealTown" template that sits nicely in the Blogs tab of RealTown.com.
  
• The custom templates are still available as an option for those who want total control over their blog's appearance. (Updated 9/13/2007)
  
• SEO is maintained by RealTown on all templates, including custom templates. (Updated 9/13/2007)
  • SEO is automatically handled with intelligent META tags and proper HTML syntax. For example, each Category page will consist of META keywords based on the most popular tags of the entries within the category.
    
• Any changes made to the default template (bug fixes, style changes, etc) affect all blogs using the template, meaning every blog using it will always have the latest version.

Starred Entries

• When viewing any entry on anyone's Blog, you can now "star" the entry to save it for later viewing. Currently, the "star" feature is only available on the Blogs using the RealTown Template. Additionally, you must be logged in to use the "star" feature.
  
• You can view all of your starred entries by clicking the "My Starred Entries" link on the left-hand side-panel or by visiting http://beta.realtown.com/blogs/starred
• You can view who has starred a particular entry by appending "/stars" to the entry's web address.

Comments

• Comments can now be posted as "private" and will be hidden from other visitors. Only the blog owner will be able to see the comment.
• Visitors can now choose to subscribe to your entries when they submit a comment. Each new comment that is posted to the entry will send an email to all of the subscribers to notify them of the new comment.
• (Added 9/13/2007) Comments written by the blog owner (which are usually responses to visitor comments) are automatically assigned the CSS class "commentByOwner". You can use this CSS class in your own custom template to make your own comments stand out. The RealTown template uses this class to automatically make your comments appear with a light orange background.

We appreciate your feedback and look forward to your responses. Update: 9/13/2007
Thank you all for your excellent feedback. We have implemented most of the changes that were requested. Please continue sharing your ideas on how to make RealTown Blogs the best Blogging platform for Real Estate Professionals.

View more entries tagged with: Realtown Blogs, Realtown, Blogs, New Features, Seo, Blog Template

Redirecting Your Blog to RealTown.com with 301

September 11, 2007

In the near future, RealTownBlogs.com will begin redirecting visitors to the new RealTown Blogs hosted by RealTown.com. In order to keep our members from losing any SEO rankings or searchability, we will be using a 301 Header Redirect.

What is a Header Redirect?
When your web browser communicates with web servers, it uses "headers" to pass data back and forth in the background. Usually headers will contain things like:

• Which page was requested.
• When the page was last updated.
• Who owns the page (the web server).

Headers can also contain instructions for your browser. In the case of RealTownBlogs.com, we will be pointing your browsers to the new RealTown Blogs location at RealTown.com. Most browsers will have no problem following this instruction because they understand that the world wide web is an ever-evolving place. Sometimes, pages move, and that's what Header Redirects are for.

What is a 301 Header Redirect?
Headers Redirects can also provide information your browser as to why the page was moved. I won't go through the complete list here, but the code 301 means the page has permanently moved to a new location.

Why is a 301 Header Redirect important?
Search engines such as Google and MSN use Header Redirect codes to help them index their pages. When their web-crawling bots visit RealTown Blogs, they will receive a 301 Header Redriect to the new web address. The 301 tells them to update their records, and that the content has moved. It's the best way of guaranteeing that search engines will still be able to find you.

For more information as to why we're initiating this 301 Header Redirect, please visit http://beta.realtown.com/hector/blog/blog-development/realtown-blogs-beta

View more entries tagged with: Headers, Redirect, Realtown Blogs, Realtown, Blogs, New Features

Posting A Video to my Blog

June 19, 2007

This video was automatically posted to my blog via the File Uploads page of the RealTown Blogs Manager. So far it seems to work great in Internet Explorer (except for the security message that popped up asking me to confirm my trust of the "Windows Media Player Core by Microsoft"). It's still being worked on for FireFox but we are almost there. I think the problem with this video in FireFox is not the HTML, but rather the video compression codec used on the video file itself. I'll have to test this out with other videos to see confirm this.

We eventually want to upgrade this to a powerful little Flash video player. Although not everyone has Flash, it's still common enough to allow the majority of our visitors to view the movie. Plus, we can use the simple HTML-based player above for those without Flash.

View more entries tagged with: None

Email Your Blog with File Attachments

October 9, 2006

View more entries tagged with: Realtown Blogs, Blogging, Blogs, Features, Email, Updates

New Default Template

September 28, 2006

The default template for new members of RealTown Blogs has been updated to match the sleek new look/feel of RealTown Blogs. My blog is currently using the new default template.

