Ubertor Real Estate Blog

Gillian Shaw of the Vancouver Sun popped by Reachd.com inaugural online video training workshop yesterday. You can find the article in today’s Vancouver Sun. (Digg It)

Amateur videographers turn blogs into bucks

One blogger turned mom-and-pop shop into $60-million-a-year wine store business
Gillian Shaw, Vancouver Sun
Published: Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Ian Watt has never had any video training. He just got his first video camera for Christmas.

But now he is the star of his own business video, transforming his blog into a live show in which he tours Vancouver dispensing advice, hitting real estate hot buttons, winning over fans and enraging critics.

“I just put the camera on the dashboard in a cup holder and drive around,” said Watt, a realtor with Macdonald Realty’s downtown office. “I just chat.

“Sometimes it is just for public awareness. Ninety-nine per cent of people who hire us go to our website first, and when they see this, they can say, ‘Okay, I can understand his personality a little more.’

“The key thing is we’re not trying to be media people. We’re just trying to be ourselves.”

Feedback can be fast. One posting had barely gone online when a complimentary message from a local real estate lawyer popped up on Watt’s e-mail.

Others are not so complimentary. Response to another video in which Watt raised a controversial issue didn’t come in terms that are printable.

On Tuesday, Watt was in a class of 20 aspiring Cecil B. DeMilles at a sold out session run by Reachd.com, a Vancouver training company launched by Stephen Jagger and Mike Stephenson, who also founded the real estate Web hosting and design site Ubertor.

Fourteen of the attendees were real estate agents and the rest represented a cross-section, including from the legal, recruiting and marketing professions. For a $200 fee, participants got the afternoon training session, plus a $150 Flip Ultra videocamera that takes up to an hour of video and plugs straight into a computer to download.

Bad video, or good business?

The latter, says Jagger, pointing to Gary Vaynerchuk’s WineLibrary video blog at tv.winelibrary.com, which has transformed his parents’ small New Jersey liquor store into a $60-million-a-year wine business. Amateur video draws online crowds, as YouTube can attest.

“PR companies can spend a lot of money on commercials, but it is really the content that sells,” said Jagger. “It’s not the polish. In fact, this is better because it is so real.

“It is way better than just having flyers and newsletters and blogs. It is a great way to show who you are and what you are all about.”

While Reachd.com students might not be ready to emulate Vaynerchuk’s colourful delivery, instructor Rodney Bartlett said they should aim to produce short and interesting clips that will keep viewers’ attention to the end.

“The key is having an opinion,” said Jagger. “You don’t want to be too cautious, too generic, too safe.

“It won’t be very interesting.”

Tim Ayres, a realtor with Royal LePage in Sooke on Vancouver Island, was so keen to add the new technology that he got on a ferry Tuesday morning to join the class that was being held upstairs in a pub in downtown Vancouver.

“I write a pretty active blog, and video has been something I have been meaning to get into from the beginning,” he said. “This stuff is really up-and-coming. Nobody is doing it in my area.”

You can see the class opening their new Video Cameras below:

The power of video is awesome. TechCrunch.com, the hugely popular tech blog wrote a post the other day asking for 60 second (video) elevator pitches without using product demos or screenshots. The post was taken off of TechCrunch quite quickly but I emailed in the quick video that I made anyways.

Duncan Riley, the author of the post and the one who suggested people send in videos decided to write a different post about startups using video to promote themselves, and I’m assuming because I got my video into him so quickly he included me. (actually, no idea how he picked, but I’m quite happy that mine was included)

TechCrunch.com has 6 to 8 million visitors per month to their website so this exposure is outstanding. Thanks to Duncan for including me.

Here is the video I submitted:

The beauty about it being video is that it is my message. Not a reworded version or a polished version, it is my words, my version which can’t be adjusted. The really great thing about the use of video to promote your product or service, especially in the Web 2.0 world, is that it is very viral. That post on TechCrunch.com has triggered other bloggers, especially the ones in the real estate community to post on their blogs about Ubertor being written about on TechCrunch, which in turn exposes us to their readers.

Here are a couple of examples:
- Uber-Real Estate Blogger Dustin Luther kindly mentioned and embedded the video in his blog
- TechVibes, Canada’s version of TechCrunch also mentioned and embedded the video in their blog

This video took me a couple of takes and then was loaded onto YouTube. Maybe all in all it took me 1 hour. The exposure is massive and the costs is minimal.

Is there something like this that you could do to promote your real estate business?

