Online real estate video host Wellcomehost released its first annual report on the use of video in real estate marketing.

Significantly, the company found that the use of video is up 95% in the first half of 2009 versus the first half of 2008.

Breakouts like Realtor Ian Watt (see Video Isn’t Just About Your Listings) set the bar for the creative use of video and also seemed to have kick-started a whole generation of car-mounted video blog posts.

But it’s not only the little guys getting in on the fun; big brands like Corcoran Group are embracing video too.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pNFNO5PsNM[/youtube]

What I found particularly interesting in the report however, was the breakdown of the how real estate professionals are using video. Marketing listings comes in at the top of the list 30 per cent; showcasing local areas and professional introductions round out the top three but oddly, demonstrating market knowledge comes in dead last.

Seems to me, if done properly, market intelligence is the biggest opportunity to push video in a new interesting direction. Imagine an animated Common Craft style monthly video market report, for example…

Here’s a few more slides from the full report.

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WellcomeMat, the online real estate video site, has launched a new iPhone available available today in the iTunes App Store.

Using the app you can now shoot off-the-cuff video walkthrus of your listings on your iPhone 3GS and post them immediately to WellcomeMat, Twitter, YouTube and Facebook.

From their post on their blog:

Do it yourself video just got a helluva lot easier and we are glad to be the company making it happen. The Flip camera got us one step closer to video being easy to do, acting as a hard drive for videos that are shot in web-ready formats. Now people can post their videos straight from their iPhone: no chords, no format changes, no compression and no barriers.

I think this is a phenomenal step forward for real estate video — though I’d love to see it have even greater integration with some of the more real-estate specific search sites; Realtor.com, Trulia, Zillow etc.

More importantly than Realtor produced videos however, what really excites me is an app like this opens up the realm to anyone, armed with an iPhone, to create on-the-spot, near real-time video assessments of properties.

Privacy concerns aside, properly curated and geo-tagged video reviews of properties could be a boon to online house hunters. It would take Google’s Street View to a whole new level.

Let the cameras roll!

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6 months ago I gave up my cable TV subscription. How? One word.

Boxee.

Boxee is a revolutionary application that lets you pull together all your media together in a single browser that you can access from the comfort of your couch. I truly believe that Boxee – when combined with a device like my AppleTV – is the future of television. It lets me consume all the media I’ve gathered on my local network as well as hook in to all kinds of web-based streaming content; including breaking news, music and, of course, video.

Recently, the company launched a contest for developers to get companies to write applications (“plugins”) that can be added to a Boxee installation.

The folks at WellcomeMat obliged and built a wicked cool app that let’s you browse and search for local videos on your TV. Check it out.

They’re asking for your help too – vote for them and help them win the developer challenge. Today’s the last chance to cast your ballot.

So why is this all important? As we move into this brave new world of web marketing where everyone becomes a content producer, it’s important to consider where the new distribution channels may lie. Whether it’s new devices like the Kindle (see FOREM now on Kindle) or new platforms like Boxee – figuring out your syndication strategy is going to become as important — if not more so — than creating the words, or video, in the first place.

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Online real estate video resource WellcomeMat officially threw off the training wheels this morning and announced it has emerged from Beta.

The company, which I first previewed in 2007 (see WellcomeMat – The Killer App for Real Estate Video) has taken huge strides over the last few years and built out a fantastic network that connects Realtors and brokers with video professionals.

In addition, their video player technology still remains head of its class and as big brokers are starting to wake up to the new world of online video, the company has had some success helping them power their own video plays (see WellcomeMat Powers Halstead Property Real Estate Video).

So what does dropping the Beta mean? Well, not suprisingly, given the current economic times, the site is no longer free.

Their entry level Premier plan now runs $14.95 a month and they also have an Pro account which costs $19.95 a month. Neither of which should be particularly onerous if you are serious about integrating video into your marketing.

But, as a way of saying thanks to its Beta testers, all existing 10,000 members of the site were upgraded to becoming lifetime Premier members for free.

Since I did my last Real Estate Video Shoot Out many of the free video hosts profiled there have disappeared or introduced pay-for-play models. Video streaming is an expensive business and the age of free looks like it may be coming to an end.

Other online video providers include ZIPVO.

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ActiveRain has always had its eye on video. It has dabbled a little bit with its RainTV segments, shot at last summer’s Real Estate Connect conference, and more recently by holding a video contest.

Now, it seems, they are making a bigger play for a piece of the real estate video pie. Through a partnership with Mixpo.com they have just announced a new platform that will more deeply integrate video into ‘Rainers blogs. The plan, which was supposed to be on the d-l, was leaked by some over-enthusiastic Beta participants, prompting this blog post.

You will be able to host and edit your videos directly from video.activerain.com, and then take the videos in your library and embed them directly to your blog posts with the click of one button. You will also be able to embed them wherever on the internet you would like outside of ActiveRain. One of the cool features that fits nicely with everyone’s blogging efforts is the ability to add links directly into your videos. So if you are giving a tour of a listing, to potential buyers, you can include links to the listing on your site, or to surrounding attractions you have written about in your blog.

