Looks like we have hit the real estate awards season!  First we win the Inman News most innovative blog of 2010 award and now another contest is upon us, but this time we want one of our fans to win!

Geeks are brining sexy back like never before.  While the term blogger may be currently en vogue it wasn’t so long ago that it would immediately bring the thought of a nerd on.  We are hoping to change the stereotype for good with your help and the help of a tech savvy contest happening on the hip site DotJenna.

DotJenna.com is having a 10 Hottest Bachelors of Real Estate contest and we are looking for one of you to bring the reward home for our community. DotJenna is run by Jenna Ryan, who looks as if she may have won a contest or 2 herself , and focuses on new media, consulting and events.  If you feel like this is something that you qualify for or if you are one of our lady fans that knows some local real estate hunks please nominate them for this all in good fun contest.

While we were a bit hesitant to bring a contest like this to our site that normally focuses on tech, the fact that superstar tech agent Ben Kinney is a contestant made it a no brainer!  Is it possible to be tech savvy and tech sexy?  We think so and would encourage you to check out this fun contest.

p.s. Steve and I are both married so please don’t nominate us…or if you do please don’t tell our wives!

Like a thief in the night Facebook took away Jonathan Rivera’s business page, The Official Real Estate Referral Group, that had more than 47,000 fans.

Now it looks like Facebook is doing the walk of shame or maybe just what they should have done in the first place.  After this post was Tweeted nearly 400 times and shared on Facebook 315 times in the last 24 hours it seems that they have reinstated the page and simply changed the vanity URL as was the general consensus of fairness by the masses buzzing about it.

The issue in question was that Jon’s original vanity URL, set up nearly 2 years ago, was Facebook.com/SocialRealtors and was indeed a trademark violation regarding the use of the word Realtor according to the National Association of Realtors.  NAR contacted Facebook about having the domain changed and instead, without warning, Facebook took the page and thus the hard built community away from Jon.

I want to applaud Facebook for making the right decision on this one, even if they again hit the buttons without warning or notice. Also a HUGE THANKS for the way that so many of you rallied around this hot topic and helped to get the word out.

You can visit Jon’s new, uglier domain and see the page that started all the controversy in the first place.  While your there show him some “like” for his troubles.

Seems for now social media may still be run by us!

So maybe the gatekeepers really are gone?  Tech Savvy Agent was just named the most innovative blog in real estate for 2010 by Inman News.  While all of the other blogs nominated are stellar (1000 Watt is my personal favorite), we were especially worried that with a company as large as Coldwell Banker on the ballot, we wouldn’t have a chance at the people’s choice award.  Bottom line this is one for the little guys!

I want to accept this on behalf of our fans and followers who were able to mobilize quickly and help us take home the “hardware”.  By keeping the focus on user generated content and genuine interaction we sure have found some passionate, tech savvy agents!  They won this award for us and would never have done so if it wasn’t so obvious we truly love what we do each and every day.  Thanks again to everyone who voted and who has helped us achieve this humbling honor…

With the 1000’s of option available to consumers online looking for real estate it is more important than ever to really find ways to stand out from the crowd. There is no other site doing a better job of this right now than Curbed.com.

Curbed is a real estate blog covering the local markets in New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles and the Hamptons.  This hyper local approach allows Curbed to expand their content beyond listings and deeper into local restaurants, nightlife and shopping venues.  In an era where content is king, there is only so much real estate information that you can provide.  By covering other verticals it not only increases readership and SEO rankings, but more importantly it gives readers a reason to check in year round, not just when they are looking to buy or sell a property.

The other brilliant move that Curbed has pulled is to brand the other parts of their site differently. While the Curbed tabs focus specifically on real estate, the other parts of their site, Racked and Eater, cover shopping options and restaurant reviews. By giving each part of their site a different look and feel they are sure to hit it off with a wider range of new visitors who can find a plethora of useful information quickly in a simple yet modernly elegant layout.

Another feature of Curbed.com that I love is that they are very open with the demographics of their readers.  Want to know age, average income and education level of the readers of their blog?  Curbed is proud of their affluent reader base and isn’t afraid to show that off to potential advertisers or real estate agents looking to get their high end listings in front of the right eye balls.  This intimacy and knowledge of their reader base could only be attained by a site that was brining A+ content regularly.

The sites founder Lockhart Steele has been featured in numerous magazines and for good reason.  Lock, as he is known on Twitter, has created a resource that goes beyond the typical self promotion this industry has been known for for years and instead has put the focus where it should be, which is on the communities and all that they entail.  By taking the right approach he has built a brand and a community that we would be proud to emulate at Tech Savvy Agent.

I think that any real estate agent looking to learn more about what a blog can truly be should spend some serious time on Curbed and do their best to mimic this awesome resource for their local market.  Here’s to hoping you aren’t in NYC, L.A., San Fran or the Hamptons!  Seems Curbed has those markets on “Lock”.

Well now we know who the boss is.  Facebook has shut down a real estate business page with 47,000 plus members giving zero notice to the page owner, Jonathan Rivera.  The Official Real Estate Referral Group is a community that Jon started almost 2 years ago and had just crossed the 47,000 fan mark making it one of the largest real estate related pages on Facebook.  The goal of the page was to connect like minded real estate agents who were looking to grow their business via referrals and social media.  Simply put, you meet a buyer or seller looking in another market and you can shout out to the page that you need another agent to handle the deal.  Jon had created over 1400 opportunities for agents in the last 18 months and more importantly has put countless time, energy and resources into moderating such a large page.

The controversy is related to the vanity URL that Jon chose when first setting up the page.  Once a Facebook Page has 25 fans the admin can go to Facebook.com/Username and secure a custom or vanity URL.  When Jon did this 2 years ago he choose Facebook.com/socialrealtors.  This is indeed improper use of the trademarked word Realtor so The National Association of Realtors or NAR reached out to Jon about changing the URL.  After several failed attempts to get Facebook to change the ending or at the least just remove any vanity ending, they instead this morning took the page away without notice!

The NAR trademark office has emailed Facebook directly stating that it wasn’t their intention to break up the popular group, just to have the URL reworked so that it would be NAR approved.  As opposed to allowing a simple change to the URL they shut the lights off without warning?

This is a close to home example that Facebook has total control over their network and can hit buttons that make your hard work and community vanish, literally over night and without warning.  Make sure your social media presence is weather proof and always secure email addresses when possible.

Please help Jon out by sharing this post and helping spread the word about this story.  If they can hit a button and make it go away we are fairly confident they could hit another to make it reappear with a new compliant URL.  The more people that read and share this post the better the chances are that their decision could be reversed.  Thanks guys!