Sooke Community and Real Estate Blog 642Blog.ca

OK, Video first, and then a somewhat lengthy (but worth reading) rant:

VIMEO SUCKS – But at least they re-activated my account! from Tim Ayres – REALTOR® on Vimeo.

Yesterday I received a message from Vimeo, which is the service that I use to host my video blog. It is, in my (and many others) opinion, better than YouTube, because it offers higher quality, a better looking player, and a great community of users with far less BS comments and spam.

This message read:

Dear Tim Ayres – REALTOR®:

Your account has been removed by Vimeo staff.

Reason: Vimeo is for personal, noncommercial use.

Regards,

Vimeo

I didn’t really think that my personal real estate video blog was “commercial use” of the service. I blog about local issues, real estate advice, and try and provoke discussion amongst the Sooke community about these issues. I’m not trying to “sell” anything. The fact that I work in a profession in which my success relies heavily on personal promotion and branding is irrelevant in this case. I create novel content to share with other users and readers of my blog, which is what Vimeo says it is all about.

Anyway, after arguing back and forth via e-mail with Dalas Verdugo, the community manager at Vimeo, he agreed to re-instate my account after deleting one of my videos, which was a walkthrough of #2-6110 Seabroom, a waterfront townhouse in Sooke. I conceded that this might be construed as commercial, but I doubt this was even considered. I bet that Dalas saw REALTOR® in my account and just hit the del key.

This sparked some discussion in the real estate blogosphere and twittersphere about the service. Fellow real estate video blogger Ian Watt was thankful for the heads-up and wanted to make sure his account wouldn’t be deleted. Ubertor bosses Stephen Jagger and Michael Stephenson were quick to request some communication with Vimeo as to clarification on what was and was not OK. Ubertor (my real estate website provider) has a Vimeo integration tool for its clients, allowing me to easily upload video tours, etc. to the service for display on my website. In fact, I would never have known about Vimeo if not for Ubertor. Dalas essentially told them that Vimeo was NOT interested in talking to them about it.

And it’s spreading. This morning I found JimDuncan had added me to his Twitter account, apparently having seen my tweets about Vimeo frustration. His tweet on the subject:

I can’t believe how short-sighted Vimeo is. There are plenty of other video sharing services on the Internet, and for an upstart to turn away an entire community of video bloggers like this is ludicrous.

Anyway – enough venting. I’ll continue to post on Vimeo for the time being, until I either get kicked off again, or I find a suitable alternative besides YouTube. If you have any trouble viewing my Vimeo posts, you can always check out my YouTube channel, as I mirror the videos there.

-Tim Ayres – Sooke Real Estate Professional

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Popularity: 16% [?]

Tagged: account deleted | Dalas Verdugo | sooke real estate | sucks | tim ayres | video blog | Vimeo | YouTube

I’ve been meaning to blog about Microsoft’s Surface technology for a while now, but a video from TechCrunch this morning (below) has reminded me how utterly cool this is. The concept was conceived in 2001 and the first prototype was in 2003, so it’s nothing new, but we have yet to see any sort of large-scale rollout.

The implications for real estate technology are huge. Imagine one of these units in your office. Your clients and prospects would no doubt be wowed by the seamless integration of all the aspects of your business, and the novel way it was presented to them. Watch the videos below. The first is a YouTube video from a year or so ago which shows some of the neat features, and the second is the TechCrunch video [it's kind of loud!] from this week’s CES show, going on in Las Vegas, which helps explain how it works and clarify some of the differences between this technology and other multi-touch interfaces. More commentary after the videos.

[vodpod id=ExternalVideo.451119&w=425&h=350&fv=] from www.techcrunch.com posted with vodpod

One of the most exciting features of this technology is how it differs from other touch-screen interfaces. There are no embedded capacitors in the surface which means that unlike most touch-screen displays, you don’t have to baby it. The surface is hard plastic, so things can be dropped on it, spilled on it, and generally moved about without fear of damaging the sensitivity of the interface. This is important in our real estate world. We all know how office equipment can get used and abused. One would assume that a badly scratched surface would inhibit touch sensitivity, but some special polish or tabletop replacement would be a relatively inexpensive repair, since it is just a plastic surface.

Imagine meeting some buyers at your office. You fire up the Surface, drag about the pictures of the listings they’re interested in, and then let the system plan out a driving route, text-message the listing agents to make the appointments, and then transfer all the information to your mobile phone or PDA to guide you there along the way! While you drive, the text message confirmations come to your phone/PDA, turning the listing map points from yellow to green or red, indicating that the showings are confirmed or denied.

The clients are ready to offer. Back at the office, the purchase contracts are laid out on the Surface computer. All information is pulled from WebForms, as you are already familiar with. The clients read over the contract, sign using any object (a pen, pencil, their finger, etc), and you drag the contract across the table to the e-mail or fax icon. Away it goes to the other agent. Now you can flick it across to the printer icon to get the clients a hard copy.

These are but two exciting possibilities for this technology in the real estate world. I’m sure you could think of many more. As we move away from the traditional mouse/keyboard interfaces and into the ever-increasing world of multi-touch computing, expect more and more innovation and technology to make your life and work easier, and admittedly, more fun.

-Tim Ayres

Popularity: 8% [?]

Tagged: CES 2008 | Future | innovation | Microsoft | Multi-touch | New Technology | Real Estate | realtors | Surface | TechCrunch | technology | Touch Screen | YouTube

Now here is somebody who tells it like it is

This video is by Daniel Rothamel, a REALTOR® in Charlottesville, Virginia. If there is one thing that I am constantly trying to express to my clients when listing their properties, it’s to try and look at the place from a buyer’s standpoint. This is especially hard when you’ve got Mr. and Mrs. Smith, who built the house 30 years ago (and haven’t updated it since!) and are now selling. They are unable (or in some cases, unwilling) to take the emotion and wonderful family memories out of the formula for arriving at a reasonable listing price.

Although our market in the Sooke and Victoria area is still going strong, it is no secret that the main enemy to sellers today is an overpriced home. Sure, there are plenty of buyers out there, but there are also lots more listings; the forces of supply and demand take over and the overpriced listing sits there, overpriced.

So here is the video, and extra credit to Daniel for “why didn’t I think of that?”

Popularity: 7% [?]

Tagged: BC | homes | houses | how to sell | overpricing | prices | pricing | Selling | selling tips | tim ayres | Victoria | YouTube