New members will have this template selected by default, while existing members can select this one from the Choose Template page in their Blog Manager.

This new template shows off some of the key features of our customizable templating, including a customizable comment layout and special links like "Email this entry" (try the one below). Click on any one of my entries that have comments to see how the comments are laid out, complete with comment author avatars and details about the comment.

View more entries tagged with: Realtown Blogs, Blogging, Blogs, Features, Templates

Email Your Blog

September 12, 2006

View more entries tagged with: None

RealTown Blogs Wish List

August 22, 2006

RealTown Blogs is always expanding with new features, updates, and tools to help any blogger (especially real estate bloggers) get their thoughts and ideas to the web. Here is what we have planned for the future of RealTown Blogs.

• "Friends List" review
• Ability to post to your blog via email
• System notifications about comments/authors/entries upon logging in
• More templates (ongoing)
• Instant Messenger (already working, just needs to be stylized a la RealTown)
• "Blog Manager" redesign (ongoing)
• Featured Entries
• Paid Premium Features
• User Ads (requires Paid Premium Features)
• Image handling (gallery, better upload tool, etc.)
• "Search My Blog" ability
• Multiple Authors

Be sure to bookmark this entry as I'll be updating it as we continue to update RealTown Blogs.

View more entries tagged with: Realtown Blogs, Blogging, Blogs, Wishlist, Features

Featured Entries

June 30, 2006

Testing out Featured Entries.

If a member is "Featured" or "Super-Featured", BlogTeam will automatically be added to their mailing list.

I have temporarily made myself a "Featured" member to try this out... :)

View more entries tagged with: Blogs, Featured, Blogteam

JavaScript is Back!

June 20, 2006

JavaScript has been re-enabled on RealTown Blogs for all of our Members. Now you can add things like custom stat counters and other useful tools to your Blog!

Of course, in order to protect our Members, we will be keeping an eye out for malicious JavaScript entries.

View more entries tagged with: Javascript, Blogs, Blogging, Realtownblogs, Security, Realtown

Categories Vs. Tags

June 15, 2006

As you may have noticed, we have just implemented tags here on RealTown Blogs. We already had an existing category system that was fairly powerful, with features like cross-posting between multiple categories and sticky entries. So what's the point of tags if we already can organize our posts by category?

In my mind, tags and categories are not the same thing, although they both serve the same purpose. They both are used to organize your entries. The difference, though, is dependent on how you use them.

Categories here on RealTown Blogs are, in my mind, very structural. They are like the limbs of your Blog. Tags, however, are more like the characteristics of the limbs. Some limbs are similar, like your hands and feet both have nails on the end, but to keep things organized we'll separate them as hands and feet.

When it comes to your entries, you can "describe" your entry using tags, but then "place" the entry as a whole into a category.

Another big distinction between categories and tags is that categories are always used in the URL of your entry, while tags are not.

Examples of Categories Vs. Tags:

Categories: Computers, Art, Design, Music
Tags: Windows XP, Photoshop, Michealangelo, Web Design, Funny Songs

Generally, categories are much more general in scope, but they don't have to be. And tags seem to be more detailed, but they don't have to be.

So with the power to add both categories and tags to your Blog, it's best for you to come up with your own thoughts on how to use them effectively on your Blog.

View more entries tagged with: Blogs, Blogging, Realtownblogs, Categories Vs Tags, Categories, Tags

Tags

June 15, 2006

Tags can now be added to your Blog! You can now add up to 10 tags to each entry from the Edit Entry or Add New Entry screen of the Blog Manager. Just separate your tags with a comma and you're good to go!

To make your tags appear alongside your Blog entry, just add None to your template. Couldn't be easier! Just make sure that you place None somewhere between and in the template since tags are associated with each entry (just like <%Title%> is).

I suggest adding this complete line directly after the ... section of your template:

If you have any trouble modifying your template, you can always reselect your template to get the updated version with None already in there.

View more entries tagged with: None

Comment Moderation on Entries

June 5, 2006

Entries can now be set to approval mode for their comments.

