I use Skype regularly and it has become a replacement for the home phone (and business phone) for me and my team.

Skype to me is a great success story and its business model is perfect for exponential growth – getting users to reach out to all of their friends to become members and contacts and saving everyone time and money to connect from almost any location.

Skype also reaches out on just about any platform including Mac, iPhone, Android, BlackBerry and the like, even set top boxes and DVD players and some televisions.

Yes, this is a big price and Skype does compete with a few of Microsofts products such as Windows Live Messenger, but very few people use this software for making calls.

The Skype software is continually evolving with group conferencing and other additional features, you can call anyone, create group chats, share screens and with add ons even record calls. Skype still has a way to go to be the perfect solution for larger businesses, but all in all I think it is a good deal that only the likes of large unwieldy companies like Microsoft could screw up. (Telstra could too, but thats a whole other story)

What will this mean for the current Skype users and software? I doubt Microsoft would be foolish to make any large changes immediately, they could expand the API for users to connect to other services and could also create advanced screen capturing for giving demos or lessons and publishing those on the web, much like Screenr.com

If Microsoft continue to integrate, innovate and grow the software it could mean the end for many a fixed line Telco worldwide. Microsoft will no doubt expand its integration into many of its products including office but the deal to me is all about stopping Google.

Google Voice
Google Voice operates in the US only at this stage, but this deal should see Google get off its backside and introduce other countries and to Australia and New Zealand sooner rather than later.

With Google Voice you simply create a new phone number and match it with your Mobile Phone number (from a large range of providers). All calls are routed to your existing mobile phone.

The power of Google Voice lies in its messaging and translation. If you miss the call it then translates the voice message into text and SMS’s and/or emails you the translated text, you can also play the message from your phone or through a browser on your connected device/desktop.

The transcription is not always accurate, but you get the gist of most messages by just the reading the translated text.

In the US I use Google Voice for all of my SMS messaging and it plays beautifully with Email, SMS, Browsers and is supported on all iPhone, iPad and Android Devices.

All in all a good fit and smart move by Microsoft, let’s just see if they stuff it up!

You see. Viewers ‘can see’ it is a kitchen.

There’s no point in pointing it out to them. “As you can see, I’m in the kitchen.” Yup. We kind’a guessed that. The fridge was a dead giveaway. And the audience will also decide whether or not a backyard is ‘awesome’ based on their own experience. The Grand Canyon is awesome; the average backyard probably isn’t in the same league. And so, we have to choose our words for video scripts in a completely different way.

Changing the way real estate videos are produced is no overnight exercise. I reckon it has to start with the basics. Dump all the adjectives and replace them with the benefits.

Sell the benefits.
Talk about the lemon tree in the garden and its fragrance; the salt air. Come up with an idea for a film so its not just a blow-by-blow/room-by-room tour. Let’s look at a list of real estate cliches that are rolled out in most advertising. Print. Web. And video. This list was culled from a random glance at a few pages of ads at the weekend. No brand has a unique language; all brands use the same words. It is a list of jargon totally unique to real estate.

Imagine if you started talking like this to a human being at an Open Home, they’d think you were a quarter page ad.

• Nestled in a quiet culdesac
• Nothing to do but pack your bags and move in
• European appliances (Miele appliances)
• Architecturally designed
• MUST BE SOLD!
• MUST SELL!
• OWNER FORCED TO SELL!
• Genuine seller
• Opportunity knocks
• Sun-splashed
• Ocean glimpses
• Gourmet kitchen – chef’s kitchen = has two microwaves
• Generous bedrooms
• Alfresco (outdoor area with a corrugated roof)
• Open-plan (the greatest invention since the ensuite)
• Flowing (rivers flow. homes don’t)
• Boasting
• A stone’s throw away
• A short walk
• Modern/contemporary (oxymoron)
• Arguably, could be without parallel (huh?)
• Wide water/deep water (its water)
• Easy access
• Filtered ocean views
• Media room (room with a TV)

I think the trick for Agents when presenting in property videos is to be yourself and talk like a person – not an ad. I reckon the reason great Agents get listings is because they are liked. The TV screen doesn’t need to be a barrier.

Write one set of copy for print (that’s easy as all you need to do is grab the paper and make a list of the jargon) and other copy for video.

Guest Author: Brett Clements from Platinum HD

We use WordPress not only for publishing on this site, but also for the majority of our clients websites. Today I am going to show you just how easy it is to manage your websites with WordPress. WordPress has been a blogging platform since around 2005, since 2007 it has become more of a Content Management System (CMS) and with each release (around 4 major releases per year it bridges the gap between this and some very expensive platforms.

