A couple of years ago I postulated that video would eventually kill the virtual tour (see Inman Connect Highlights Real Estate 2.0) – and, for the most part, that seems to have happened. The seemingly ubiquitous (at the time) 360 spin-and-puke photo tour has largely been replaced these days by Ken Burns-like slide shows and full motion video walkthroughs.

But, I could have spoken too soon.

Yellowbird is a Dutch company (who, incidentally, win the most awesome URL award with www.yellowbirdsdonthavewingsbuttheyflytomakeyouexperiencea3dreality.com – perhaps kicking off a new trend?) which has just pioneered the 360 spin-and-puke, inside full motion video.

Yeah, it’s as crazy as it sounds…

Check it out.

Most definitely this has implications for real estate marketing. Two years from now, could this be the norm in online tours? Will we be seeing 3D scrollable Street View videos from Google on their Place Pages (see Google makes yet another big move into real estate territory) any time soon? It’s something the Swiss already seem to be working on (see The Swiss Give Us A Peek At 360-Degree VideoStreetView Maps)

In all seriousness however, I kind of like this. It puts me in control of the watching experience in my browser. Something I find natural with the lean-forward nature of the web. And I like the idea of being able to virtual “drive” down a street and see a home from my browser.

In the meantime however, while I’m waiting for all this to transpire, I think I have some mighty big URLs that I need to go and register.

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