I’ll admit, I’ve been on the fence about video and listings. My 2 core issues w/ video have been the following:

  • No “Navigation” – I’ve been wanting to see better navigation in video tours, so I can jump right to footage of the kitchen per se…versus waiting until 3 mins & 53 seconds of a 5 minute tour to see what I want to see.
  • Self Serve w/ Lite Assistance – being able to take a DV camera or a slick Flip Camera, take good footage and ship it off for someone else to make the “final cut” pretty.

I signed up at RealtyFlix to be alerted for when they’d be open for business after meeting those folks at 2007 NAR Conference. The doors are indeed open per email I received earlier this month.

RealtyFlix.com Tiered Options
I do like their blend of services…especially for those looking to take video footage and ship off to someone else to put into production, as displayed w/ option #3 below.

  1. Standard Service – You have already completed video tour…that’s ready for Distribution — Free w/ 6 photo limit, $9.99 for 20 photo limit.
  2. Photo Tours – For those who don’t have video footage — Free to preview for liking, $89.99 to buy
  3. Video Editing – For those who have raw footage (wanting someone else to do the work) — Standard is $169.95 or Enhanced (can be longer, I.e. 60 mins and divided into “Chapters”) is $219.95

The Viewer
It’s apparent where RealtyFlix put in their resources…it’s the anatomy of their viewer. It’s a nicely contained, all-informative view of not only video, but navigation to Agent Info, Photos, Listing Info, Etc…not to mention ease in syndicating on any web page as displayed below.

[kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.realtyflix.com/flash/player1.swf?id=x1Qo” height=”540″ width=”480″ /]

The kicker for me with the viewer (what comes with the Enhanced Video Editing services) are the “chapters”, navigation to specific “scenes” of video, such as Kitchen, Master Bedroom. Simply breaking up a video and providing navigation to chapters (scenes) is paramount, especially for video over 5 minutes in length.

The chapters give immediate access to footage I want to see now (versus waiting 3 mins and 53 seconds into the video), providing navigation that consumers are familiar when you compare with traditional virtual tours. A critical feature for lengthy video tours.