There’s always something to howl about.

Category: Technology (page 30 of 60)

One-hand solid-state video cameras like the Flip are a fantastic resource for both real estate documentation and video podcasting

I’m completely sold on the Flip camera. Unchained bought a second one for Brian the other day. We’ll use both of them at the conference, then each of us will take one home. We’re going to buy another one out of our own money for Cathleen. I wrote my Republic column for next week about all the real estate marketing uses I’m coming up with for this little video camera.

Why am I so sweet on the Flip?

  • It’s second only to my digital still camera as an on-hand resource for recording and communicating real estate ideas
  • It fits on my hip — just like my still camera — and that’s where it rides
  • Because it’s so easy to carry and so easy to use, there is no aversion or impediment to using it
  • It’s eminently useful for documenting traffic conditions around a house — or weather, as I did earlier today
  • It’s simply excellent for doing interviews, whether those are testimonials, vendor reports for clients or video podcasts

The video shared below is a brief summary by Mike Elsberry, my all time favorite home inspector, documenting the repair issues in the home we looked at today. The buyers are out-of-state, but they get to see Mike’s face, hear the confidence and expertise in his voice and judge his level of concern with the issues he raises. This simply rocks, a completely different way of dealing with a remote-control inspection.

I want for Brain and I to both have Flip cameras with us all the time because of the ease of making video podcasts. Whenever we find ourselves talking to anyone with something interesting to say, we can turn the conversation into a podcast, a permanent addition to our library of Black Pearls.

Until now I have shouted down real estate video with my volume knob set to eleven. I still feel the same way about what I call the Lurch video, the painfully boring home tour with swooping and jerking camera movement and a voiceover narration punctuated by way… too… much… punctuation… Cathy shot an interview on Sunday with the seller of our listing on Lookout Mountain in Phoenix, Read more

Using YouTube video cameras to create text plus video landing pages

Hunter Jackson of IBlogColumbia.com wrote to me yesterday about the possibility of doing video testimonials with the RCA Small Wonder, a CMOS-based video camera like the Flip Camera we discussed a few days ago. Like the Flip, the Small Wonder has a built-in USB connector, and it also uses AA batteries for maximum uptime. Some users have had complaints about video quality, especially in low light, but a very cool feature of the Small Wonder is its ability to use 2 GB SD cards for storage. Each card holds up to four hours of video, so you can either just keep shooting, or you can record onto one card while you’re uploading your videos on another.

The cost? Ninety bucks at Amazon.com.

Here is Hunter’s first chapter of a video diary of a home-buyer’s journey through the escrow process:

This works as a blog post, or as a series of posts, but the video can also be blended together with interstitial text to create something like the Realty Reality posts I used to do, but with video instead of photos for the illustrations.

I’m short on time to play with this, but I think this may be a very effective way to integrate video into real estate web sites: Text plus video landing pages.

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Put Voicemail Testimonials On Your Blog Or Website: Audio Editing For SalesPeople.

Social proof.  It’s what people need to do business with you.  They may not say it consciously, but they need it.  One of my (many) websites, at Ten Day Team, I’ve put up some significant testimonials.  Realtors are always afraid that several things will happen:  The lender won’t return his calls, the lender won’t get the job done, there will be endless delays, and they won’t get paid. They had that fear since time immemorial.  I like consumer business, I love agent-referred business.  So I have to use some artillery to soften them up.  What better than a parade of agents and customers affirming that I, Chris Johnson, do a good job?

To prove that I’m an OK guy, I’ve gotten a few people to say good things about me.  I didn’t edit MUCH of the testimonial content, generally limiting myself to shortening pauses and deleting "ums" that were bookended by pauses.  Edits are easy enough to spot, people have acute BS detectors, and an edited testimonial does more harm than good.  Every website I do in the future will have customer testimonials–in this fashion, because it’s so easy. 

The entire process–start to finish–including learning how, took two hours.  Aside: One of the keys to life is to presume that you can quickly figure out how to do something because someone has had the same problem before and has posted about it.   This is posted for WordPress, but I’ve done this stuff on other blogs and sites.  Email me, and I’ll help if I can, and walk you through doing it on a non WordPress site.

