BiggerPockets Founder's Blog

UPDATES:

I know that its been a while since I've updated you with exciting site news.  Rest assured, we've got some cool new stuff on the way to enhance the experience of all members.  We'll be letting you know about these developments in the upcoming weeks.  Meanwhile, we've been fixing bugs, speeding up the site, and doing minor improvements across the board.  

CONTEST:

We're also working on a contest with some really great prize giveaways. Stay Tuned!

If you're interested in getting some PR for youself and giving away a prize, please contact me ASAP.

BLOG:

We're looking to add new bloggers to the BiggerPockets Blog Team.  If you're interested in contributing to the Blog, please get in touch

GROWTH:

The site has been seeing fantastic growth in all metrics.  We're adding new members at a great pace, and activity in all areas of the site is at or near all-time highs. Thanks foryour participation on the site, and we look forward to adding more great features to get you even more excited about BiggerPockets.

Meanwhile, please continue to invite your friends, colleagues, and clients to join the site!

Until next time . . .

One of the nice things about BiggerPockets, in my opinion, is that we try to focus on people interacting with one another. We don't allow members to travel the site using a company avatar because it is just plain impersonal. The internet is impersonal enough, and we're work very hard to change that, particularly in the real estate space.

That said, we felt that there was a need for people to be able to share information about their companies, and in the vain of helping companies market themselves, (can companies market themselves?), we just launched the latest feature to BiggerPockets:

The BiggerPockets Real Estate Company Index

This new directory allows companies to gain FREE publicity in front of our vast and growing audience of real estate professionals, investors, and consumers.

Adding a company is simple. Just visit the directory and click the Add a Company link. After filling out the information about your company and submitting it, an admin will approve it (providing you create a neutral profile without all the sales copy), at which point you can join that company by clicking the "Click here to add yourself" link.

We encourage you to Invite your co-workers and colleagues to join BiggerPockets so they can also add themselves to your company.

This is a great way to get FREE PR for your company!

Once you're added to a company, you'll note that the company's name in your personal profile links back to your company's profile. In the next few days, we'll additionally make it so your company's logo appears on your personal profile.

So . . . what are you waiting for? Create your company's profile today and start getting some free PR!

Some more updates to BiggerPockets for everyone to know about:

• Member Status Updates will now also appear at the bottom of your forum posts (below your signature).  Visit the following link for more on status updates.
• Your company's name will now appear more prominently on your profile, just below your occupation.  We've had requests from members to make their company more visible, and we hope this change satisfies.
• We're working on making it easier for members with a lot of colleagues to organize them all.  We should launch these updates in the next day or so.

We've been working on some important updates lately on BiggerPockets and I want to point them out to you:

Share Your Status on your Profile and for your Colleagues:

As the micro-blogging trend online continues to grow, we've added capabilities for our members to keep their colleagues up to speed on their activities. 

Members can now UPDATE their STATUS, by posting in 100 characters or less what's new with them.  These updates will show up at the top of your PROFILE, and in the FRIENDS ACTIVITY LOG of your colleagues in the DASHBOARD.

Here's how:

a) On all of our social networking pages below the BiggerPockets logo, you'll see "Logged in as: Your Name" with a little blue icon to the right of it.  Click that icon and you'll see a text box and Update Status button appear. Simply post your status and hit the button and you'll be redirected to your profile, where you'll see your new status update.

b) Click the UPDATE STATUS link at the left of the DASHBOARD (right above the Updates section).  Then, enter your update and click the Update Status button.  You'll be redirected to your profile, where you'll see your status below your name and occupation.

Below: An example of a status message on a profile:

We hope our members find this improvement to be a helpful way to communicate with their colleagues, and to share their ongoing real estate activities with one another.

Front Page Redirection to Dashboard:

Any member who is logged in to BiggerPockets will now be redirected to their DASHBOARD when they try to go to our homepage.  We're making the Dash into your own personal hub on the site, and have placed all of the links and resources that were on the homepage in the dash.

You'll also note that the three main tabs in the DASHBOARD are listed below.  Whenever you return to the dash, you'll see the most recent tab that you viewed open up.

- Friends Activity - Shows you what your colleagues on BiggerPockets are doing.  You can see when your colleagues: update their status, join a group, post a blog article or comment, post a property or comment, post a bulletin or comment, change their profile picture, upload a photo or gallery, etc.

- Latest Forum Activity - Shows you the last 15 posts in the forums.

- BiggerPockets Blog -  Shows you the last 5 articles on the BiggerPockets blog, written by our panel of experts in all areas of real estate.

We've Made it Easier to Invite Your Friends and Colleagues to BiggerPockets

There are two new ways to invite people to join the site. You'll now see an INVITE A FRIEND box on the left side of the forums, right below the FEATURED PROPERTIES box. Additionally, in the DASHBOARD, you'll see an invite link in the NETWORKING dropdown.

Part of what makes BiggerPockets special is the amount of shared knowledge on the site.  We hope that you'll all take some time to invite people you know to join you here on the site and help us expand the knowledge base even more!

Additional Changes and Fixes

- We've moved all site stats from the front page of the site to our official STATS PAGE. (Note: you'll find the link to the stats page at the bottom of all site pages)

- We've fixed the recent colleague request issue. If you got an error or blank page after following a link in a colleague request email, that link will now work.  Additionally, you'll see colleague requests in the notifications section of the top right of the dashboard.

BiggerPockets has undergone tremendous growth over the last year, and we're excited to let you know that the best is yet to come!  We've got many plans for the site, both large and small, for 2009. 

One of the big goals for BiggerPockets for this year is to reach the 100,000 member plateau.  I think we can easily achieve this number and more, if our current and future members help put the word out and let everyone know why BiggerPockets is the best real estate social network around.

We just want to thank everyone who has been been supportive of the site over the past few years, and we hope that you'll all stick by us as we introduce great new tools and features to help you all with your real estate investing and professional careers.

Coming This Week - Post Your Status to Your Profile and Friend's Activity in the Dashboard!

Micro-blogging through websites like Twitter has become incredibly popular recently and we've decided to make it possible for our members to share their latest activites with their colleagues and others with a new Status feature.  Members will be able to post in 100 characters or less, what they're up to at any given moment.

This minor improvement will hopefully allow our users to give others a small glimpse into their daily real estate lives.

Coming This Week - Dashboard Redirection

As our members have come to rely on their Dashboard to help them to create and navigate their profiles, and the rest of the site, we're planning on redirecting members who are logged in to the site from the current front page directly to the Dashboard.  We know that this will make the daily activities for our members easier to accomplish, but we didn't want to surprise you.  

Other New Features Coming Soon

You didn't think I'd let the rabbit out of the hat, did you?