Every time we announce a new feature, like the ability to export Real Estate Shows to video fles, we invariably get the response: “This is great. What’s next?” So, we decided to give you a little heads up and tell you where we’re going with our product development.

Longer Real Estate Shows

While we remain steadfast in our researched belief that less is more and one minute shows are the best length to capture viewer emotion, the most common request from some of our clients is that Real Estate Shows be longer. So, we will be creating the option for 90 second and 120 second shows. 90 second shows will require 15 photos and 120 second shows will require 20 photos.

Unlimited Length Slide Shows With Looped Music

Currently, when you upload to the “more photos” segment of the show, it creates a slide show that viewers must scroll through. There is no music attached to this slide show. In our next release, the “more photos” slide show will have a play button and you will be able to determine whether you want to have music play or not play.

End “Credits” On Video Export

With the launch of enabling you to export Shows to video channels, we now have the need for an end credit to allow you to show your agent branding and contact information inside the video itself. In a future release, you will have two options. You’ll be able to use the default text based end credits (that we will create), or upload you own image to be used when exporting to video.

Hiding The Real Estate Shows Brand

Our embedded Shows will be self-contained. We are going to remove all opportunity for consumers to be led away from your site when you embed our Shows. When completed, our new embed code will allow you to place a Real Estate Show into your page with complete assurance that the consumer will not have to leave your page to get to any of the information in the Show. There will also be no link back to RealEstateShows.com.

While we have never had any branding for Real Estate Shows on our player, some of the features, like floor plans and extra photos, require the user to leave the page and view the features at RealEstateShows.com. Our future release will change that.

The purpose of this enhancement is to further emphasize you by removing any reference to Real Estate Shows in running your presentations. By the way, we realize this is not the norm. Our competitors put their own product identification in various places in your presentations, even placing their branding messages before your own.

Letting You Decide What Kind Of Presentation You Want

Currently, when you create a Show on RealEstateShows.com, the main 30 or 60 second Show is always the starting point. In addition, you can’t create one of the unlimited photo slide shows without first creating a 30 or 60 second Show. We want to change that.

As I wander around the web, I see a number of our clients using tools to embed a simple slide show, with no music, because they just want to show a large number of photos. We want you to be able to do this with Real Estate Shows, if that is the kind of presentation you want to create . So, in our next release, you will have the ability to decide what your Show will be. If you want to create an unlimited photo slide show and not a video-like “classic” Real Estate Show, you will be able to do that. If you’d like to embed a video and not create a Show or upload photos at all, you will be able to do that. You will get to decide where you want the consumer to begin when they click on the Show link and what is seen when you embed a Show.

We think these changes will further enhance your presentations when you use Real Estate Shows. They’ll be arriving in the near future.

In recent days, we’ve had several emails sent to our customer service department about Adobe Flash upgrade failures. Our sense of what has happened is that the latest Windows update, which has occurred for most users sometime within the last week and a half, is making Flash not work on some Windows machines.

Here is what is happening:

• Windows is upgraded to the latest service pack
• When viewing a show on our site, a warning tells the user that they need the latest version of Flash. This is almost assuredly not true — the correct version of Flash is installed in the majority of cases, but the browser is not recognizing that it is installed.
• When the user goes to Adobe’s site to try and install the latest version of Flash, the site tells them that it is installed. (Likely installing the exact same version they already had installed.)
• When the user comes back to our site, the warning still tells them that they need the latest version of Flash.

The problem appears to be mainly confined to Vista users so far, although one XP user has experienced the same problem.

This is not a problem with RealEstateShows.com, but with the installation of Flash. Everyone who has experienced this problem has been to go to the following page: http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/welcome/ to see if it showed that Flash was installed. For all of them, it indicated that Flash was NOT installed, despite the fact that just minutes before, they had installed the Flash player.

At this point, we are not sure if there is a workaround. It is impacting very few users, so we are instructing those who are experiencing this problem to contact Adobe through the Adobe Support page and register the problem. The more people who contact Adobe and tell them that something is up, the more likely they are to come up with a solution sooner rather than later.

7/14/2008 Update

Thanks to Keith Lutz at LovingCharlotte.com, we were pointed in the right direction for a fix that seems to work predictably.

1. Go to this page, and download the appropriate uninstaller file: Download Uninstaller  Note: you should close all browser windows before running the uninstaller file.
2. Go back to adobe.com, and reinstall the Flash Player: Download Installer

This should resolve the problem.

This is an example of a video file exported from Real Estate Shows and uploaded to Photobucket.

This Photobucket’s default embed size. It does not provide a full-screen viewing option.
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Viewr.com is a “Globally Integrated Real Estate Web Site where anyone in the world can explore real estate and possibilities for living throughout the globe.”

Now you can add your real estate listings to Viewr.com by clicking the check box next to “Viewr” when you publish your RES Flyers. Viewr joins, Google Base, Oodle, Trulia, Zillow, Vast, Hotpads and Geebo.

Here is an example of a listing posted to Viewr.com from Real Estate Shows.

The simplest and most effective way to create real estate tours, is now the simplest and most effective way to get to video. With the push of a button, a Show created on RealEstateShows.com will be converted in to a video file that can be uploaded to any video distribution network, including YouTube, Flickr, MySpace, PhotoBucket and more.

“Our desire was to make it a ‘one button’ operation for our clients,” said Bill Leider, CEO of Real Estate Shows. ” Real Estate Shows is widely regarded as the easiest to use real estate tour product on the market. We’re proud that we’ve been able to add this option for our clients without sacrificing the ease of use that our clients love.”

Here is a sample Real Estate Show exported to video and uploaded to Flickr.

Here is what the original file looked like before uploading to Flickr: view original mp4 file.

At launch, Real Estate Shows users will also be able to automatically upload their video to their own YouTube channel, to the Real Estate Shows YouTube Channel, or both. Other automatic uploading options will be added shortly. In addition, the MP4 file can be downloaded to your hard drive and used anywhere video is accepted, including desktop-based video editing applications like iMove and Adobe Premiere.

“The option to export to video opens up a whole range of distribution options for real estate listings,” added Jeff Turner, President and Founder of Real Estate Shows. “And our clients now have options for distribution of Shows that have nothing to do with listings. We’re already seeing some very creative uses of Real Estate Shows in the video format on Flickr and YouTube. We’re very happy to see our first users gravitate so quickly and easily to new ways to use the product.”

The export to video option will be included in the current $125 per year retail price of Real Estate Shows for all user who renew or sign up for the service before January 1, 2009. After that date, users who wish to be able to export to video will be required to pay an additional $25 per year to access the feature. The feature is currently in public beta. Please alert us immediately if you find any problems at all.

How do you export your Real Estate Show to video?

To create a video from your Real Estate Show, click on the “create a video” button in side the video tab under your publish menu for any Show you wish to export. Here is a short instructional video that will show you were to find the create a video options.