BiggerPockets Founder's Blog

We wanted to make it easier to login to the site, as in many cases, new members and others forget their usernames. 

With that in mind, you can now use either your username OR your email address to login to BiggerPockets! Just enter either one in the Login field, and your password will get you up and running on the site.

I know that this isn't a huge change, but it will save some people frustration, and that's one of our goals -- to make it easier to use BP.

More improvements and new developments to come . . .

Josh

We just made it easier for members to share their best content on BiggerPockets!

Instead of only being able to submit your articles to our BiggerPockets Bulletins (social real estate news engine) via our site, you can now add code to your own blog so your readers can share your posts!

Simply use the code below and adapt it for your template:

<a href="http://www.biggerpockets.com/links/details?link=YOUR_URL_HERE">Click here to share this on BiggerPockets.com!</a>

What is the Point?

We built BiggerPockets Bulletins so people could share interesting and important real estate articles, news, and other content.  It is NOT a place for promoting your website, business, press releases, listings, ads, etc.  If you have NON-SALESY content, we welcome you to submit it.

Doing so will help to extend your audience, and open a conversation.

That said, don't be greedy.  If you only submit content from your own website, your domain will be locked out of the system and you won't be able to share any more with us.  We've put several stops in place to prevent manipulation, and have no problem banning a user from the bulletins system for gaming it.

BiggerPockets is a community first and foremost.  Help your fellow bloggers and others out by sharing fantastic content with them today!

Over the past few days, I've gotten a few emails from people on BiggerPockets that I do not know.  Each of these emails was a solicitation -- emails promoting real estate deals -- despite the fact that I NEVER opened the door with them to send such messages, never signed up for their email list, and never made a real connection to. 

These emails were nothing but spam.

With that in mind, I'd like to make some things clear:

If you send unsolicited emails or PMs to people on our site, you are acting in violation of our Terms of Service, and your account will be closed.

Some people will read that to say that you can't do business on our site.  As many thousands of you can attest, that is simply not true.

THERE IS A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SPAM AND BUSINESS!

If you've established a relationship with someone and in doing so, they have have given you permission to send them messages or emails about deals you've got, that is perfectly acceptable, and we encourage it!  Real estate is almost 100% a relationship business.  If you think you're going to be effective by annoying people, you're dead wrong. 

If you do not have the permission of the other party to solicit them with deals, you are merely sending SPAM.

Introduce yourself.  Get to know others in the business -- both here and elsewhere -- and once you've done so, and have asked the other party for their permission to send them info about your deals, business, etc., then would be a great time to do so.  

Otherwise, you're merely being an annoyance!

The CAN-SPAM Act

We strongly recommend you all familiarize yourselves with the CAN-SPAM Act.  This act was established to protect consumers from UCE (unsolicited commercial emails).  

Conclusion

I want to be clear.  BiggerPockets is here so you can connect with one another and do real deals, however, you MUST do so without SPAMMING.  It is an annoyance and we won't allow such behavior.

I've actually had many conversations over the years, with members who tell me that one of the best things about our site is that people don't have to stress out that they are going to deal with a ton of spam like they do on other sites.  I take that as a huge compliment!  I actually get a fair amount of mail from people who think we suck for the same reason, but I'm sure you can tell that I'm not bothered by these -- they can annoy people on another website.

I welcome a discussion about this topic . . . thanks for listening!

We wanted to share with everyone visual proof of the success of our server upgrade from this morning, Saturday, January 9, 2010.  Load times for every page across BiggerPockets have been slashed;  the site is now loading over 500% faster than before.

We are committed to serving our users and members, and will continue to do everything in our power to make your experience on BiggerPockets the best possible.  Thank you for your continued support.  We appreciate you patronage of our site.

Regards, 

Joshua Dorkin -- Founder/CEO

Hey Folks -
I just wanted you to know that we're aware of the speed issues that many of you have had with BiggerPockets over the past days -- we're on it.  It seems that every few months, we've got some new growing pains, and that is exactly what we're experiencing now. With 45,000 members and a ton of other visitors, the load on our systems is beginning to take a toll once again.

We hope to have this issue rectified soon, and it is our #1 priority.  We're in the process of determining what the best course to take is, as we need to once again update our equipment (servers) to keep up with the rapidly growing demands of BiggerPockets.

As some on the team like to say, "this is a very good problem to have!"

That said, we can use your help here.  New equipment (upgraded servers, hard drives, etc.) is very expensive;  please consider donating to help us offset the costs and make BP an even better network to participate on.

Thank you for your understanding and continued support of BiggerPockets!

Update 1/6/10 - We will be taking BiggerPockets offline early morning on Saturday January 9, 2010 to upgrade our equipment.  For more information, click here.

The BiggerPockets Blog has grown to become one of the most respected online real estate destinations for quality news, commentary, how-to's, and much more.  Our vast audience is compromised of real estate investors, agents, lenders, bankers, legislators, homeowners, renters, and other real estate professionals and service people.

We've got a fantastic team of 23 bloggers writing for us every week, and are slated to bring several new writers in the next few days.  With all that said, there are a few gaps that we would like to fill in our repetoire, and we're hoping for your help.

We're Looking for Bloggers to Write About Mortgages, Loans, and Rates!

If you are a lender or mortgage blogger and are interested in getting some great exposure, and in being a part of a fantastic team, please get in touch!  Our regular bloggers get visibility on all pages on The BiggerPockets Blog, a bio below all of their posts with links to their websites, exposure across the BP network when the post is highlighted, and exposure on our mailing list of almost 30,000 double opt-in subscribers. For more details, view our Write for Us page.

Just point us to some writing samples, share your background, and get in touch!

You can contact us here.