Step 1: Get Some Audio.  Here is the letter I sent out to my clients:

Dear {name}

Thanks for the opportunity to serve you.  One of the things that is important to my practice is the ability to continue to win and keep the trust of my clients.  It would honor me a great deal if you could simply leave me a voicemail message at my phone number,614-839-4850 telling me how I helped you.   Read more

Updates From the Ivory Tower

This week all the elected and paid leaders of the REALTOR® organization will be headed to Washington DC for organizational meetings and visits with Congress.  For all of you NAR malcontents, this would be a perfect time to carry out the hostile take-over of your local and state association of REALTORS®. 

White House

The agenda for the NAR Mid-Year Meeting features two items that I have written about in the past – the announced Upgrade to REALTOR.com’s standard services and the project formerly known as “the gateway.”  Here are a couple of quick updates:

Last week, REALTOR.com released a beta site (http://beta.realtor.com) and the following statement:

The new “Beta” REALTOR.com® website will continue to be enhanced over the next several months.  Early this summer, the new site will replace the current site and will include many new free benefits for your members.  One important FREE benefit on the new REALTOR.com® site is the ability to display up to 4 photos on all basic listings.  Since we already receive multiple photos in the data that you currently provide to REALTOR.com®, there is no action required on your part to provide this new and exciting benefit for your members.  Property photos will continue to be updated as long as the listing remains on the market and is on REALTOR.com®. 

The Gateway…Real Estate Channel…or Library/Archive

The project that is so big and far reaching that NAR is having trouble finding a name to fit will be a major topic of discussion in DC.  For those who have not heard of this, the project originally used the working title “Gateway” and was basically a mash-up all property data in the country.  Then, just a little over a month ago, the name was changed to the “Real Estate Channel” and now it is being referred to as a library or archive of data.  More importantly, NAR has issued a white paper on the..ah…whatchamacallit program that clearly outlines the intent.  A few key points for those who do not wish to click thru to read the white paper: 1) it is NOT an MLS and there will be no offer of compensation or Read more

At last, a use for video in real estate that I don’t hate: Using the Flip video camera to collect and post video testimonials

One of the the things I like about working with Brian Brady is that, when we’re together, or even when we’re just talking by phone, marketing magic happens. We spark ideas in each other, and marketing strategies emerge that neither one of us had foreseen.

Last week, Brian suggested that I buy a Flip video camera for us to use at Unchained. Fast, easy, fun YouTube videos, like a Polaroid Swinger for the new millennium.

I don’t remember who came up with what, but we worked out a strategy for using the camera to make unique, viral content at the conference. You’ll have to wait until next week to see what we have in mind.

But I got on the net — take note of how real people shop, if you would — and researched cameras and prices. The best instant availability I found was the Flip Ultra with 60 minutes of flash video memory for $135 with tax at Sam’s Club. I bought one for Unchained, set it up and learned how to use it.

The video I showed of Brian last night was shot with the Flip camera, but it’s not as good as a camcorder for mid-range or distant shots. Up close, though, it’s the cat’s pajamas.

And that was something I realized while I was talking: The Flip camera is the absolute most perfect tool for collecting testimonials. Testimonials are credible because they’re not written by you. Video is credible because of its verisimilitude. By asking questions, you can direct a video testimonial to bring out the information you want to convey to other viewers.

You can use Richard Riccelli’s testimonial plot line, for instance: “If you want to get to heaven you have to go through hell” — or — “Given my past negative experiences, I was stunned and amazed by the incredible service I received.”

So I’m standing there in front of a room full of people, realizing that I had just hit upon something new and really cool. The Flip camera is as small as my everyday digital still camera. I can easily wear it on my belt along with the Read more

Brian Brady at today’s Unchained preview show: “If your clients are already on LinkedIn, someone else will introduce me to them”

As I had mentioned, we did a couple of BloodhoundBlog Unchained preview shows today in Phoenix, one for Realtors and one for lenders.

Tempe Realtor and real estate weblogger Nick Bastian wins the endurance award for attending both sessions. Nick surprised Brian Brady by Twittering about Brian’s discussion of LinkedIn, a piece of which is shown below, while Brian was delivering it.

The events were a big kick for me. I sold a house yesterday, and the buyers (whom we have discussed as the Halversons) dropped by to sign some paperwork. And Cathleen and I listed 14237 North 11th Street in Phoenix early today. The seller is fellow Realtor David Pinelli, who is now working in the equestrian suburbs of Boston, but who until lately was working with Allan Pinel in Palo Alto. David was able to come to the Realtor portion of the presentation this morning, a nice reinforcement of the ideas Cathleen and I have been talking about with him for the past two weeks.

