As most of you know, I spend countless hours surfing the ‘net looking for the newest, latest, best thing.  If it has the word "beta" in it somewhere – its for me! Two very new and upcoming sites provide services that can become indispensible for the busy real estate professional.  Oh, and did I mention that the services are FREE????  That’s a word we all like to hear (even if it doesn’t have beta attached to it).

I hate voicemail – I really do.  I usually let them pile up – HINT – don’t leave me voicemail.  Text, IM, email whatever you have to do but don’t leave me voicemail – it just lingers in voicemail purgatory until I can’t take staring at that little red light on my phone. So, the last thing I want to do is listen to some person drone on my voicemail.  If I wanted to hear it from my phone I would have answered the call in the first place. 

READ YOUR VOICEMAILS FROM YOUR PHONE OR COMPUTER

How about seeing your voicemails (with a photo) in a text message or online without having to call in and listen to them all? You can customize the transcribed message to show date and time of the call, name and number, the location from where they called — even the telephone company the caller used. Amazing.

       See VM on your phone…

and in your email:

YouMail features:

• voicemails are sent to you via email (play it from your inbox) or phone text message, or both (you can disable text message notification if you don’t have a text message plan). You even get notification of hang ups (who called, when, from what number)
• voicemails are saved online in your YouMail account (or download to a file on your computer)
• option to respond to voicemails via email or text message (if you don’t want to make the call)
• forward voicemails to others –they hear the message (love this feature)
• share voicemails to your social networking sites (Facebook), blog, website, even digg
• import your contacts from Gmail, YahooMail or Outlook
• group your contacts into friends, family, clients, etc
• block callers
• “ditch” callers with a message like: “This number is no longer in service.”

Here’s how a voicemail looks in your account.  Notice the transcription and management tools.

You can customize the voicemail text alerts:

Here’s how you can share a voicemail with others:

YouMail let’s you create different messages for individuals or groups.  If you prefer, you can choose from hundreds of prerecorded messages– from formal to funny.

I can’t tell you just how many business cards I have collected (and/or lost) over the years and how I despise having to type that information into Outlook, sync and send etc.  Also, I invariably run out of business cards at the most inopportune times and I never have all of my pertinent information on that little card either.  Who does?? Between instant messenger ids, blogs, groupsites I could fill a whole page with my contact info.  Dropcard is a fantastic service that allows you to send a text message to the company which then texts your contact info to your recipient’s email address.  Here is how it works:

First, sign up for a free account and create your profile (you get 2– business & personal), which includes:

• name and title
• your blog and website links
• email addresses
• telephone numbers
• IM/chats (skype, yahoo, etc)
• social networks (Myspace, Facebook, Linkedin, etc)
• Vcard.

Whenever you meet someone, get their email address and text it to dropcard (at 41411) and dropcard will forward your profile to them via email. They can then instantly add you to their address book. Efficiency at its best!

Here’s how:

Send a text message to 41411 drop JohnDoe@theiremail.com

Your profile will be emailed to that person.  You also get a confirmation copy by email. Voila!

So there you have it, I signed up for both so you never know if you commit the cardinal sin and actually call my cell just which voicemail you may be getting and I’ll be txting you my updated info!!! 
 

Tags: youmail, dropcard, real estate, web 2.0, agent, professional

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