[UPDATE: the videos have gone live, it's Carrie Chiang, SVP Corcoran. We were fortunate enough to be able to sponsor it too.]

I met Eric Carlsen, co-founder of Online WalkThru, at Inman’s Real Estate Connect conference in New York this January. Naturally, I couldn’t help but proselytize blogging and shortly thereafter the Voxury Populi blog was started, which focuses on the luxury real estate market.

What’s been really interesting to watch is how the team at Online WalkThru has put their own twist on blogging within real estate. They have invited a few guest bloggers, and this month they will launch a new weekly videocast called Vox One. The show is going to be the new anchor-point for their blog, and will feature interviews and insights into the lives of top producers in the luxury real estate market.

The new luxury real estate show starts on June 27th. Bookmark their blog now.

A couple weeks ago, in early May, I had the opporunity to give a 2 hour workshop on blogging in real estate to the Orlando Regional Realtor’s Association (ORRA). It was a great time, and there was a very large turnout (previous coverage). We’ll be doing another two sessions in the coming weeks; one for beginners and a second “tier 2″ session for those who want to dig into blogging a little deeper.

Here’s a short video that Jason Hawkins put together:

Feel free to share this video with others, let’s fill the room up again for the next real estate bloggin workshop!

WellcomeMat, the video site specifically tailored for real estate, has hit the big time with a new contract with ForSaleByOwner.com. Though WellcomeMat has been around for a couple years, they only started to get real national attention after showing up at Inman’s Real Estate Connect conference in New York earlier this year.

I couldn’t be happier for Phil and Christian, the guys who have spent years developing this service (and their wives for putting up with it). Anyone who sees what WellcomeMat does, and compares it to even the non-real estate online video market, realizes that it’s better than 90% of the other options available.

Read their blog post on the deal, or take a look at the press release.

Here’s an interesting videocast with Glenn Kelman, CEO of Redfin and CTO Michael Young. It’s by Robert Scoble, so has his usual down-to-earth theme. It’s really interesting to hear them having a real conversation about Redfin’s service.

Be warned: 42 Minutes long (!!!)

A number of people are claiming 2007 to be the year of video in the real estate industry. Meaning, online listings will have video as a major component, rather than just pictures or 360 degree virtual tours. I agree, and think that this space within the industry is shaping up quite nicely.

Below is a review of three products that stand to make an impact in 2007:

WellcomeMat – WellcomeMat is the YouTube of real estate. It is an application that allows anyone to upload video, which it then converts to Flash. That’s much like what YouTube does. The big differences are that it is much higher quality and that you can add chaptering. Chaptering is the most innovative and compelling part of the application and allows users to skip ahead to view areas of the property that they are more interested in without having to watch the whole video chronologically.

You can take your video and embed it into any website, as seen below. WellcomeMat also allows you to create a full listing that is saved at a page on their site for you (ex: www.wellcomemat.com/_______). I would like to see the ability for anyone to grab the embed code and put it on spread it even further.

Sample Video

Online Walk Thru – If you are selling luxury property, look no further. Online Walk Thru is highly targeted for this specific niche. As you would expect of a high end video service, Eric and Lathe will travel to your area and shoot the video for you. They then take that video to their studios for editing, professional voice overs and final processing.

I would like to see a way for their service to spread a little more virally though. In this case, I think it would make sense to provide an embed code where users could place it in different sites around the web.

Sample Video

Turn Here – Turn Here differs from the other video services in that they don’t create listing videos, they create videos about neighborhoods and cities. The locales around the property listing. Their value lies in the fact that when people are moving to an area, they are interested in what the town, city or suburb has to offer.

Local companies can sponsor a video about their business and that video will be made available to the public when they are looking for more information about a specific neighborhood. There aren’t professional voices or actors involved, the whole video is of real people talking about their business or their community.

Sample Video

In Summary
Each of these offerings in the real estate video space add value to different types of clientèle and have a value of their own. If there is one thing that I think all of them need to embrace, it is the viral nature of the web. Give viewers and users the tools to spread the product. Their video counterparts, like YouTube and Revver, have made their names because they encourage the spread of their video content.

My second suggestion, and this applies more to WellcomeMat and Turn Here, is to also embrace user generated content. This means allow comments about each video and/or neighborhood. Now your value isn’t just found in the video, it is also found in the dialogue that builds up around it.