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New Platform Updates for June 2023

New Platform Updates for June 2023

We did a comprehensive development release on June 4, 2023, that added several new features and addons to the HomeDiary Story (i.e. virtual tour) platform, along with some bug fixes, including

  • Drag & drop/reposition the various content sections on the Story to your desired order (see screenshot above)
  • Add branded documents to the branded version of the Story
  • New Addon – Virtual Timelapse video
  • New Addon – Blue Skies through Windows
  • Added Pre-Shoot and Re-Shoot options under No Tour
  • Bugs & Fixes
    • Updated the Social Media video to a 9:16 aspect ratio (portrait orientation) to better fit with Instagram, TikTok and Facebook Reels. The price of this addon remains the same at $25. 
    • Bathrooms now properly account for 3/4 baths on the Hero features
    • Changed “asking” to “price” for the listing price of the property
    • Fixed co-listing display issues on the flyer editor
    • Profile display settings fixed to show correctly on tour
    • Simplified the Matterport links provided to match Matterport’s standard convention

See below for more details on some new items.

Drag & Drop Content Sections on Story 

With this new option, you can change the order of the content displayed on your virtual tour by simply dragging and dropping the content in the desired order.  Save and update, and the tour is updated.  So if you want Matterport, or the Photo Gallery to be at the top of the tour, right below the “Hero” image, you can change the layout.

You can also change the default order in your profile settings, which will apply to all future tours created. So set it once and forget it.  Check out the video on how easy it is to do.

Branded Documents

With this new tour enhancement, you can upload any kind of branded document, and as long as you mark it contains branded content, it will only show on the branded version of the virtual tour.  This is a great option to add a detailed property overview, a sales sheet about you and your brokerage, a custom property brochure and more.  Check out the video on how easy it is to do, and because we can show the branded version of the virtual tour on the top sites like Zillow with our patented Brandkeepr feature, this content will get seen more often than not as well!

Virtual Timelapse Addon

With the Virtual Timelapse addon, priced at $75, we simulate a 24 hour period at the property using just one daytime photo.  The video gets added to your slideshow video (and/or other custom videos) so you can make your content stand out further.  You also get a virtual twilight photo included as a bonus, a $35 value. Just pick the preferred location of the photo and sky for the virtual twilight photo, and we will create the video and image, then add them to your tour.  Check out some of the examples on how cool it looks.

Click here to see a few more examples 

Blue Skies Through Windows

With the Blue Skies through Windows addon, we will add a blue sky to the selected number of window views, starting with the most important view shots.  So, regardless of the day outside, we can always make it a blue sky day!  Priced at $50 for sets of up to 10 photos.  Just select how many photos you want and we will do the PhotoShop editing and deliver the images for download. 

How to Easily Customize your Story

How to Easily Customize your Story

With the new HomeDiary PRO management system, it’s never been easier to customize the look of your tour, or Story, as we like to call it.  Here’s a few things you can do with the Presentation page, our new real-time Story editor.  See below for a video on how you can do these edits.

  • Preview and select different Themes
  • Customize the Hero section (the first thing you see) by adding a title or banner, show/hide the property description or show/hide property features
  • Select a different Hero Image than the first image in your Photo/Video Gallery
  • Customize the Property Description with a basic text editor with Bold, Italics, bullets and numbered lists
  • Show or Hide content sections
  • You can even preview how the Story looks on different devices, including mobile phones

Use the slider to see the before and after view of the tour

See the Video on how easy it is to customize and enhance your Story

You can also see the sample tour I was working on by clicking here.

If you want to customize your tour more with branded content (only on the branded version of the tour), check out our detailed blog post on the topic here.  With our patented Brandkeepr feature, it’s a great way to leverage your tour to get more business, and differentiation, for YOU!

If you want to learn more about our new digital closing gift (and more), the Diary, check out this post.  It’s great for your new buyers, or even long standing clients.

AI-based Professional Voiceover

AI-based Professional Voiceover

Introducing Professional Video VoiceOvers.

We can now create a professional sounding voice over for any of your selected videos using a text script either you, or we, write.  Starting at just $50, you get up to 3 minutes of audio for your video.  You can also add the audio to multiple videos we create, including the free Slideshow Video.

Just listen to the professional narration for this 3D Walkthrough Video below created with our VoiceOver Service.