As Brian discusses below, we met a lot of really interesting people who are excited about the potential of blending Social Media Marketing into their buinesses. The whole day was a blast, which makes me think that Unchained is going to be even more fun that I’ve been expecting.

Here’s where I end up: Our belief from the beginning was that the Seven Nights in Ireland style of conference — a vast excuse to behave badly far from home — was not for us. We bet on a real curriculum, a hefty regimen of demanding content, and our experience today shows that that bet will pay off.

I keep getting notes from very smart people whose identies I will keep concealed. The gist of their emails: “Kick Inman’s ass.” It seems like a worthy goal to me. BloodhoundBlog is the home of serious ideas on the RE.net, and BloodhoundBlog Unchained promises to be the locus of serious minds in wired real estate education. I don’t ever want for us to be anywhere but at the head of the pack.

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Thinking myself out of business: a lone real estate agent faces the future

loner.jpg Agents get leads from different marketing strategies, both offline and online, but where will most of the leads come from in five years? Looking ahead I’d have to say leads will come mainly from one source — Google.

Unless something changes, Google has the lion’s share of searchers. As more and more home buyers use Google to search for area information and sites where real estate listings can be found, it becomes obvious for listing agents and buyer agents that search placement is, and will be even moreso in the future, vital to success in the real estate business.

Before I go any further, I’ll address opposition to this statement by saying that some agents will continue to be successful using marketing methods outside Google search, but I’m talking about the majority of agents working in the real estate business full time. I’m excluding the mega-agents who attract buyers and sellers through their star status and obviously superior abilities of attraction and promotion — the majority of agents will not be stars. Plus, even the offline efforts that give an agent exposure might be eclipsed after someone gets online to begin searching — an agent’s name might appear in a magazine, or a billboard, or through the mail, or a flyer in a store, or on a “for sale” sign on the street, but when the buyer goes back to their computer to search, another agent who has mastered the art of placement will pop up and lead the buyer in a different direction. I predict the online presence will become more valid in the buyer’s mind than offline presence as consumers learn to trust and depend on the net more and more.

I don’t believe Zillow and Trulia will be major factors in lead generation. If they survive, they will be a draw for those curious about real estate in general, but searchers will be more sophisticated and agents will be smarter about SEO.

It’s my opinion that the majority of agents will need to get good placement on Google in order to be successful. Google placement won’t be the ONLY way to market, just the most effective way Read more

Two BloodhoundBlog Unchained warm-up events Friday in Phoenix

Flat out and miles to go before I sleep. I’ve told Cathy to make my excuses this way: Greg is wearing three hats, and none of them is a nightcap. This is a reminder to you from me from last week:

If you’re in Phoenix on Friday, May 9th, Brian and I will be doing two 2.5 hour Unchained previews at the Mesquite Branch of the Phoenix Public Library (4525 Paradise Village Parkway North, Phoenix, AZ 85032). We’ll be talking to Realtors from 9:30 am to 12 Noon, and to Lenders from 1 pm to 3:30 pm. These two events are free — provided you pay attention — sponsored by Chicago Title and Mortgage Solutions of Arizona. RSVP with Lisa Capes at Chicago Title — 480-695-3136 — if you want to come.

Brian Brady is here in Phoenix, which is a real treat for me. I will tell you that he is itching to raise the price on Unchained tickets, so tonight may be your last chance to lock down the $199 price for all three days of the conference.

We may shoot some just-for-fun videos tomorrow. If we do, I’ll post them tomorrow night.

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A celebration of Western Civilization and the Scientific Revolution

This is quoted from a John Derbyshire dismissal of a creationist documentary film. That much is good. This much is great:

Western civilization has many glories. There are the legacies of the ancients, in literature and thought. There are the late-medieval cathedrals, those huge miracles of stone, statuary, and spiritual devotion. There is painting, music, the orderly cityscapes of Renaissance Italy, the peaceful, self-governed townships of old New England and the Frontier, the steel marvels of the early industrial revolution, our parliaments and courts of law, our great universities with their spirit of restless inquiry.

