WellcomeMat, the real estate video tour platform, released a new version of their software today. Rudy from sellsius and I had a chance to preview their new release this morning.

The new WellcomeMat refocuses the site around the idea of channels, and now allows anyone to create their own real estate channel. The new channel manager page lets you manage, activate, update and edit all your videos from one location, which you can push out to a single branded video page that includes your contact information (should you want it to appear).

I love this option as it now gives all Realtors a single place where they can aggregate their video listings. WellcomeMat even designed a video widget that lets you show all your videos from the comfort of your sidebar. (The example below is some of Doug Heddings of True Gotham’s listings)

But they don’t stop there. A number of new video player options included in this release means Realtors now have even more choices when it comes to taking their videos with them. WellcomeMat makes it even easier to post individual property videos on sites like craigslist, MySpace or even on a personal blog posting.

The guys from the Mat even let it slip that WellcomeMat videos will soon be able to be streamed from Realtor.com – which is a huge win for them and for all video-wielding Realtors. Now you’ll be able to add your video walkthrus to all your listings on the biggest real estate portal in the US (see Hitwise’s State of the Industry).

I asked WellcomeMat about pricing for this service (which is currently free) and they said eventually it will be around $30 per video per month – I believe that this is prorated, meaning if the property sells in less than a month, you are only charged for the number of days the video was live.

For the time being, while it’s still in beta, there is no rush to implement monthly fees and any videos uploaded before the switch will be grandfathered in at zero charge.

In my mind, this release crowns WellcomeMat as one of the heavyweight players in real estate video. Any other challengers to the title?

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The Chicago Tribune did a nice summary of the use of video in selling real estate today and called me for comment. I think it came out pretty well. You can read the whole article here – Sellers shoot for YouTube hits.

Some other mentioned in the article; WellcomeMat and MLPodcast (though not by name – through their partnership with Real Living Helios).

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What I love about blogging is sometimes the real gems I find come from the comments readers place on my posts.

In my recent post on video podcasting, I speculated how a raw “video river” of a broker’s or agent’s listings doesn’t really serve consumer’s needs very well and that for video podcasting (‘vodcasting’) to be an effective way of delivering listings, there needs to be a way to filter those results by neighborhood or through a customized property search.

Sure enough, someone’s already doing it.

Foxtons, an estate agency based in the U.K. that’s already on the cutting edge of real estate marketing, are now delivering web feeds of properties for sale in London and Surrey from Foxtons estate agents.

Using their site, home buyers can filter all their listings by area and price range and subscribe to an XML feed of the results – but here’s the kicker. You can choose if you want to receive text, audio and even video versions of the listings to appear in your news reader.

What’s neat is how they do this. The podcasts or vodcasts are dynamically generated for every listing in Foxtons’ inventory. The video is a slide show of the property photos and the audio is just the listing description read by computer voice generation software.

Check out this example of properties in Surrey up to £250,000.

The videos don’t have the impact of a true video walkthru – but being that it’s automatically created, I guess you can’t really complain. Overall, it’s been a pretty successful approach for Foxtons. According to the comment the video versions are 4x more popular than the audio versions, which doesn’t really surprise me. I’m not sure I could listen to that computer voice for very long without the accompanying visuals.

Which brings me to the only other weird thing I found with this setup. Listening to British property descriptions being read in an American accent. Seemed a little out of wack to me.

This approach is definitely bleeding edge stuff. But a good example of how, with some creativity, you can push the marketing envelope a little bit. Anyone State-side thinking of doing this?

Will we be seeing this feature on Foxtons USA soon?

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RealLiving hooked up with MLPodcast today to provide video podcasting services to all of its agents. (You can read the full release at Mike’s Corner).

Coincidentally, Realtor Magazine also named video or video podcasts as one of their hot marketing trends in their 2007 List Issue which came out today.

Finally, the idea must be gaining steam if you even have mainstream tech columnists weighing in on the matter too.

I think it’s important to separate the two ideas however, as I’ve seen the two terms used interchangeably. And I think we should differentiate whether we are talking about simply posting a video on the Internet (for more on how, see Video Hosting Alternatives to Youtube) or true video podcasts; that is, video content that can be subscribed to or delivered automatically through syndication.

It seems to me that the two, while similar, have very different applications.

There’s no doubt, video by itself has many uses in real estate marketing.

