Aternative to Virtual Tour

[Ryan Ward]

I held an open house today and a real estate agent came to the open house and we talked for a while about some new technology things. He told me that they were trying this out as a variation to a virtual tour so I just looked into it and this is what he has done. I would like to hear some opinions as to whether or not you think something like this would be effective as a marketing tool.

http://www.point2idx.com/show_14.wmv

[drewnick]

I like it a lot - and am working on doing similar things.

[Ryan Ward]

I actually thought it wasn't half bad and would consider doing something like this. He told me the name of the software and I can't remember...He said they were just bought by Adobe. It's basically a studio in a box and it comes with a green screen so you can make decent looking videos and the software is supposed to be easy to use.

I made the cardinal mistake of telling him about this real estate website company I've heard of called Real Estate Webmasters - you might have heard of them. They are supposed to make some of the best websites you can get for real estate.

Webmaster,

You might get a call from a guy named Tom Spencer

[BrandonSternfield]

It's a novel idea to be sure, I just don't think I see it being the end all to virtual tours. Granted I don't have speakers on this computer, but I imagine he was talking about the rooms.

It would have been better to shoot large panoramic shots, and actually 'panned' the rooms when he talked. Or at least moved.

It looked like a power point presentation to me, just fading to each picture.

[Saodavi]

Yeah, to me "virtual tour" means 360 panoramas. I do realize that a lot of people are using this term very liberally now days.

This seems more like a slideshow with an audio overlay. Not that it's bad, I just don't consider it a "tour". My virtual tour software (3D Vista) does this as do others. I'm sure you can also do this with flash, powerpoint, Adobe Premiere, and a variety of other programs.

I'm not sure I want my talking head on there either. I also don't know how it would go over on some of my more "normal" listings that don't have such nice features.

From a technical standpoint, I had problems with the WMV file. I use WinAMP to play my WMV's by default and it wouldn't load it off the website properly. I had to save it and then run it. Also WMV isn't he best file format in the world. It's not that portable and you have to get the right OS/Player combo. I think Flash is MUCH better suited to this task.

[drang3d]

I liked it. Like the others it felt more like a powerpoint presentation with a voiceover but it still gave a more personal feeling than a 360 tour. The one thing I'd have a problem with is that its a wmv file and I need to use media player and wait for it to buffer etc. I probably would have uploaded the video to youtube and then embedded it into my webpage. We use videos like this all the time to sell pre-construction builds to clients.

[drang3d]

Anybody have any idea what product it is, is it Adobe Premiere?

[BrandonSternfield]

Actually, with the right plug ins, you could even use Flash to do that (though he didn't). You can take two movies, pick a transparent color on one of them, and put them together.

But yes, I would convert movies to flash any day over having it stream. Why? Because for one thing, everyone has flash now a days. Not everyone (as previously mentioned with examples) can play the wmv. At least go with mov since most people have that.

[mmedia]

Arent all these types of tours obsolete? The Powerpoint type slideshows and 360 tours can't really compare to a video tour. Especially one that features the agent giving the tour. I've been using Wellcomemat.com for awhile now and hope to have their widget up this week.

[BrandonSternfield]

Again, nothing is obsolete as long as the buyer wants it.

I don't want a power point, because that's for high school and for CEO's who barely know computers.

And if I wanted an agent to give me a tour, I'd see it in person. The virtual tours online are supposed to be informative, but not as intrusive as actually going there.

I still love the flash/javascript 360 panning applets.

The two realty examples I saw on the site you mentioned, were moving pictures, with the power point page flip in between. I'm sorry, but I hated that page flip.