Kori Covrigaru is a young entrepreneur, currently CEO of PlanOmatic, an online real estate marketing company providing interactive home tours. Kori grew up in Michigan, went to school and Western Michigan University, and currently lives in Colorado, enjoying the mountains in all seasons.

You remember Homestore, right? “Leverage the Power of the Red Spinning House”.

Over the last five years or so, 360-degree panoramic virtual tours have slowly decreased in popularity. This has happened for various reasons, but the one that sticks out to me the most is the increasing popularity of mobile web browsing, and the lack of support by mobile platforms for Flash. Yes, you can thank Steve Jobs for that one. Based on a study by StatCounter, as of November 2010, mobile web browsing makes up for approximately 4.02% of the total Internet traffic.

You may not find that number to be impressive, but take a look at the trend in 2010 alone.  This past January, mobile browsing was just 1.56% of web traffic. That’s a growth rate of 157.69% over less than a year, and trust me folks, that growth rate is only going to get higher, faster.

Thanks to Larry Lohrman’s blog, I recently came across some interesting technology that brings mobile browsing and panoramic virtual tours together. The team at PTgui has developed PTgui 9.0, a viewer that displays panoramic virtual tours at a remarkably high quality, both functionally and aesthetically. When viewing these panoramic virtual tours on an iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad (any Apple iOS device), they use HTML5 to display and interact with the panoramic scene.  Try it for yourself. If you’re using an Apple iOS device, you will be viewing in HTML5.  On a desktop computer, the scene will be displayed using Adobe’s Flash. The video below is a demonstration I recorded of my interaction with PTgui’s panoramic scene on my iPhone 4.

As you can see, it runs very smoothly and looks pretty sexy. The fact that they shot the Louvre helps a little too J. This technology has the capability to change online real estate marketing in tremendous ways.

As of today, it’s been cutting edge for virtual tour providers to offer a mobile version of their tours.  Many have, but none (to the best of my knowledge) have found a way to incorporate panoramic scenes into their mobile tours directly in the browser.  I have seen tours that utilize Quicktime and YouTube videos, but the experience is not the same because Quicktime and YouTube don’t allow you to interact directly with the scene. Furthermore, having the entire presentation self-contained in the browser makes for a far superior user experience.

The PTgui viewer now opens the door for virtual tour companies to provide panoramic scene tours, while keeping the mobile presentation experience completely in tact and interactive. It will be fascinating to see how virtual tour providers incorporate and reintroduce this technology into their suite of services.  Will panoramic scenes make it back into the mainstream and be viewed as cutting edge once again? Have you seen any other HTML5 viewers that display panoramic scenes? Please share your thoughts on panoramic scenes, and if and why you have stopped using them to market your listings.

Share on Facebook

In January 2010, the Center for REALTOR® Technology (CRT) extended an email survey invitation to 45,000 random REALTORS® who have provided NAR with an email address. Close to 1,500 responded to the survey. 93% of those indicated that they were 40 years old or younger use a smartphone to conduct real estate business. 86% of respondents older than 40 use a smartphone.

Here are the highlights of the survey:

Top 3 smartphone brands used by respondents:

• Blackberry (41.2%)
• iPhone family: iPhone 3G (14.1%) ; iPhone 3GS (11.9%)
• Palm (14.0%)

Top 3 reasons why respondents were motivated to choose current smartphone:

• Best device for email (45.9%)
• Ease of use (26.2%)
• Ability to use a keyboard (23.7%)

Top 5 features used most by respondents on their smartphones:

• Telephone (91.2%)
• Email (88.4%)
• SMS/texting (73.8%)
• Calendar (52.6%)
• Web browser (42.3%)

For general purposes, social media related apps were the most popular type of application downloaded by survey respondents (54.5%). This was followed by maps (43.3%) and weather applications (41.8%).

When it comes to MLS listing information:

• 57.3% indicate they have access to MLS listing information through their smartphone’s web browser.
• On a scale of 1-5, where 5 is extremely satisfied – respondents rated their overall satisfaction with the MLS listings available through their smartphone a 3.12.
• 10.7% do not have access to listings via a smartphone because their MLS does not allow it.
• Of this group, 94.4% are very interested in obtaining access via their smartphone.
• 11.4% are not interested in accessing MLS listings via their smartphone.

Out of all this data – the one that is the most disturbing to me, is the MLS info.

Only about HALF of smartphone users have access to MLS data on their phone? And 10% don’t have access because their MLS won’t allow it? REALLY?

It really boggles my mind that agents would not have full and complete access to this data from any internet connection – laptop, desktop or smartphone. I know many times the problem lies in that many MLS’s only work on Internet Explorer – which yes, is still the top web browser but unfortunately it also usually contains the most bugs. Many tech-savvy and smart agents are working from Firefox, Chrome or Opera – just to name a few. In addition many MLS’s are not compatible with Safari – the main browser on a Mac or iPhone. I hope NAR and the Center for REALTOR® technology will help move many MLS’s into the future!

This topic is sure to be a hot debate at Real Estate Connect during our MLS Track held in the afternoon on July 14th.

FOREM fans – what do you think of this survey? Would love your thoughts and opinions – please leave me your feedback below!

Written by: Katie Lance, Marketing Manager, Inman News

Share on Facebook

Location awareness is one of the killer features in the new iPhone. Especially in real estate apps, like Zillow’s app, which recently broke ½ million downloads.

We all know the old axiom with property, right? Location, location, location.

Now that can be translated to your desktop, in addition to your phone. The new version of Firefox (3.5) has added location awareness as one of the new features in this release. From their website:

Now Firefox can tell websites where you’re located so you can find info that’s more relevant and more useful (for example, getting directions or finding restaurants near you). It’s all optional – Firefox doesn’t share your location without your permission – and is done with the utmost respect for your privacy.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5Zbc-Rg6e8[/youtube]

The is potentially huge for online real estate sites, which in the near future could query their visitors, ask for their location and return the most relevant results quickly and seamlessly to their desktop.

Granted if you are searching from home, you (hopefully) already know where you are. But if you were house hunting in a city in an unfamiliar State or pulling out a 3G-enabled netbook in a coffee shop on a Sunday morning open house tour, this could be a killer feature.

So the race is on – which will be the first site to implement this feature? Any bets?

Share on Facebook