Maybe's it the bracing salty air, the mountainscape... or the nasty gulls that never leave you alone, even when you're dining on the terrace of a very expensive Vancouver restaurant. Or maybe it's the crappiest housing market to hit British Columbia in decades. But whatever it is, I'm impressed by the plethora of camera-wielding realtor bloggers popping up on the West Coast.

Tom Everitt, owner of ThinkTom.com Realty, has an innovative approach to reaching homebuyers and sellers. He hosts a video-blog, virtually every single day, out of his garage and sometimes roaming the streets of Vancouver, dropping in on home stagers and other professionals to chat on camera. I like Tom's energy and creativity - although I admit I've wondered where he finds the time to sell property; he's got 2 wee kids at home, too!

Ian Watts is well-known around Vancouver for his web-cam videos, shot mostly in his car with a close up of his face, usually ranting. Love him or hate him, at least he's grabbing attention in a highly competitive industry. Personally I find Ian's voice to be so grating as to be unlistenable. (Ian's site is powered by Ubertor, a Vancouver-based company that provides real estate website complete with blogging and audio/visual features.)

Also in Vancouver, Craig Rushton, an employee at Century 21 In-Town Realty, has started videologging, with personalized content such as his confession of loving HGTV.

In fact, all Craig's co-workers blog for Century 21 In-Town Realty - altogether, 871 blog posts this past year! Wow! Owner Michael La Prairie sends out weekly emails urging his employees to keep up the blogging. (Full disclosure: I am working with Century 21 Canada on developing its national blog.)

Then there's the "72-Hour Open House" - the brainchild of Vancouver realtor Kye Grace, who lives and sleeps in the Open House for 3 days straight - all the while filming himself and posting daily updates on YouTube.

Have you tried video-blogging yet? What do you like about it? Hate about it? Is seeing yourself on camera as awful as hearing one's voice for the first time on tape recording?

While attending McMaster University I was part of the Multimedia Program which yearly offers various media aspects as part of the program.

In 2007, McMaster Libraries launched a pilot project (still in the works) that offers research help at its virtual site on Second Life, an increasingly popular 3-dimensional virtual world that is populated and created by nearly six million residents.

The virtual library can be found in Second Life on Cybrary City near InfoIsland. Librarian Krista Godfrey acquired McMaster's Library building, which can be used for library services and digital exhibitions.

I have not been in the space recently, but in 2008 the space was furnished with computers that linked to library resources including the Library's catalogue, MORRIS, and other databases.  There were also individual pages for the various campus libraries, and the Isaac Newton interactive learning site.

The Second Life Library also featured a Help Desk with real help available in person (if an avatar is online) or "virtually" (through IM or e-mail).  There is also lounge area for avatars requiring a long needed rest between their literary adventures. The space is also available for virtual meetings.

Gaming Sculpture Garden

I also used to be involved in the library’s Second Life gaming sculpture garden. In my final year of University I had the opportunity to be in Professor Gregory Rockwell’s Digital Gaming class where one of our assignments was to create a garden of sculptures of historical characters from videogames such as MS Pacman, Crash Bandicoot or Yoshi (which was the character I choose).

The Gaming Garden is located on the McMaster University Library's Second Life Island in Steel City.

One of the challenges that Rockwell faced during the class creation of this Garden was teaching us all to utilize the design elements used to make things in Second Life.  The building blocks used are quite intricate and specific, similar to those used in the Gaming Design Program Maya.

Participating in this Gaming Garden was both a learning curve for me, and something that I was proud to be a part of.

I have been a member of several vertical discussion groups within LinkedIn for a while now and I do find them of occasional value, i.e. reaching out to a potential business partner, bouncing ideas off of peers.

Of course, I come across folks who are using these venues for less than "pure" networking functions; I see a fair number of members promoting their own services/products within discussion forums. I am not surprised: every medium of communication is going to be worked to the max for profit, that's human nature.

But I didn't expect this development that came through my email box this a.m. in the form of one of the regular email updates (I control how often) I get from administrators of these LinkedIn groups.

Today's email, from the administrator of the Social Media Marketing Group this a.m., reads in part:

"LinkedIn has... taken away my ability to send you the monthly email newsletter that I have produced in the past... I can no longer access the group's email list... [or] send you individual welcome letters or direct correspondence... I can't even view who is a member of this group, it is limited to seeing only 500, not the entire 15,000+"

Another complaint in Michael Crosson's cross and very long email is that LinkedIn has no reporting capabilities. "By disabling the email list download, I now have ZERO visibility into group performance reports that I used to have through my email management system. I can't tell how many people are unsubscribing, how many undeliverable emails there are, etc."

Bad Apples in the Barrel

The reason for these new actions by LinkedIn is, according to Crosson that "they claim they had to do this because some unscrupulous managers were building lists for spam... There are far better ways to deal with this issue."

Hmm, I wonder what those other ways would be? Just how sophisticated are LinkedIn's algorithms that they can detect good vs. bad email correspondence from group administrators?

Interestingly, Mr. Crosson is also cheesed off that LinkedIn's "forced advertising onto profiles and other pages" does not profit group administrators such as himself. "I don't make a dime from any of the work I put into LinkedIn."

What do YOU Think?

If you're a member of a LinkedIn group, how do you feel about the administrator not being able to send you a direct message?

Even if you're not a LinkedIn group member, do you think social networking should involve revenue-sharing for leaders/moderators of groups?

If this lockdown on spam by LinkedIn appropriate, or should we just accept the bad correspondence along with all the good content and sharing of info?

I want to know what you think! Please add your comments here.

At a chamber of commerce networking event the other day, I heard more than one business person say, "Aren't blogs about personal stuff? Isn't all that social networking really just gossip?"

Not a surprising perception, really... that is, if no one in your business circle is blogging, Facebooking, Twittering or the like. How WOULD you know it's more than a world of goofy kids with lots of spare time and no shortage of beer-swilling photos to upload, or loners in their basement obsessing over their cats?

Yup, there's a lot of that... but also a lot of businesses are leveraging the mighty power of social media into new business, brand awareness, reputation management.

The Internet Marketing Blog writes, "A shortcoming of social media is its lack of accountability: social media doesn’t impose the kind of regulations on integrity of reporting that traditional media does, and this has caused many to view social media as a world of fluff and real-time gossip. Ensure that your social media is committed to quality, integrity, and a sincere desire to listen and be heard."

It can be hard to be heard - over the din of Twitter tools (egads, I think I learn of a new one every day!) and the roar of Facebook apps popping up. The hyperbole, the overload, oh my!

But you don't need to compete with all that noise; you only need to be yourself and carve out your small corner of content differentation.

In a crowded room full of social media climbers, you can stand out by your quiet dedication to the truths and needs of your customers.