First let me say, I have a new found appreciation for the "professional blog readers" in Washington, Caleb and Matt. I read a lot of blogs every day, because there is a lot to be learned on ActiveRain. Saying one blog is better than another is really very subjective. My opinion of what is good/better/best is tempered by my personal interests and opinions, no matter how objective I may try to be.
I was really pleased by the participation in this first Carnival of ActiveRain. Thank you so much to everyone who entered. You gave me a lot of great stuff to read, and a lot to think about. I printed out a big stack of entries yesterday morning and passed them around the table at a breakfast meeting I attended so that I could share some of the great stuff I get to read every day. My coworkers were impressed. I was delighted to be introduced to bloggers who had been flying below my radar, and a couple who have just begun here. That was exactly what I had hoped for when I started this. I was also really happy to see some of my daily reads take the plunge and throw their names in the hat.
Thank you to my co-hosts, who agreed to participate in my first attempt at anything like this. And thanks to everyone who took a moment to encourage another blogger to send in a post. Thanks to Caleb for offering some points to the winners and doing what he could to help make sure people knew this was going on.
I have two announcements to make in this post. Mary McKnight is traveling right now, and she emailed her winner for Tips and Tricks yesterday.
(drum roll please...)
Damion Flynn takes home the honors for More Free Advertising. Damion's got a great post about submitting articles to various sites to help improve search engine placement. For bloggers, what could be easier? We are already writing, so the issue seems to be getting some of our work spread out to bring back traffic. Seems like a good idea to me. Thank you Damion and congratulations!
Which means I have to get back to my assignment. I've been having trouble with this one all night. In part, I think we as a community are having trouble deciding which categories our posts belong in. I had a couple of people ask me about this as they submitted articles. So I went back to the definition of what is supposed to be in this category.
ActiveRain Community: Posts dealing specifically with some facet of the ActiveRain Real Estate Network. Such as posts about features, improvements to the system, discussions among members, etc.
Doing this cut down the number of posts I had to chose from. Some very good posts just did not seem to fit this definition.
There were two posts that I really liked because they both addressed one event in the community this week, an anonymous post on Craig Schiller's blog. They complimented each other very nicely. Thank you Craig and Marti Garaughty. I've noticed more anonymous posting lately and Craig handled it with aplomb.
A second set of excellent posts was about building community (cow-munity) and the power of ActiveRain. Maureen McCabe is the AR blogger who most often has a great chart to illustrate her point. Maureen's arguments for blogging on ActiveRain are compelling and well supported. Angus Woodbury, of course, is most likely to use a cow to illustrate his point. I look forward to those cows and those charts!
In all, I love how these posts are examples of what blogging can be: interrelated conversations on the web, social networking, and the fantastic opportunities that the ActiveRain community has to offer.
Which takes me to my selection for ActiveRain Community.
(another drum roll please...)
The post I've selected is by someone who talks about growing her network, and her business, and how she has made ActiveRain a part of all of that. I admire Margaret Rome's synergistic approach; it reminds me of things I need to do in building my own business. And I certainly would consider it a treat to sit in on one of Margaret's seminars.
Congratulations Margaret.
I will be updating this post with the other host's selections as they come in. Here is the recap and the link to the host's post:
Carol Williams for Real Estate Opinion
Jeff Belonger for Finance
Toby Boyce for Industry News
Damion Flynn for Tips, Tricks & Advice
Margaret Rome for ActiveRain Community
Linda Davis for Off Topic/Humor
Thanks again to everyone who participated. They really were all very fine articles.
Check out the wrap up for the Carnival of ActiveRain on miOaklandCounty.com
Good job Maureen I'm sure that was a lot of work. And excellent selections! You really had a group of very good bloggers to choose from, that must have been difficult.
Congratulations!! Damion and Margaret
Congratulations to the winners and also to you MF for putting this together. I commend you for taking on this very difficult task.
ines
Damion: Congrats Great entry! I had not read it before. It is great that the Carnival gives us a second chance...
Margaret: Congratulations, I thought it was a great entry when I read it the first time.
MF wrote: A second set of excellent posts was about building community (cow-munity) and the power of ActiveRain. Maureen McCabe is the AR blogger who most often has a great chart to illustrate her point. Maureen's arguments for blogging on ActiveRain are compelling and well supported. Angus Woodbury, of course, is most likely to use a cow to illustrate his point. I look forward to those cows and those charts!
Thanks for the kind words MF....
pssst Angus: I think I am on to something...Lets collaborate on a cow chart... maybe we can do a cow pie chart?