View more entries tagged with: Blogs, Blogging, Realtownblogs

RealTown Instant Messenger

May 26, 2006

We're busy working on integrating an existing open-source instant messaging client into RealTown. So far, it seems to work nicely with RealTownBlogs.com. You can probably see a button right under my avatar that says "IM: Online Now!" or "IM: Offline". If you ever see me online, just click the button to send me a message. It's still in developmen, so there may be a few bugs here and there, but it's getting there. I'll also be updating the look/feel of the IM so that it matches RealTown.

 

View more entries tagged with: Blogs, Blogging, Realtownblogs, Instant Messenger, Im

Search Engine Optimization part 2

April 18, 2006

I've been working on the URL structure of our Blogs, and so far it's coming along nicely. My biggest concern was getting rid of the "?" in the URL. Having a "?" in the URL can cause some problems with search engines, so I'm rewriting all of the URLs as directory names.

For example:
http://www.realtownblogs.com/?u=hector
becomes:
http://hector.realtownblogs.com

This makes it much easier for search engines to index our pages because it "tricks" the search engine into thinking /hector is a real folder (when it's really not). I've also expanded on this and created the following URL structures:

http://username.realtownblogs.com/
http://username.realtownblogs.com/archive
http://username.realtownblogs.com/archive/year/month
http://username.realtownblogs.com/profile
http://username.realtownblogs.com/page#
http://username.realtownblogs.com/category
http://username.realtownblogs.com/category/page#
http://username.realtownblogs.com/category/entry

The words in green are variables, while the rest in black is to help the script know what you're trying to view. The script is also smart enough to know if a bad link is requested, and should step down the ladder until something matches. For example, if you try to access http://www.realtownblogs.com/hector/funkydoo, it will notice that hector doesn't have a category named "funkydoo" and will just redirect you to http://www.realtownblogs.com/hector. Pretty neat, eh?

I'll be adding support in each of your backend interfaces to let you modify the URLs for your categories / entries if you want to personalize them a bit more.

View more entries tagged with: Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine, Seo, Realtownblogs, Blogs, Blogging, Realtown

Small Update and Advanced Stats Coming Soon!

March 31, 2006

I've been making a few changes to the Blog system today. Nothing big, just a few graphical tweaks and adjustments here and there.

I also have been working on a big update for the stats engine -- so big we might have to start charging for it! Would you guys be willing to pay for things like day-by-day detailed stats, monthly and weekly views, visits by location, etc.? We're not sure what kind of price tag these advanced statistics may have, but of course we'll make it reasonable :)

 

View more entries tagged with: Realtownblogs, Blogs, Blogging, Realtown, Stats

Multiple Categories

March 24, 2006

I just added support for assigning multiple categories to any entry. So now any of your entries can appear in any of your categories (or all of them if you want!). It's actually still a single instance of the entry (not a duplicate), so things like comments and edits will be carried over to all of the pages it appears on.

 

View more entries tagged with: Realtownblogs, Blogs, Blogging, Realtown, Categories

Updates and Avatar Fixes

February 9, 2006

I've updated all of the Blog templates so your images should no longer be squished or squashed (or both). Now all it does is squeeze, but usually only as much as it needs to. If your Blog is still squishing or squashing your photo, log in and re-select your template from the list. Or, you can manually edit the template yourself. Just remove the "height" attribute from the img tag. You can leave the width one there, and your browser should automatically resize your image proportionally. In other words, remove the part in RED:

width='100' height='100'

Ta da!!

I'm also working on a new page for RealTownBlogs.com. This page will be the memberlist and search page. To preview it during its development, click the link below:

Member List

 

View more entries tagged with: Realtownblogs, Blogs, Blogging, Realtown, Avatars

Vendor Blog Template

January 30, 2006

I just finished creating the VendorBlog template. It matches the current VendorBlog homepage that I created not too long ago. My Blog is currently using the template, so that's why you might see the words VendorBlog in a few places. Hope you all like it :)

 

View more entries tagged with: Realtownblogs, Blogs, Blogging, Realtown, Vendor Blogs, Vendors

Profile Avatars Fixed

January 17, 2006

 

If any of you were wondering why yourprofile pics looked squashed or stretched, it's because of a small HTMLbug in the Blog scripts. I looked over this last night and found theproblem: the "img" tag was specifying both a width and heightof 100 pixels. Fortunately, if you remove one of those attributes, theimage is automatically resized proportionally, so I removed"height=100" and left "width=100" there. Your pics in your profileshould look great now. :)

View more entries tagged with: Realtownblogs, Blogs, Blogging, Realtown, Avatars, Profiles