This is not to say WordPress is your only option, it is just a guide to show you how easy it is to create unique content for your websites. If you are a newbie and just want to dip your toes, jump over to WordPress and create your own site in minutes. This is a hosted sub domain solution that is perfect for someone who just wants to see how it all works. Remember if you decide to get your own unique site you can easily import all of your data from WordPress

So you know the tools I am using for this article are:

• WordPress.org (for my own website)
• Vimeo (for videos management)
• Screenr.com (for recording my screen)

WordPress Overview

Writing an Article Part one

How to get started with writing a post on your own WordPress website part one.

Writing an Article Part two

How to get started with writing a post on your own WordPress website part two.

Publishing and Managing

How to publish/manage and some other WordPress goodies

Getting a WordPress.com Website

Overview and how easy it is to get started on your own WordPress.com site

What we’re talking about here is HDR. It stands for High Dynamic Range – the ability to grade interior and exterior exposures – and blend these layers (or shots) together. (See samples here)

It has been doable in still photography for some years. These days, most still photography suppliers use some form of HDR in their post processing. Video however, is another thing altogether. The closest video suppliers have come is in matte work; shooting interior and exterior exposures and blending the layers together.

Early trials have been encouraging, albeit time-consuming, both on location and in post. There’s also a few motorized ‘sliders’ at out there that can do two ‘passes’ on video – or time-lapse sequences shot in RAW that can be manipulated in programs like Lightroom.

HDR Video Demonstration Using Two Canon 5D mark II’s

HDR Video Demonstration Using Two Canon 5D mark II’s from Soviet Montage on Vimeo.

The problem we are all wrestling with at the moment is time and hardware v $ – to fit the highly competitive real estate business model in Australia. The RED digital cinema camera will deliver an HDRx mode but the price point and time-consuming set-up complexity of these cameras would have to see a marked increase in the price point of high-end real estate videos to be viable.

Perhaps, as high-quality online video takes its rightful place alongside professional high-end photography as a ‘MUST HAVE’ component of every campaign, we’ll see bigger production budgets.

This will allow for the critical time needed on location and in the post suites. The spend on video maybe increased by some dollars being diverted from print to online. In this case, you’ll see the big suppliers going at an option like RED, like a red rag to a bull.

Equally, this HDR capacity will be included in the next release of HDSLR cameras, like the much anticipated Canon 5DMIII. Rumors point to this camera being able to record 5k video to an external recorder.

As for 3D, we can see a day when properties will be presented online and in-room in 3D – and shot in HDR. For 3D-HDR, the future is bright.

Let’s just hope we don’t have to wear shades to see it.

Guest Author: Brett Clements from Platinum HD

The question has been posed does sex sell real estate but rather I would prefer to ask the question “Would you employ these agents to sell your property?”

Please be aware the video is very revealing.  (My sincere apologies upfront if I offend any B2 readers by sharing this).

Behind the scenes, I have been in touch with the agents in the video and the video production company and will be putting together the results, thoughts and some of the feedback within a separate report/article.

In the meantime, I’d be very interested to see what B2 readers think of this…

All sounds very similar to YouTube right? It is, except you can purchase a VidCall number (USD29 per annum) that you advertise and provide to your audience. With this number your audience can dial it into either of the phone applications and your content will appear. There’s no cost to your audience because the number is not dialed, its simply used as a search tool to pull your content through the internet.

It’s always great to see innovation, especially in the online video segment as this is one of the most popular and fastest growing. However, VidCall are basically competing with Youtube and trying to charge a fee for this. Can they successfully do this? Perhaps, but you need to remember that users can market their  YouTube channel @DoubleBayProperty for free.

Also, there should be a mobile phone website so any phone browser with internet access can view content eg m.youtube.com not just those with an iPhone or Android phone.

In the January edition for WIRED Magazine, Chris Anderson, Head of  TED – the global conference on Technology Entertainment & Design – wrote a compelling article on Crowd Accelerated Innovation and how online video WILL change the world.

Anderson describes how videos on YouTube are allowing people and groups across the world over to study how things are done – over and over again (with pause and re-wind) and improve on them, sharing ideas in ways that supercharge creativity and innovation.

Anderson says this phenomenon is increasing as more and more web content is dominated by video. One of many examples Anderson references is The LXD – The League of Extraordinary Dancers – which performed at last year’s OSCARS.

The LXD is a dance troupe put together from the best of the best of YouTube, based on the observation of film-maker Jon M Chu: “Dancers have created a whole global laboratory online. Kids in Japan are taking moves from a YouTube video created in Detroit, building on it within days and releasing a new video, while teenagers in California are taking the Japanese video and re-mixing it to create a whole new dance style.”

Software programmers, photographers, cinematographers, musicians, writers have all benefited from sharing ideas across the web, because what they create and output is digital.

But now. Through online video, industries that previously had no access to being able to produce and share video content, can plug in. The first few years of the web didn’t see a lot of video. The files were too big; the networks too slow.

That’s changing, fast. Video packs a huge amount of data, but Anderson says are brains are wired to de-code it.

