Just think back to how recently you had dial-up. No wifi. No way to make videos or to view them.

Right now, here in the U.S., the cost of delivery of your video is a huge factor — both for the customer and the Realtor.

That’s where I win, a little, because I make my own videos for free. But distribution is not always free. And if virtually no one is watching (at this point in time) on cellular phones or iPods, then I have to consider a better use of my time and money.

Addressing some of the problems others have mentioned above, with video…

One mistake I’ve seen a lot of agents make is to use a video service company that turns your photos into “videos” — which look very amateurish in their lack of motion. Full motion is the best. Stills are better in a photo gallery or slideshow.

On the issue of knowing what room is shown in a video — this seems easy: just superimpose a caption right on the video.

On the issue of “window burn out” — there are ways to deal with it: you need to study video production a little and you’ll find out. One film technique I’ve seen is to put filter sheets on the windows (”sunglasses for windows”). What I do is to take separate clips of windows and walls, which is pretty elementary.

Anyway, since I’ve been creating real estate videos for the Internet for many years, I’m glad to finally have some company, LOL. Misery loves company!

You are also correct that widespread wifi phonage won’t happen anytime soon from TPTB. Slide over to phonescoop.com and you’ll discover 19 wifi phones. Last year it was 14 and the year before about 9. This grab from my newsreader is just the last month of Wifi announcements. Some of the most significant being the Blackberrys 8XX0 et al, carriers can’t ignore these.

It seems that anything that runs on Win Mobile 6 is sporting wifi. I say VOIP phones will have to be dual use and the carriers will have to embrace them. Let the weaning begin – http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/cellphones/extinction-prediction-wifi-phones-dead-by-2012-240575.php

To me, the cell phone is not my installed user base, it is the laptop. 975 million cell phones out there but only a fraction of those can access the internet and a fraction of those have wifi. But with laptops outselling desktops and wifi practically a standard config anymore. This is my mobile home buyer. :-[

I made the Knockbox to be used with a wider range of devices, the only requirements being the wifi and the browser:

Laptop and Notebook Computers
WiFi capable cell phones (iPhone, Mylo, Helio, SDA, MDA, iPAQ, PPC, Blackberry 8820, etc.)
Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs; Palm, Dell, GPS devices)
Ultra Mobile PCs (UMPC: Origami, OQO, Q1)
Portable gaming systems (Sony Play Station Portable)
Personal Media Players (PMP; Archos 704) or ‘Tweeners like the Nokia N800

As far as the Knockbox being a concept, it moved past that last June. They are installed in listings, have been since August and most subscribers are on to their second or third listing/Knockbox.

The main reason is that, unlike in Europe or Asia, the cell phone feature set is not controlled by consumer demand or the handset makers, but the US carriers.

Right now in the US you have limited options to buy a handset – and most people get them heavily subsidized through their carrier. And I doubt very few of the carriers will be letting WiFi into their models to allow people to jump off their 3G networks and lucrative data charges.

The only one who’s doing this right now is TMobile and surprise, they also own one of the biggest WiFi networks too.

While I’d personally love to see WiFi on my phone, I doubt it’ll happen any time soon. The whole system of handset subsidies and consumer buying habits has to change first.

But I ask, is the buyer supposed to download all these different podcasts and then take them with them as they tour a neighborhood? And when they stumble across that home that they didn’t download a podcast of, what then? The objective is to give the buyer as much info as possible right then, like Greg says – http://www.bloodhoundrealty.com/BloodhoundBlog/?p=1139

This is what I created the Knockbox for, to free the content – http://www.knockboxhome.com A buyer would not have to anticipate what they needed to bring. A new category has come along – http://www.bloodhoundrealty.com/BloodhoundBlog/?p=1067

Not just for podcasts though, the Knockbox is a web server, it can deliver any content that you can download from the net and at greater speeds. A “Mega Hyper Local� site. How about content designed for a pipe this wide? We are using 802.11b cards now, but n is coming fast and we are looking into even faster solutions. Some might say that the user is not here yet, I have to disagree.

Latest Pew research has found that 34% of internet users have logged on with a wireless internet connection either at home, at work, or someplace else.

“27% of adult internet users have logged onto the internet using a wireless device at some place other than their home or place of employment and 88% of laptop users have at one time logged on using a home wireless network.”

“One quarter (25%) of internet users say they have a cell phone that connects to the internet with a wireless connection. Among internet users with this capability on their cell phone, half (54%) have used it to get on the internet either at home, work, or someplace other than home or work. One in eight (13%) internet users have a PDA that can connect to the internet using a wireless network. Of these, most (82%) have used it to connect at home, work, or someplace other than home or work.�

Only half of the 25% of internet capable cell user actually use it to access the internet? What I read here is that people would rather use their laptops, yeah big news, and when they own a PDA they are much more comfortable connecting with it instead of a cell phone. These numbers are a snapshot and can’t last, even curmudgeon John C. Dvorak would agree – http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2098484,00.asp

Wifi will end up in many cell phones and the screen sizes will be more friendly. But, cellular network speeds are probably going to increase at a slower pace. The last time I checked 802.11 networks where magnitudes faster than cellular. Typing in a long URL with your keypad? That isn’t much fun. The address for each Knockbox is always the same, 10.0.1.1. Type it once and your history will remember it. The SSID of the network is always the address of the home, 1234 Main or 1235 Main. Which home were you interested in?