This is my column for this week from the Arizona Republic (permanent link):
The Flip digital video camera makes illustrating real estate ideas fast, convenient and fun
I’m becoming a fan of digital video for marketing real estate.
I’ve always hated the video home tour: “This. Is. The. Living. Room. This. Is. The. Dining. Room. The. Family. Dines. In. This. Room.” The images will be small, dark and grainy. The motion will be either jerky, swooping or both. And the tour itself will do nothing that could not be done better with digital photos.
But just lately I got a Flip video camera, and I can’t seem to stop thinking of real estate uses for it.
The Flip uses solid state memory rather than tapes to store its video. It’s a tiny little thing, about the size of a digital still camera, and you can operate it with one hand. It’s really only good for certain kinds of work. It would be useless at a wedding or a basketball game. But for capturing interviews, it is the prefect video camera.
Even better, it comes with a built-in USB connection and software for emailing videos or pumping them directly into YouTube or MySpace. Shooting, storing, editing and sharing videos are all painlessly convenient.
The first real estate application I thought of for the Flip was to collect testimonials from clients. That’s kind of self-serving, but the next idea was all about selling houses. In the past we have done video interviews with sellers or neighbors, but the editing process for normal video is onerous. But with the Flip we can just shoot the interview, upload it to YouTube and then link it from the web site for that property.
If I want to make a quick video to show weather conditions or traffic around a house, it’s easily done. I had a home inspector deliver a short video summary of the repair issues on a home for out-of-town buyers.
The breakthrough for me was thinking of video in the same way I think of still photography, as another way of illustrating real estate ideas. Because it’s so small and easy to use, the Flip now rides on my hip with my digital still camera.
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