The cool part is you can listen to one of 8 available voice avatar voices and then select the right voice for you and your listing.  Just click the Play button under each person below to preview the available voices speaking the same marketing text.  You will notice some speak things just a little bit differently, and you can’t tell this is not a real human speaking!  The magic is in the artificial intelligence text -to-speech processing engine that converts that text script into a professional voice over.

Just read and listen to this paragraph at the same time, as narrated by Jeremy, to see how we bring text to speech!

Or listen to all of our available voices.

Don’t have time to write the script?

We added an option where we write the script for you based on your key talking points and other info from the tour.  It’s just $50 extra for us to write the script for you, up to 3 minutes of total audio created.  Even with this, our voice over service is much more cost effective than other options that start at $150-$200 and take 3 days to complete.  We will turn around a first draft within 24 hours or less, and you get 2 free edit opportunities.  So save some money and write the script yourself, or save some time, and have us write it.

To add a voice over to one of your videos, just visit our VoiceOver Service page by clicking below and complete the form to add the voice over script or key talking points, and we will get started enhancing your video!

VoiceOver Service

Enhance any of your videos with a narrated professional voice over

VoiceOvers add value

A voice over helps communicate far more information beyond what the media or text can show

HomeDiary for All

HomeDiary for All

We have opened things up so now any FloorPlanOnline user can leverage our homeowner platform, HomeDiary, and provide it as a gift to all of your clients.

See the video for what HomeDiary is and what it can do for you to stay in front of your clients – sellers, buyers and all of your past clients.  This provides a great reason to reach out to now with a free gift for them.  It should be available before the end of November. Enjoy!

New Photo/Video Editor

New Photo/Video Editor

Introducing the new Photo/Video editor.

We spent last year completely re-coding our back-end video platform to make it more scalable using a video rendering engine built on top of Amazon web services. This added reliability to produce smoother, more cinematic video and scalability to handle hundreds, or even thousands of videos a day.  Now, we have completely recoded the front-end editor you use to create the videos. 

See the overview video or read below for key features.

Key Features.  The new editor is built using modern code and comes with these benefits highlighted below:

  • Upgraded size to HD – 720P standard
  • NO Adobe Flash, which means you can use your iPad to edit the photo order and create a video.  The old editor required Flash.
  • Simplified Intro/Exit branding slides that pull from your profile info & can be shown independently of each other
  • Ability to add photos or even ready to use video clips and sequence them into the timeline (video clip audio support coming soon).
  • Auto syncing of the floorplan images that can be inserted in the video. If a room name changes, it automatically updates the video.  At this time floorplan images are not shown in the photo gallery because of redundancy – but see the video for a work around. Seed feedback to issues@floorplanonline.com )
  • Add a Text Slide to help communicate a space or feature. This is similar to the text posts you see on Facebook, and it includes the ability to add in emojis. 😉  You can also use this to create a custom branding or co-listing slide and select to show it ONLY on the branded version of the video we create (so you do not get in trouble with your MLS and their unbranded requirements. 💡 See example below.
  • Auto saves – no more save and preview or save.  It just does it.
  • Video length indicator
  • Multi-select images – use SHIFT+Click to select
  • Quick editing panel for everything you can change on each media card.  See example below.
  • View Preview – a small video is rendered within 1-2 minutes for quick preview of your edits.  Produce the Tour and Create Video to generate final video.
  • Video is automatically added to your tour with an unbranded version too, and it is available for download under the Marketing Center so you can upload it to social media.  We automatically post it to YouTube, your channel or ours.

 

This is the text slide editor so you can create any kind of custom slide and inject into the video timeline.

Click the photo (media card) to show the quick edit panel for each media item.

Floor Plan images are automatically updated when changes are made to the floor plan (under Edit FloorPlan). Only available in the video timeline for now.
How to use the new editor on older tours.

The new video editor is available on all tours produced beginning after April 12th.  If you would like to use it on an older tour, you can.  Here is what you need to do.  Just know there are some features like the floorplan sync and the text slides that are not supported in the old editor, so if you use this, you need to use it going forward for that tour.

The “back-door” way to use the new video editor – when logged into your account, just open a new tab and use this URL:

https://vifp.com/photo-video-editor/xxxxx where the xxxxx is equal to your tour ID of the video you want to edit.  

example: https://vifp.com/photo-video-editor/184056

You will have access to all the new features, but if you save and exit the page and come back and go to Edit Photos/Video, you are going to see the old editor and certain things will not be there, like the text slides and floor plan images.  So, just remember to use this special link to edit the video going forward.