(Testing Google Ads Below)

I did an interview today at the Opus Hotel in Yaletown with Marni Wedin from CityTV’s Realty TV. We sat in the bar and discussed real estate, where agents are going in 2008, what technology should be focused on, plus lots more. It was a 20 minute or so chat that will be cut up to about 4 minutes and aired on January 3rd @11pm, January 5th & 7th @ 9am.

Business in Vancouver reporter Curt Cherewayko wrote an article this week that covers the new MyRealPlace.com as well as TellTenFriends.com. The article is an interesting look at Canada “following the lead of its U.S. counterpart” when it comes to social networking websites.

Curt mentions that Ubertor is “leveraging the opportunities that come with being early adopters of Real Estate 2.0″
(Full Article)

The Wall Street Journal’s online real estate website has posted an article about “Taking Home Photos That Will Draw Buyers“. They give you some tips on the use of photos online, editing software, tips for shooting photos, plus more. We even got to add our two cents at the end of the article.

1. Lighten up.
2. More is better.
3. Get a clear shot.
4. Go pro.
5. Give it your best shot.
6. Edit.

To read the article just click here

As many of you have seen we relaunched our website today… here is the press release:

MEDIA RELEASE

Ubertor Changing the Face of Real Estate Software

Launch of the new Ubertor.com introduces new features, reduced fees

(Vancouver, BC. Mar 10, 2007): The founders of Ubertor, a Vancouver, BC based real estate software company, have rolled out a number of new features that will make their product even more accessible to Agents. With the changes to the software comes a new version of www.ubertor.com, the company’s website.

Among the changes is that they have made their blogging platform available in all versions of their website software. “It was something that we agreed was very important,” said Ubertor Co-founder Stephen Jagger. “The importance of real estate blogging has significantly increased over the past few years.” Now with all Ubertor plans, Agents can try their hands at the growing marketing phenomenon that is blogging.

Also part of the new roll-out is the release of “Ubertor Light,” a low-cost introductory version of the software, aimed at new agents. “It’s meant to help rookie agents get started within the changing real estate market,” said Jagger. “We’ve included rebates and cash back incentives for those that participate as well.”

Ubertor now powers real estate websites in several countries, and all over North America. The software system is designed to make it easy for Agents without prior internet experience to manage their web presence and listings, including: slideshows of images, web content, virtual tours, property “comparables,” a blog and even micro-sites to feature single properties. To introduce the new changes, Jagger and Ubertor Co-Founder Michael Stephenson are waiving the set-up fee on all sites.

More information on Ubertor can be found at the new www.ubertor.com, and also on the Ubertor blog at http://blog.ubertor.com.

(30)

The Vancouver Sun ran an article in yesterdays paper about the latest feature that we have added into the Ubertor system. I did a phone interview with Gillian Shaw last Friday from Seattle where we discussed the new feature and its impact.

Software helps buyers compare homes online
“Comparables” link on realtors’ website will display properties of a similar type

By Gillian Shaw
Vancouver Sun

Wednesday, July 26th 2006

Combustion Labs Media, the local software developer that introduced Vancouver real estate agents to online blogging has come up with a new feature to help buyers wend their way through the jungle of real estate listings.

Building on the technology of its popular Ubertor software program for agents, Combustion has added a button that takes buyers on a virtual tour of comparable real estate listings in a neighborhood.

So if you’re in the market for a two-bedroom apartment downtown and you want to look at everything that fits that description and your budget, you can click on the comparables link on an agent’s website and details of the listings line up on the screen.

The company has been testing a new version of the feature on real estate agent Andrew Hasman’s website. Stephen Jagger, Combustion’s founding partner, said the company expects to offer a final version in the coming days.

The beta test can be viewed at www.andrewhasman.com/115 .

Real estate agents are anxious to take advantage of the latest tweak to to push their website into the forefront of online technology.

“We have a lineup of people wanting to put the comparables feature on their website,” said Jagger. “It has generated a lot of excitement”.

“It is an innovative feature and it is just going to get better as we get feedback from people who have seen it.”

The technology company, which had its roots in Web hosting and made the transition into a software developer for real estate agents, has thousands of agents as customers from across North America.

When blogging rose in popularity, Ubertor added that capability to agents’ websites, giving sales people a new way to communicate online.

“Comparables is the latest innovation but it is not about wanting to differentiate ourselves from the competition as mush as insuring our agents’ are up to speed with what’s available,” said Jagger.

Jagger said real estate agents can run details of other agents’ listings with permission under reciprocity agreements they have through the real estate board.

He said potential buyers appreciate the quick and easy route to finding all the properties similar to the one they are considering, and agents, who know their clients will seek out such information on the internet, want to be the first to offer it.

