Marketing used to be simple. A flyer. A postcard distributed to your farm. A newspaper ad in what once was a robust real estate section filled with listings. Today, simplicity has not be replaced, just relocated to the Internet where social networking websites are providing small business great new opportunities to market their services and wares. Rhonda Abrams digs into the top 5 and how small business can make best use them in her post titled  Strategies: Which social networking site is best for your small business?

It’s the hottest discussion in the RE.net that stemmed from an MLS ruling in Indiana stating that an agent can not post IDX/MLS listings that can be indexed by search engines. Phoenix area Blogger and broker Jay Thompson went to NAR midyear in D.C. to speak on behalf of this heated issue and represent the alternative position that search engines merely aid and abed the agents need to market properties and represent their sellers best interests. He writes about it in a post titled: You have full permission to advertise my listings. What do you think?

The folks at Chartbeat,  just released a new real-time analytic tool that allows you to know what’s happening with your site as it’s happening. The simple difference between this and Google’s Analytics is similar to the difference between Google Search and Twitter search where the latter provides you relevant results based upon the now. This is not a one tool versus the other tool issue as Chartbeat indicates, these tools are complimentary and can be used together to offer you a complete traffic story.

Speaking of real time, Topsy, a real time search engine just launched after three years in closed door development. Billed as the search engine powered by tweets, Techcrunch explains the relevant nature of Twitter as a repository of real-time information that Google is not designed to keep up with.  Do you retweet? If not, perhaps you should.

Spam is back with a vengence. And for those of you who have Facebook pages and have experienced the phising spam that attacked last week, you now know that spam has infultrated social networks. Read more here on Mashable.