• It could be used to describe your company or product. I love the way BlueRoof.com does this, for example.
• It could be used to profile a neighborhood or add context to a community site. Turnhere does this well.
• It can be used to highlight the selling features of a particular property. (see WellcomeMat – The Killer App for Real Estate Video)
• It can be used to create compelling content that can drive traffic to your site. (see Sitcom Used to Sell Condos)

Video podcasting, on the other hand, is a slightly different animal. The biggest difference, for me anyway, is that it is content that should be delivered and/or received regularly.

It seems to me that uses for video podcasting in real estate marketing are a little more limited right now. Off the top of my head…

• You could subscribe to an individual agent’s new listings. This would be far more relevant if it could deliver video results of a customized property search – a virtual ‘video river’ of all an agent’s or broker’s listings would quickly become annoying.
• Receive monthly/quarterly video market trend reports from an agent. I get real nervous about this one. Honestly, if there’s anything worse than a badly written blog, it’s a poorly produced podcast. I can imagine a lot of boring “talking heads”. I think anyone trying to go down this road is going to have a hard time; unless they adopt a more creative production style like other successful video podcasts like Rocketboom, the show with zefrank or Look Shiny. (Now there’s an idea!)
• I love Greg’s idea to use video podcasts to market a property on a mobile phone (make sure to read through the comments on his post on how this could be accomplished). But I think we’re definitely a few years away from that. I’ve tried Podcast Ready on my BlackJack and it’s like pulling teeth trying to get it download anything.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that 2007 will be the year of video. Video podcasting, I think, may have to wait.

Am I missing something here?

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The Wellcomemat Blog just posted a behind the scenes look at Doug Heddings‘ (of True Gotham fame) video shoot. Doug’s presentation is one of my favorite examples of how to show a property online.

Watch how they put it together.

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Turnhere, the California based video production company announced today that it has signed a deal with the California Association of Realtors (CAR) to provide video production services to CAR’s membership.

Exact details on the nature of this deal are unclear; I’m not sure whether it’s an exclusive supplier relationship, a discount on services to CAR members or some sort of affiliate program.

In any case, Turnhere has been on a bit of a tear lately, this announcement follows deals last week with Coldwell Banker and Chase International Real Estate.

They, along with WellcomeMat (and to a lesser degree, Reallyo), are on the forefront pushing online video solutions to Realtors. Each has a slightly different model, but there’s more than enough room in the industry for all parties as far as I’m concerned.

This announcement is further proof to me that 2007 will be the year that video finally kills the virtual tour. And good riddance.

When you see what can be accomplished with video (check out Doug Heddings’ masterful WellcomeMat performance if you haven’t already) – it’s immediately clear that video is such an intimate and rewarding medium for selling real estate compared to a washed out, blown out 360 picture or a weakly edited slide show.

Brokers not already looking to provide a video solution to their agents should seriously start looking now. Having a trusted, quality video solution (any of the companies mentioned above are good candidates) in place will not only be a huge competitive advantage in the short term, but an absolute necessity in the long.

More from Turnhere’s press release:

“Offering our members additional marketing tools such as online video will bring added value to their client offerings and provide them with an exciting new way to showcase their properties to prospective customers,â€? said C.A.R. President Colleen Badagliacco.

“Part of the appeal of online video is presenting customers with a visually-engaging format to get an advance look at a property before visiting the location,â€? said Bradley J. Inman, founder and CEO of TurnHere. “By joining forces with the CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®, we are able to provide its members with an online video resource that will help them better serve the markets they represent.â€?

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Local media sites are in the fight of their lives for relevancy right now. Both newspaper and TV stations are scrapping it out for local online audiences and the advertising revenue that those eyeballs can generate.

A new report released today from Borrell Associates (Executive Summary is a free PDF download) reveals that, strangely, print media are doing a much better job of generating revenue from video advertising on their sites than the local television counterparts.

They also predict that by 2012, video ads in addition to paid search ads, will dominate these local sites. More interestingly for readers of this blog, real estate is being eyed as a key vertical for growth.

Online competition between newspapers and broadcast TV stations – the leaders in local advertising – will intensify this year as both sides develop Web-based video products. The clash will focus on automotive advertisers initially, though real estate, health and employment are prime targets as well.

This growth in online video advertising likely means video production companies like Turnhere (who can produce “Advertorial” type videos) are well positioned to capture some of this new market.

It also means there’s probably going to be a huge demand for some sort of service that will help negotiate placement for video ads on all these local sites (i.e. a Spotrunner for the local web). I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this is something that Google makes a move into shortly.

Realtors eyeing a real bleeding-edge way to differentiate themselves in the local market should consider video advertising. You’ll be the first on the block, but if Borrell’s right, the rest won’t be far behind.

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