Apart from powerful images and dialogue working together, hidden in the discordance of vocals, the eye contact, the human expressions, and the passion of somebody sharing information on video is some real magic.

“When you are through changing – you’re through.” Bruce Barton

References

Guest Author: Brett Clements from Platinum HD

So, in the United States, Agents ‘doing it themselves’ is common place – assisted by new technology which sees kids in prams texting. Now Americans aren’t exactly what you’d call a camera-shy race. From taking their own photographs to shooting their own video – on an iphone, or a Flip – which you can upload to a site to take care of all the editing and the streaming – all for $29, the US market is flooded with ‘do it yourself’ and ‘host it yourself’ collateral.

Just one example:

Click here to view video. There’s even film-making and script-writing courses at HD Hat. In reviewing these ‘home’ movies, you have to say, they do the job. If you were interested in buying a particular home, I think they certainly show you enough of the property to make a judgement call on whether or not you phone the agent.
Add to this Google Maps and Street View, and buyers do have a vast arrange of free tools at their disposal.

From a Vendor’s perspective, why invest any money in quality marketing materials or even mass media for that matter. Just do it yourself and launch it to YouTube. Which raises another question; if marketing professions are being made redundant by technology, will ‘Agenting’ and negotiating skills follow? But if quality doesn’t really count, why has Google added a High Quality criteria to its searches for video? And why do big Companies spend millions on new creatives if any video describing a product will do?

Guess Jeans goes to awesome lengths, with multi-million dollar campaigns, just to sell a pair of pants yet most home-owners agonize over spending a few thousand to sell a million dollar asset.

The US housing market is a total mess. Making it ‘Cheap and easy’ to not only own a home – but sell one – hasn’t worked. Will Australian Agents ‘Flip’ over doing it themselves?

Guest Author: Brett Clements from Platinum HD

It is pointless, however, to replicate the same images and deliver the same message in all collateral. Taking a still photograph of a room, and then slowly panning across the same room is just that.

Pointless.

We run the risk of (a) Insulting the audiences attention and (b) Boring them senseless. Cinematography and photography have unique qualities; you can’t shoot a panoramic ‘stitch’ of a city skyline in low light on video without going to awesome lengths in post production.

In the same instance, a still photograph cannot record the sound of a city street. Just like we need different copy for print and online ads, we need to think differently about how we apply this media in the new medium.

Watching somebody use an ipad for the first time is an enlightening experience; it is not just down to the tactile nature of these screens but the very vibrance of the display.

And these screens are only going to get better; Apple calls it Retina. By developing pixels 78 micrometers wide for the iphone4, Apple engineers were able to pack four times the number of pixels into the same screen size. (http://www.apple.com/iphone/features/retina-display.html)

With richer more tactile displays, there’s a need for a much richer experience.

I believe the focus now needs to turn to what form this content takes on, and how best Agents and Agencies can use it. In the world outside real estate, every TV ‘ad’ is driven by a Creative; an idea to shoot too. This idea compliments the print campaign. The message is the same. The approach, radically different. Today, we have new companions (tactile, smart, mobile devices). And on the horizon, there’s 3D.

As suppliers, we need to think outside the square and not just dish up the same old, same old stills and pans and dolly moves.

We need to think about creating richer, more immersive experiences. As Clients, Agencies and Agents need to demand we start bringing these creatives to the table. As the hardware changes around us, the creative has to evolve.

Guest Author: Brett Clements from Platinum HD

Caroline, who is a TV Presenter, Speaker, Model has recently been doing real estate video presentations for high-end properties within the Sydney market.

Previously within the real estate industry, TV personalities and sports stars have been employed to present and/or promote larger developments/land releases, etc but now there seems to be a growing sector in the market for TV presenters to be featured within the property video of individual properties.

Natalie Lowe from the popular Australian TV Show, Dancing With The Stars has previously been featured doing property videos for a company called Real Estate in Motion and I’m sure that as the price of video becomes more affordable you’ll see lots more TV Personalities, Models and Sports Stars being recruited as presenters for the medium to high-end of the market properties.

But, Caroline Pemberton’s story has ended up a bit differently than she had anticipated. Caroline ended up enjoying presenting the homes so much that she decided to get her certificate and become an agent herself.

Recently back from travelling to Antarctica where she did a video-shoot for the TV Show Getaway, Caroline told me that she uses the same lifestyle format that the TV presenters use within programmes like Getaway, etc to help build the emotion of a home within her property videos. For example, in this video Caroline even jumps into the pool for a swim.

Note. Whilst I agree that building the lifestyle into a property video is extremely important, jumping into the pool, spa, etc isn’t something that I’m advocating agents should start doing as a part of marketing a home.

As more and more agents embrace the use of property videos, it will be very interesting to see what role TV celebrities could end up playing within the real estate industry.