Why Google Voice is Cool

Posted on Thursday, August 12th, 2010 and is filed under Technology

I just signed up (again) for Google Voice. I was able to get a pretty cool number with the last 4 digits of 4Biz. Pretty cool number!

The way Google Voice works is you sign up, get a number (you can scroll through different options of available numbers based on a key word, like Biz or Home, Realtor, etc), and then set up your numbers to route to behind the scenes. So you can add your work, mobile or even your home number. You can then use the advance settings to configure the times of day to get calls to specific numbers and other rules.

You also get voice mail, with the ability to listen to the voice mail online, or as it is being left!

They provide a Calling Widget where you can add it into your site as well. With WordPress, it is easy to do. You need to be able to add HTML code to your site to do this. We might add this functionality to our tours…investigation this as I write.

Give it a try. Best of all, it is FREE, like most other Google things.

Stars Shine with FloorPlanOnline

Posted on Thursday, August 5th, 2010 and is filed under Real Estate News, What's New

This week was FloorplanOnline’s First Star Power Event, my first time at a Star Power Conference and my first time in Nashville TN. What a cool (Read HOT) town!
Thanks to Nashville expert and National TV personality Brian Copeland (@nashvillebrian) I had the hot tips on where to eat via Twitter. The best was Mad Donnas. I give it 4.5 stars – the same number of stars you could see at any given moment at the Star Power Convention.
A “Star” is selected and crowned each month. The August 2010 Star is FloorPlanOnline customer Sue Adler (@sueadler) I believe there are around 200 current stars, with most of them at the event. Typically Stars are the top 1/2 of 1% of agents nationwide. They sell tons of listings, give tons of referrals and in my experience are very approachable, humble and willing to share information with their competition. How cool is that? Also willing to share and help people was former real estate agent and the events Headliner Dave Ramsey Dave’s talk was inspirational, helpful and entertaining.
The Event, classes and hallway conversations included talk about Marketing, technology and how to grow business in today’s social online market. There were cool people to chat with around every corner. Ive long admired Chris Smith (@techsavvyagent) who walked up to our booth and was so impressed with FPO 2.0 he recorded an interview with me on the spot!
Below, check out my brief review of the event that includes photos and video.
The video was created on my iphone using the cool ReelDirector app.

3D FloorPlans & Model

Posted on Friday, July 16th, 2010 and is filed under Real Estate Info

Check out this cool online 3D floor plan which can be printed to a real, physical 3D model. I can also include any furniture or other details you drag and drop onto the floor plan. It is still in development, but we hope to launch this in 2010.

FloorPlanner Partnership Press Release

Posted on Friday, July 16th, 2010 and is filed under Real Estate News, Technology, Tour Updates, What's New

San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) July 16, 2010

FloorPlanOnline.com, the leading provider of Interactive Floor Plan Tours for real estate listings in the United States, announces a major upgrade to its virtual tour platform with the launch of FPO 2.0, a customizable virtual tour system that features floor plans and photos in dedicated property websites. As part of this upgrade, FloorPlanOnline is including a new RoomPlanner tool, which allows buyers to drag and drop furniture, rugs, and other household items onto the floor plan, at no additional cost. The RoomPlanner tool is powered by FloorPlanner.com, a leading provider of online floorplanning tools.

Future upgrades to the RoomPlanner tool will allow buyers to see the floor plan in 3D view with 3D objects, which will enhance the capability to take a “virtual walk through” of the property when combined with the other media on the FloorPlanOnline tour. It will also allow real estate agents to “virtually stage” a home as part of their FloorPlanOnline account. This future enhancement will also allow customers to edit floor plans in real-time and eventually, allow them to draw their own floor plans and add the plans to their virtual tours automatically.

“The addition of the RoomPlanner tool as been a great enhancement to our new FPO 2.0 Tour. It is interesting to see how the tool has engaged buyers – some of the designs buyers have created with the RoomPlanner tool are amazing! We have even received a phone call from a buyer who used the RoomPlanner on a home she was purchasing in another state. She loved the functionality so much, she is creating a tour for the home she is selling, ” said Kris Cone, CEO of FloorPlanOnline.com. “The functionality is part of an ongoing upgrade path to make FloorPlanOnline the most comprehensive service for selling or renting real estate. And it all centers around the floor plan! Buyers want to see it, and FloorPlanOnline’s goal is to provide the most comprehensive content and tools online to meet this very under-met need.”

“According to independent research, buyers want to see photos first, with floor plans a close second, in terms of essential information for real estate listings. Yet, most listings today have few floor plans (not to mention interactive ones) and often, the photos have a ways to go in terms of meeting the online buyers’ needs. Floor plans are hard to get, so they get ignored, and things like online videos get more hype,” said Cone. “Yet, we make it pretty easy to get a high tech solution from a low tech process. We can do floor plan clean-up of existing architectural drawings, marketing brochures, or hand drawn sketches; or we can use one of our authorized service providers to visit the property to create a floor plan from scratch. With service in 49 states, we’ve got most of the metro areas covered with floor plan services. We can also do a self service tour anywhere in the world.”

“We are excited about our new relationship with FloorPlanOnline,” said Jeroen Bekkers, CEO of FloorPlanner.com. “This technology agreement is part of our licensing plan to work with key website properties around the world and enable them with the FloorPlanner tools. FloorPlanOnline obviously has a great customer base that values the services they provide to make getting a floor plan easy, and we are excited to help enhance their product offering with the RoomPlanner tool.

Their strategy is right on – one of our integrated partners in the Netherlands, Funda.nl, just had interactive floorplans overtake videos as the most popular premium feature on Funda.nl. Buyers want to see floor plans and plan their new potential home…and why not, it is the most expensive purchase decision most people make in their lives!”

About FloorPlanOnline.com

FloorPlanOnline was co-founded by Kris Cone on 2004, and it started commercial service in 2005. It has created thousands of Interactive FloorPlan Tours over the last 5 years on a self and full service basis. It serves many of the top real estate brands and has thousands of registered users. FloorPlanOnline has maintained over a 95% customer satisfaction rating and continues to get high marks for its tours and its customer service. FloorPlanOnline has country specific service offerings in the Unites States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and South Africa. Learn more at www.floorplanonline.com.

About FloorPlanner.com

FloorPlanner.com started business in 2006. Jeroen Bekkers, a trained architect, heads up a small interactive design shop in Rotterdam called Suite 75. He created Floorplanner to get, much more simply, the same results that professionals gin up with sophisticated computer-aided design software. FloorPlanner.com has partnered with many real estate oriented properties around the world to bring their drawing tools to their users and customers. Learn more at www.floorplanner.com.

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New 1099 Requirements Coming in 2011!

Posted on Thursday, July 8th, 2010 and is filed under Real Estate News

I saw this article in USA Today that refers to a little known requirement passed as part of the health care reform law. Click here for the full article.

It will require YOU to issue Form 1099′s to anyone you buy $600 or more from in a year! Doesn’t matter what you buy for your business, or from whom….   Previously, this Form 1099 requirement only applied if you paid $600 or more to contractors that worked for you.  So, if you buy a $700 computer from OfficeDepot, you are going to have to issue a Form 1099.

WHAT IS CONGRESS THINKING?

In my option, this is going to be next to impossible to implement.   As a small business owner, I have enough to deal with, yet alone creating and issuing hundreds of Form 1099′s.   I already do this today for the different service providers and other services I buy…but now for anything I buy?  Come on.

This will impact real estate agents….and if you do not have Quickbooks….I suggest you get it…because you are going to need it.

Write your Congressman. This one needs to go.

-Kris Cone

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