“Agents are very excited,” he said. “We have tons of emails from people saying ‘put it on my system’ “.

Business in Vancouver has written an article about myself and my brother and our company blogs. I have been pushing Realtors to blog for a long time and my brother was not immune to me pushing him to do it as well. It has been very successful for us, and my brother has had the same experience with his business. He had been speaking with BIV about his blog and they decided to write an article on it.

You can see this article in this weeks edition of Business in Vancouver.

Brothers laud business benefits of blogging
Software and security siblings are among a growing number of entrepreneurs harnessing the marketing potential of weblogs

Bob Mackin (article)

�Ladies and gentlemen, the Blog Brothers!�

Vancouver�s Stephen and Michael Jagger are among a growing population of small and medium-sized business owners using weblogs for marketing.

�It�s different than finding a website,� said Ubertor Inc. president Stephen Jagger. �It talks about who you are and what you do. A blog is more personalized.�

A blog can cost as much as a couple hundred dollars to operate, but many are done using free sites like Google-owned blogger.com. The rest of the investment is in time.

A blog can help generate buzz and feedback for products and services because the medium, when properly used, is one that lends itself to sharing information instead of blatant promotion. A blog can be the classic case of news you can use.

Ubertor formed six years ago as web-hosting company Combustion Labs Media Inc. By 2004, nearly all of the 19 employees were busy with real estate clients. The company launched the Ubertor real estate web-design software template last year. The Ubertor blog includes links to other blogs, such as online classified revolutionary Craig from Craigslist, archives back to August 2004, testimonials from realtors and explanations of the Ubertor strategy.

Stephen Jagger describes a blog as a �glorified newsletter� that archives data so people can follow the evolution of information and opinions.

It connects the company to clients outside markets where Ubertor employs salespeople and allows them to learn about the company, ultimately converting them into customers.

Nielsen estimates 4.8 per cent of Americans publish blogs, while 6.6 per cent have downloaded a podcast.

New York-based JupiterResearch reported last month that 35 per cent of large companies plan to begin corporate blogs in 2006.

Jupiter found that blogs are �underused for generating word-of-mouth marketing opportunities. Only 32 per cent of marketing executives said they use corporate weblogs to generate word of mouth around their company�s products or services.�

�We have had incredible success with our own blog and as a result, find ourselves regularly answering e-mailed questions from all over the world,� said Michael Jagger, president of Provident Security and Event Management Corp.

He started providentblog.ca after a year of prodding from brother Stephen.

�From a marketing standpoint, we have found the blog to be the single most effective marketing effort that we have ever made [and by far the cheapest],� Michael Jagger said.

Provident�s blog covers a variety of issues, from the incompatibility of some Internet telephony with alarm systems, to crime reports, home security tips, burglary statistics and information about community events, such as the annual Kitsilano Soapbox Derby.

Provident has 175 employees with 4,000 clients.

Jagger, a Business in Vancouver 40-under-40 alumnus, is a Simon Fraser University criminology graduate who began the company 10 years ago as a student.

After he notified 100 clients of his blog in March, 70 went to the blog in 12 hours and 41 of those signed up to be e-mailed automatically with every content update made to the blog.

�At the end of the day, the world is a better place on the Internet if more people are blogging,� said Stephen Jagger.

Here is a screenshot of the article:

Joel Burslem runs a blog called The Future of Real Estate Marketing out of Portland Oregon and he and I spoke yesterday about our Ubertor software. He is doing some reviews of software providers that make it easy for Realtors to get online. Our Ubertor software is the one he chose to do first.

Here are a couple of quotes from his article:

“Playing around with their system, I found it extremely easy to get my listing on the Internet.”

“Ubertor is a small Real Estate software provider based out of Vancouver, Canada that is definitely worth checking out if you�re looking a simple, all-in-one solution to get your real estate business on the Internet.”

“its agent sites were all extremely well designed and very functional.”

To read his complete review click here

Inman News
The Web is your oyster if you’re a real estate agent marketing homes for sale. Many agents have been using avenues such as craigslist.org to gain more exposure for their listings � and now with Google’s new Base service that’s currently in beta, some have already started pushing their listings into that searchable database. At least one company, Combustion Labs Media, has already integrated its real estate offerings with Google Base, so that when agents load listings into their Web sites they can choose to have them automatically sent to Google’s service, where consumers looking for real estate might stumble upon them. While many observers say Google’s new service that looks and functions like a classified ad service is too young to make a big splash, it looks pretty scary for traditional newspapers that depend on classifieds to hold them up.
–Jessica Swesey, Inman News