Better Seattle

Recently, on my way back to Laguna Beach from Beverly Hills, I stopped into the Starbucks in Hermosa Beach to grab a bite to eat and wait out the afternoon traffic while finishing some work. The shops nearby the pier were nearly devoid of people, a huge windstorm ripping sand through the air. The clouds were violent and surreal. I decided to grab my camera and shoot pictures! It was an effort just to stand up against the wind. For as far as I could see, the blue trashcans every twenty or thirty meters had been toppled by the storm. One lady who had been sunbathing packed up and left, and a few brave joggers followed the shoreline in their quest for exercise.

Hermosa Beach is one of my favorite beaches. Located in Los Angeles County and distinctly more urban than Laguna Beach, Hermosa boasts an eclectic mix of beach mongers in the summer, featuring multiple pickup volleyball games, a paved running path beachside that runs north to Manhattan Beach and south to Redondo Beach. Hermosa is the more shy sibling to Manhattan, which receives more publicity and has been a social hotspot for decades. 

Some of my favorite good eats in Hermosa include:

Creme de la Crepe, located at 424 Pier Avenue, serving breakfast, lunch and dinner. Crepes are the specialty, and this menu is extensive! Reservations recommended on weekends and summer evenings (310) 937-2822

Cafe Bonaparte, 37 Pier Avenue, serves scrumptious egg scrambles (several to choose from or make your own!) encased in monstrous, fluffy croissants as the choice breakfast for any of you watching your diet! ;) Breakfast till 1 pm daily, after that it's quiche and sandwiches and deserts, but take it from me, breakfast is where it's at!  (310) 374-0026 

Hermosa Beach also offers a handful of pubs for those of you who like to unwind, and one in particular for watching the game! Also within walking distance from the beach are a handful of vintage shops worth checking out, from clothing to furniture.

This blog provides helpful marketing advice in how to reach consumer with your blog, and starts out with a short introduction to feedreaders. Consumers can find your blog through their feedreader!  

Wouldn't it be great if you could go to one place and be able to access all your news and blogs in one fell swoop?  Such a huge development has come to pass. Feedreaders are unbelievable!  

After attending Dustin Luther's amazing seminar Finding Relevance on the Internet Wednesday, I have been motivated to get my feedreader www.google.com/reader set up as my personalized "newspaper". What is a "feedreader"? Wikipedia defines a feedreader as "an aggregator or news aggregator or feed reader is client software that uses a web feed to retrieve syndicated web content such as weblogs, podcasts, vlogs, and mainstream mass media websites".

Most feedreaders are free, and very simple to use. Google's is an optimal example. To set up your free feedreader, go to www.google.com/reader. Click on "create an account now" on the right of your screen. Follow the directions to set up your account. Once your account is set up, go to www.google.com/reader. On the left of your screen, you will see a line that says "Add subscription" and next to it, "browse". You can enter titles by subject, or if you have a blog already in mind that you would like to add, enter it in. 

To know which link to select to add to your feedreader, look for the one ending in "RSS" in the web address. RSS refers to the web feeding technology utilized.

And...... this is the best part! ActiveRain blogs can be subscribed to via feedreader!!!  This means that clients can find you while doing a search to subscribe to blogs on topics you cover. Ex: Laguna Beach Real Estate. Pretty cool, huh?

Some other helpful tidbits:

• Your blog will be classified by its title under the browse section of GoogleReader.  Keep your title concise and to the point. and keep in mind how a consumer may conduct a search. Make your title something a client/subscriber to your blog would enter into the search box. (Your blog title is something you set on ActiveRain, not on Googlereader. "Title" refers to whatever you name your blog on ActiveRain.)

• Reading up on other blogs will keep you informed on what's happening in the market. This propagates your own blogs, acting as food for the fodder...

• Have some fun and browse for blogs to subscribe to in other areas you are interested in. This can include hobbies, sports, politics, etc.

Excitingly, when I entered in "Laguna Beach Real Estate" to see who came up in google's list, my ActiveRain blog came up at the very top of the list! Check it out below! More on FeedReaders from Dustin Luther  Jeff Dowler's Blog on the LA/Long Beach Seminar, and Jeff's brief synopsis of what was convered in the Seminar

The voices of the Rainers have been heard regarding the heartfelt loss of our old dashboard. A new, much more fastidious and heart-warming dashboard format has been engineered, with key upgrades, and will premiere tomorrow morning (Wednesday Feb 7th)!

On the top of the blog dashblog page and in line with its true function, the term “Associates” has been replaced with “My Subscriptions”. "My subscriptions" will show those blogs to which you are subscribed. (To bulk-add your current associates' blogs to your subscription list, go to "My Home", click on "Associates", and then click on "Add to Subscriptions".)

On the right of the Blog Dashboard: “Top Bloggers”, which was done away with in the past, has been replaced with two tabs: “Most Subscribed” and “Most Subscribed (week). These tabs showcase lists of the most-subscribed-to blogs, the former a running account of blogs most-subscribed-to, and the latter, the most-subscribed-to for the past 7 days. A third tab, “My Subscriptions” provides quick and easy access to view your favorite blogs.

The left side of the Blog Dashboard has stayed the same.

A new handy feature: To subscribe to a blog you like, simply click “subscribe” by the member’s name and “vio-laa!” You are subscribed.

Quietly today, without much fanfare, a new and venerable member snuck into our ranks. Unknown to some, but much respected among many, Barbara Corcoran is a fascinating individual who has proved herself as a force to be reckoned with. From starting her own real estate company at the age of 23 and nurturing it into the largest real estate company in New York, to authoring a bestselling book, her wit and acumen are uncompromising and I look forward to soaking up all the wisdom I can get with a keen eye on her blogs. Her first blog is terrific and I hope it's a preview of many more to come!

Barbara's first post: How to sell your home in a weekend

A link to Barbara's website 

On midnight of January 31st, an amazing thunderstorm broke loose in Laguna Beach. It had already been raining that day, but now it was raining cats and dogs. 

I was driving home from spending the evening at a girl friends, when, as I neared the high school, all the power went out. (Or was it out already? I don't remember). Power had gone out in my area, the Top of the World, at noon that day. 

It was phenomenal. As I was driving, all was dark except for what fell across the path of my headlights. Flashes of white rippled across the sky and echoed their light upwards into the clouds, like the effect of a softbox. And then, in a moment, the lights simultaneously flickered on and off again in people's homes, the streetlights, and at the school. The Laguna Village and the hills above it, perched with homes, appeared for that moment like the storybook town in the "Grinch who stole Christmas". I held my breathe. Mmmmm…… Except without a Grinch.