Zoomf Blog - UK Property Blog.

Rus and Ben of Starberry are two of the most innovative guys in the online property space. They’ve just launched an iPhone application that allows agents to blog direct from the iPhone. Brilliant. 

This is all part of the bigger trends for property websites - 

• more read write capability
• more fresh relevant content 
• ability to make content on the go

Imagine getting a new instruction, going there with your iPhone, writing your bits and taking pictures, then uploading to the web. All done from inside the property.  With the iPhone continuing to gather momentum, it’s inevitable that you will be using tools like this in the future. 

This is where we are going folks :-) 

Well done Starberry. 

As we’re always talking about how important a blog can be to the property
market, it’s only fair that we tell you about some of the options out there. Below are three systems we’ve reviewed that we can recommend.

TUMBLR

Tumblr.com is probably the Fisher-Price of blogging systems. You can be live with your thoughts in under 5 minutes with your own unique URL like londonagent.tumblr.com. It has some great features for making it easy to use and is a nice way to ease into the idea of blogs.

Pros -

1. So simple. If you can’t get this running then we will assume that email is also a new concept for you
2. Clean. With limited functionality, you have to try hard to not make it work but this means that the interface is a couple hours to get to mastery level.

Cons -

1. It is not as custom as you would like.
2. You lose the control of having your own system to manipulate.

WORDPRESS

Wordpress is one of the oldest and most used blog systems out there. The Zoomf blog is built on Wordpress and we’re very happy with it.

Pros -

1. you can install it yourself onto your current domain
2. the application is free
3. has all the bells and whistles you might want including an army of open-source programmers who are constantly creating more plug-ins and upgrades to the platform

Cons would be -

1. you have to install it yourself (you might need technology help)
2. you’ll have to invest some time in understanding the interface

TYPEPAD

Typepad is another older blogging system. The reason it is included here is because it has a hosted platform so all your install headaches go away.

Pros -

1. Credit card is all you need
2. Lots of templates for a custom look feel
3. Lots of online help resource

Cons -

1. Loss of control as you are using software as service model

Hope this helps.

After all my whining that I wasn’t at Connect yesterday, I almost felt as though I was there thanks to the marvels of Twitter. Anyone that also wants to stay on top of the action should track the tag ‘#icsf‘ over at Summize, that way you won’t miss a tweet.

Zillow’s Drew Meyers has already written up a great post summarizing what went down at one of the morning panel sessions yesterday, the best gem to come from it seems to be from Linda Davis who (quite rightly) chimed…

“If you have a crappy business, a blog isn’t going to help.”

And whilst everyone is playing with real estate trading cards and getting excited about blogging at Connect, Trulia seem to be releasing their very own blogging platform. As reported by our gorgeous friends at AgentGenius, Trulia are (very quietly at this point) releasing their own blogging platform for agents that’s not a million miles away from what we’re used to seeing at ActiveRain. Is this going to crazily shake things up over in the US? We’ll have to wait and see. The usual concerns surrounding SEO and ownership of content are being aired in the comments sections of various posts covering the story but one thing is for sure, Trulia’s got consumer traffic…and tonnes of it.