17 Jun Adding online video to interactive real estate and travel industry maps
I was reading an online post today about how a company called Maps Alive are taking the interactive map thing a step further than google maps (which is also an amazing product, don’t get me wrong!) by allowing users to attach video to any map, floor plan, or diagram, with a video player popping up when users hover their cursor over certain designated points. How cool is that? The company predicts the greatest demand will be coming from the real estate and travel industry sectors, and it’s not hard to guess why.
Can you imagine how useful mapping out exactly where all your available properties for sale are (or for travel agents, where all the Gold Coast holiday resorts you sell package tours for are) then adding the interactive capability for you clients to view videos of each property at the click of a button? It’s an amazingly clear and concise way of presenting the same information that would normally take up a lot of your potential customers precious time time viewing pages upon pages on your website to discover – that’s if they didn’t give up in frustration from searching long beforehand!
Although websites in the U.S.A. like Wellcomemat.com have already pushed the popularisation of web video in the real estate sector overseas, adding functionality for using online video tours on company websites (for example by using tools to embed video into maps) may just be the spark that really helps online video take off in other parts of the world. Here on the Gold Coast, like most parts of Australia, online video production in the real estate and holiday booking industries is only just starting to gain wider popularity – it’s still uncommon enough that any Gold Coast travel agents or property sales teams who incorporate video into their marketing mix stand out from the everyday Joes. But with more applications like this on the market? Web video will become compulsory if a company in those sectors doesn’t want to be left behind in the dust. And aside from its obvious applications for real estate and travel professionals? Just about any company from any industry could use it to “put themselves on the map,” literally. Exciting stuff!
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