And there is science, perhaps the greatest of all our achievements, because nowhere else on earth did it appear. China, India, the Muslim world, all had fine cities and systems of law, architecture and painting, poetry and prose, religion and philosophy. None of them ever accomplished what began in northwest Europe in the later 17th century, though: a scientific revolution. Thoughtful men and women came together in learned societies to compare notes on their observations of the natural world, to test their ideas in experiments, and in reasoned argument against the ideas of others, and to publish their results in learned journals. A body of common knowledge gradually accumulated. Patterns were observed, laws discerned and stated.

If I write with more feeling than usual here it is because I have just shipped off a review to an editor (for another magazine) of Gino Segrè’s new book about the history of quantum mechanics. It’s a good, if not very remarkable, book giving pen-portraits of the great players in physics during the 1920s and 1930s, and of their meetings and disagreements. Segrè, a particle physicist himself, who has been around for a while, knew some of these people personally, and of course heard many anecdotes from their intellectual descendants. It’s a “warm” book, full of feeling for the scientists and their magnificent enterprise, struggling with some of the most difficult problems the human intellect has ever confronted, striving with all their powers to understand what can barely be understood.

Gino Segrè’s book — and, of course, hundreds like it (I have, ahem, Read more

The Realty.bot shuffle: Trulia.com’s response to complaints about nofollow tags on partner-supplied content seems truly atrocious

Galen Ward’s post on Trulia.com’s policy of adding “nofollow” tags to links back to its own listings partners has elicited quite a bit of controversy.

The original post itself excited a great deal of commentary, and this is explored in encyclopedic detail in a fascinating post by Union Street Media’s Gahlord Dewald.

Trulia.com’s Rudy Bachraty participated for a while in that comment thread, then elected to take the respondent’s side of the debate back to Trulia’s home weblog, where head honcho Pete Flint made an effort to put out the fire. Comments there have been noticeably light, which made me wonder if Trulia has learned ahead of the curve why video commenting is a stoopid idea.

The story was picked up by Inman News today.

I am in the perhaps unique position of being just barely smart enough to explain what’s going on within what might well seem to others to be a blizzard of jargon.

Start here: I observed that Trulia is achieving truly amazing long-tail search results.

Galen pointed out that an ancillary reason for this is that Trulia is not allowing search engines to “follow” its links to its listing partners.

In other words, you — or your broker or your brokerage chain — feed Trulia.com a real estate listing, the primary content it uses to sell advertising. That listing will link back to its source (in hierarchical order: brokerage chain, broker, then lowly you if neither of the others is coming between you and your listing). But that link will include a “nofollow” tag, which means that when search engines see that listing page on Trulia, they will not queue your own page for spidering, nor will they in any other way regard that link as lending any strength to your page.

In still other words, Trulia is happy to feast on your crackers, but it’s not about to share any of its Google juice with you.

Trulia’s claims about why it is not doing this are specious and bogus, in my opinion, but you can read their side of the story at their weblog.

Does this actually matter? I think so, for two reasons. First, the Read more

Unchained, unplugged and off the clock…

I can’t think of any better way to make the real estate business rebound than having way too much other work to do. I’ve been writing Unchained content, juggling Unchained details, responding to a bunch of Unchained mail — all while negotiating and planning listings and working with buyers. Next week promises to be enriched with about three weeks’ worth of work, and we top it off with two Unchained preview shows on Friday.

Thus: If you’re in Phoenix on Friday, May 9th, Brian and I will be doing two 2.5 hour Unchained previews at the Mesquite Branch of the Phoenix Public Library (4525 Paradise Village Parkway North, Phoenix, AZ 85032). We’ll be talking to Realtors from 9:30 am to 12 Noon, and to Lenders from 1 pm to 3:30 pm. These two events are free — provided you pay attention — sponsored by Chicago Title and Mortgage Solutions of Arizona. RSVP with Lisa Capes at Chicago Title — 480-695-3136 — if you want to come.

Brian has been flat-out, too, which means he’s been too busy to raise the price for Unchained tickets. We’re still at $199 for all three days, so if you’re coming, you probably ought to commit yourself. Cathy has all the food taken care of, so your lunch and coffee and cookie breaks are on us. She and Brian have a Happy Hour event planned for Monday night, so everyone will have a chance to pick everyone else’s brains. The Radisson Phoenix City Center has a $69/night rack rate for Unchained students, although The Fairfield Inn is the hotel closest to The Heard Museum. Do you crave more details of a practical nature? Click and ye shall find.