ActiveRain seems to be making small strides recently to move beyond their early social networking roots towards becoming more of a repository of all of a real estate professionals digital content. Not as a sexy of a business plan, but probably a more sustainable business model.

The platform will cost Realtors $29/month.

This move is also surely a shot across the bow aimed at online provider WellcomeMat, which has been a popular choice for video hosting by Realtors to date. WellcomeMat, which, conversely, just added social networking to it’s video platform (see WellcomeMat Goes Social), has yet to announce publicly its pricing plan.

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WellcomeMat, the popular real estate video hosting site, has undergone a fairly extensive facelift – and they are now taking the service in a totally different direction.

The new Mat is carrying on the trend to ditch the maps (Real Estate Search Tit for Tat) — if you remember, the original site was designed as a consumer search tool to find real estate videos — and has introduced a number of social features designed for real estate professionals to connect with and get the experience they need from their peers. The goal is to help them improve their workflow so that they can more easily get up and running producing real estate video.

The site borrows liberally from social networks like Facebook, but this is not necessarily a bad thing. With WellcomeMat’s Activity Feed can see what your connections are doing across the site. You can create networks of different users so groups of agents in a single sales office could potentially combine their efforts to create a deeper local real estate channel.

Of course, the heart of WellcomeMat is still the video hosting and streaming service. In the My Channel section of the site you’ll find the link to upload your own video, as well as a listing of all your active videos. Clicking on an active video gives you the necessary embed code for your videos.

As you can see, WellcomeMat has also launched its new player with this release.

And while there are a lot of neat new features (cuepoints float on the video rather than take up space below the player) it honestly caused a few headaches for me, since the new player is so much bigger than the last one. Luckily you can still find the legacy code for the old players if your site’s design (like mine) can’t accommodate the new player’s dimensions.

Also, if you’ve uploaded video with the earlier smaller dimensions – you’ll see black bars around it during the playback, which I didn’t like very much (you can however expand the video to get rid of them).

Granted, this is still in Beta and there are bound to be kinks in a release this big. And WellcomeMat promises they will be rolling out many new options in the months to come, including new widgets to help you publish your videos anywhere you want.

WellcomeMat continues to be one of my favorite hosts for anyone considering dabbling in real estate video. This release has gone a step further to really drill down and tackle what’s the heart of the issue with real estate video right now; adoption rates. By providing more of a platform for people to interact and find support, hopefully more agents will begin to experiment with video.

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Inman News names the finalists for the 2007 Innovator Awards. For more on some of the nominees’ accomplishments, read:

Coldwell Banker

• Coldwell Banker Opens Office in Second Life

Foxtons

• Foxtons Imports Audioshows to USA

Google Street View

• Next Generation Virtual Tours

John L. Scott

• John L. Scott breaks the mold
• The Evolution of Map Based Searches

Point2NLS

• Point2Homes Thinks Inside the Box

Trulia Voices

• Trulia Finds Its Voice

vFlyer

• vFlyers Lets You Put Listings on Your Blog
• Merchandizing Real Estate Photos with vFlyer

WellcomeMat

• WellcomeMat – The Killer App for Real Estate Video

Zillow Q&A

• Zillow Asks What’s For Sale in your Hood?

Also on the list, some great real estate blogs; 3 Oceans Real Estate, BloodhoundBlog, Real Estate Tomato and Transparent Real Estate.

Congrats to all the nominees!

[Full disclosure: I work for Inman News.]

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Real estate video is definitely a big trend this year. Producing and directing a great real estate video is a subject best covered in a another post – but if you already have a video you want to show, the big question is where to host it?

I’ve suggested a few options in the past (see Video Hosting Alternatives to Youtube) but I thought, instead of writing about them, I’d show you instead.

WellcomeMat

Pros: High quality video, multiple players available for embedding
Cons: Slightly longer encoding process

Blip.TV

Click To Play

Pros: WYSIWYG HTML editor for descriptions, Creative Commons licenses for videos, integrated advertising with revenue share

Brightcove

MSN Soapbox

Video: Future of Real Estate Marketing

Pros: Integrated with Hotmail/MSN account – no new signup needed
Cons: Slow upload

Jumpcut

Cons: Slow upload

Metacafe

Future Of Real Estate Marketing – The best home videos are here

Cons: Slightly laborious sign up process

Vimeo

Pros: Fast, easy to signup
Cons: Slow conversion

Veoh

Online Videos by Veoh.com

Adbrite

Pros: Video available quickly, can embed ads in video
Cons: Must use FLV (Flash) file, no encoding, no upload

Real Estate Video Shoot Out Also-rans

YouTube

Cons: Didn’t work! Got hung up on upload. The King is dead! Long live the King!

Revver

Cons: Video needs to be approved before being published

VideoEgg

Cons: Doesn’t support Firefox

The video clip used in these example was produced by Dave Herring of Florida DV – if you’re a Realtor in Florida and you’re looking for a great videographer to shoot your listings; give him a call at (727)686-3638, email him at gulfshooter [at] yahoo.com or visit him on the Web at http://www.wellcomemat.com/florida

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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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