This week began with the bombshell regarding NAR/RPR that was first reported last Friday by Brian Boero of 1000watt titled: RPR Madness: NAR unleashes national property database with Cyberhomes that paints us a very insightful, unbiased and logical picture of what’s happening and what this all might mean. Following that post, other members of the blogging community offered their viewpoints including Jim Duncan on Agent Genius, Rob Hahn and Michael Wurzer . There is no question this is big news. There is no question that NAR having access to this much data raises good questions and concerns among many vendors and MLSs. But concern is not the same as fear. Doom. Or gloom. Personally, I’ve been around long enough to know that while some love to embellish in the sensationalizing the news and or painting the dark side of every big event in real estate, rarely, if ever do those predictions pan out. But there is always a first time. This is one such event with a long story arc. Let’s watch, wait and see what happens.

It surprises me really that few brokerages have a Facebook strategy. All the numbers support it. Massive adoption from Gen Y and the staggering growth among women 55-65. This week, RWW reports that 40% of People “Friend” Brands on Facebook. So what is it about Facebook that the rank and file brokerage doesn’t grasp?

Social Media Optimization. A insight into how the Boston Celtics are using social media.

From SEO consult: A step by step page analysis of SEO. It’s not as heady as it sounds. Quick read.

Lately, a lot of brokerages have been going through website redesigns and producing some exiting results. @properties in Chicago is one such example. Interesting to note beyond their redesign was their launch and how overnight, they had everyone in real estate talking about it. The reason, they did it right. From who they chose to work with to the people on their team they put in charge to their seemingly flawless execution. It’s not for me to give away their secrets but take your time and read this in depth post from Smashing Magazine titled, Redesign: When to relaunch the site and best practices

Fast Company brought us 8 great solar gadgets to consider. Sort or reads more like an advertisement but nevertheless, this agrees with my interest in being as green as possible. And with the holiday’s coming up, there are few great ideas here that end up under my tree.

Fellow brokers – I can’t stress the importance of using a tool like Twitter to monitor local conversation. This is customer service on steroids. You wouldn’t be the first as this is a practice taking place in many outside verticals. Consider this article from Conversation Agent titled –Twitter, Customer Service and Good Brand Management.

From Marketo blog – 25 Must Read B2B Marketing Blog posts. Everything from tips on Twitter to boost your marketing efforts to answer the question of whether choosing search engines over users is a fatal flaw in SEO?

From Harvard Business Blog, David Armano offered Six Social Media Trends for 2010. Worth reading now and getting a jump on these things to stay ahead of the pack. The main takeaway here is the move past frivolous and the cozy up to serious.

There certainly is a lot of hoopla over augmented reality. However, Curious Raven has different, perhaps more realistic, perhaps cynical take. You decide.