Galen Ward owned our minds this week, for good reason, but, if I can, I’d like to turn your attention back to the idea of the unchained epiphany. This has nothing to do with the conference and everything to do with why we’re doing it. Chris Johnson and his wife had a little baby girl named Ruby. I’m sure he’s not busy enough, so I would point him back more than Read more

REALTOR.com to Provide Upgrades for All

Later this month, REALTOR.com will be announcing that many of the Premium Services for agents (services that Premium Subscribers pay for) will soon be available to all REALTORS®.  Services like multiple pictures, for instance, will be available on all listings.  This will provide sellers with better exposure of their property.

This change is actually a major philosophical shift for the largest, most popular real estate site on the web.  Essentially, they will be turning premium services into the new standard services and then developing new premium services.  If successful, the pace of innovation at REALTOR.com should pick up and the site may be morphed from a member nuisance, to a member service.  It is too soon to tell if this change will help REALTOR.com keep up with newer sites like Zillow and Trulia, but this is a positive start to a much needed change.

Want to be the greatest real estate agent in the world? You’ll need a solid plan, a lot of hard work, a little luck — and a web site. For the latter, you can compete for the site Eric Blackwell won in the “Greatest Real Estate Agent in the World” SEO contest.

Eric Blackwell is holding a raffle for the Real Estate Webmasters we site he won in the “Greatest Real Estate Agent in the World” SEO contest.

Tickets are $35 each, four for $100. Proceeds go to the Eco Preservation Society in Costa Rica.

Click over to Eric’s site for all the details.

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Is The Growth Of Media Good For Realtors?

New Avenues Of Marketing Exposure Are Exploding In Growth And Cost

Remember when there were only three broadcast television channels? Well, I know some of you – like me – remember. It was a simpler time, back then.

If you wanted to bring a product or service to market, there were limited channels to advertise – and because of this dynamic, the costs to exposure a large part of your audience to your ad was relatively cheap.

Not so, anymore.

Now, when a product or service is brought to market, it almost always has to be targeted to a specific audience – as few entities can afford the blanket coverage of yesteryear. Just take a look at what it costs to market a presidential candidate.

We see this happening in real estate, as well. The avenues where listings can be shown has grown to a visual cacophony. There are virtually thousands of places where buyers can find listings.

Somehow, I don’t see this as a great benefit to Realtors – or the public, in general.

Don’t get me wrong – I do believe that competition is good… and that having more than one way to market listings is good – but at what point does it become more of a hassle than it’s worth?

Would online auctions be better if there were a few dozen Ebay-like sites to buy and sell on? And if so, how would it benefit the people who were trying to buy or sell?

For some reason, I think not.

Oh, Canada! Your Zestimates are baking: Zillow.ca is in the oven

So: My belief would be that, regardless of Trulia.com’s nofollow policy on the listings it solicits from Realtors, brokers and brokerage chains, if you’re building things right at home, you should be able to beat any out-of-town infiltrators on your own listings.

So I looked up “718 West Moreland Street”, which isn’t even my listing, but which I wrote about in my own Trulia post a couple of weeks ago. My links are coming in in positions 1, 2, 3 and 4 and Trulia is at number 6. Your mileage may vary.

Next up, “12214 West Madison Street”, which we listed 13 days ago. The home’s single-property web site comes in first and second. Trulia isn’t there at all yet, but guess who comes in third? Yes, its underdog victorious Zillow.com. I tweaked David Gibbons a couple of days ago about his uncharacteristic silence, but I knew this meant that Zillow had to be working on SEO. With Zillow, you can learn a lot from the questions they won’t answer.

Here’s a third one: “1322 East Vermont Avenue”, which we’ve had listed for about a month. We definitely believe in networked cross-linking on our own sites, so as I look at my results for that search today (all of which might change at any instant), we’re coming in first, second, third, fifth and sixth out of seven hits on google, with the single-property web site again in the dominant position. Trulia.com is in fourth place, behind a weblog post I wrote about the Vermont house on DistinctivePhoenix.com — a PR4 weblog.

Can I call this established? If you’re building your own web sites properly, Trulia.com should not be able to beat you. Any disputes, disclaimers or caveats?

But here’s what’s really interesting: Position number seven is occupied by Zillow.ca. I don’t know how many houses there are in Canada, but it looks like they’re about to get Zestimated.

If a sphinx-like creature, his gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, should like to offer up some details, I’m all ears.

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