Margaret I have enjoyed and learned from your posts since I got to AR, this was a great post, and congratulations!
Damion, you are newer to me, but I have been reading yours as well. Congratulations on a job well done!
And thanks to the hosts of the Carnival!
"The Lovely Wife Here"
Good to see all of these awesome Bloggers walk away with a little Thunder...Boom. Boom. You guys all submitted some really good stuff. Damion, I bet right now you are really glad you used some of that Reciprocity...What did I ya' Handsome...Hah! The old broad was right. Bam...Shooting at your post dude!...TLW...ROAR!
Please don't forget to stop by the Carnival's Industry News Section. There are some gews to be found there!
They are the Apple of my eye.
I agree.... thanks Maureen & Dmitry for doing this....
And thank you judges.... all of this takes time that so many of us don't have much of.
I gotta ask though...about Jay's comment "There are some gews to be found there!"
what are gews?
"Gews", I believe are "Gems" for the typing impaired.
You and Jay are the female and male winners of "they don't miss anything" award. Its a highly coveted award, and I have to think of a prize befitting.
"gew" - (pronounced "goo") noun, derived from the latin "gewlicious postocus". It means a really good blog post.
I'd claim it was a typo, but the "w" and the "m" are on opposite sides of the keyboard... Given that a "w" is really an upside down "m" perhaps I was just standing on my head when I typed that....
That was what I was afraid of... Jay Thompson typing while standing on his head....
"gewlicious postocus" maybe I will start sprinkling that around the blogoshere... instead of my usual "great post... thanks for sharing" in hopes of the big blogs noticing me....
Damion.. I like bar charts... I like most graphs but I love pie charts and cow pies intrigue me....
I think we have to digg this or whatever it is that we do to makegewlicious postocus part of the blogosphere's vocalublary.
MM--very punny. cow pie charts!
I'm very anxious to see the cow pie charts. I also wonder on who's system will they be hosted? Not mine I hope. :)
Nice work all. I know how hard it is to choose when there are so many awesome bloggers work to choose from. Thanks for taking on such a huge responsibility.
The judges should get extra points too! :) They worn out their shoes pacing back and forth during the decison process.
Marti - Holy $h!t, I just looked at your web site! Your art is *amazing*. You've got a tremendous talent!
As someone who has difficulty drawing a straight line with a ruler, I have the utmost respect for someone that can express themself the way you can.
Jay
<stands and begins the long-slow clap>
Thanks to Maureen for getting this idea off the ground! I'm honored to be included among this amazing group of real estate professionals and to be honored through this group is, well, about as cool as my first closing (minus the cash, of course!)
Congrats to all winners and I'm proud to be part of Active Rain. All this talk about other network sites, and I stop to think ... who needs them.
Marti - you're welcome. I've got "Nuages" as my desktop now!
All - I put a little blurb about the Carnival of ActiveRain on The Phoenix Real Estate Guy.
It's not a FIGment of your imagination.
I just posted the Off Topic results.
Jay, check your preg links.
I fixed my "other blog" post Maureen. I had a lot of weirdness when I booted up the laptop this morning. I fear it's dying a slow, painful death...
I'll add the "off topic" winner to it too...
So Toby needs to stay out of Las Vegas.
Jay will be inudated with COMPUTER sales people. (and he has Pregnate links?)
Seriously, the winners all did a great job. IN fact all the entries probably did a great job..
Keep bloggin'!
New to Active Rain as a fellow Oakland County professional I wanted to take a moment to introduce myself and comment on AMEX I sure hope the lender doesn't know where the down payment came from (Source of Funds) and I also hope they don't require (seasoning of Funds) Other than these problems let it rain AMEX reward points
Thank You for your welcome. I have viewed a few of your blogs and I am confident I will learn a great deal from both of you As locals we do need to stick together and learn from one another Thank you again for welcoming me. I am very impressed with this forum of all professionals. Do you have any associations that you might recommend? Again thank you for your time Curt
thank you, thank you, and thank you again for running this contest. I will not be entering this time but may be able to at least post something worthwhile because of your contest.
I read Damion's last win, and his topic is what I was really looking for. It looks like it is going to benefit me tremendously, and I've added him as an associate. I probably wouldn't have found this blog had it not been for your contest.
I look forward to reading your winner and also the opportunity of next months entry.
Way back in November 2006, this post was written! That's almost four years ago! And I am just reading it and saying a very belated thank you for choosing me. Just left a message for Maureen. Wonderful that after all this time, we are still active on AR!
Margaret