FloorPlanOnline continues to offer additional features and functions to its tours and single property websites…without charge. Real Estate Agents may now check a simple box and an automated process creates and posts a YouTube video of the listing online into the FloorPlanOnline YouTube Channel. It’s very simple to use – just use our normal video editing tools and save your changes. In addition, we also create a video file that can be used to upload into your Realtor.com Showcase listing.  For now, this is something you must do as Realtor.com has no automated process for tour companies to handle this job for you.

More adventurous Realtors may opt to select different music, type in captions for each photo and edit photos to create a more personalized YouTube video. In order to take advantage of the new YouTube & Realtor.com tool – FPO customers should log in and edit their linking profile by checking the box to include the linking to the FloorPlanOnline YouTube channel.  Then just make sure it is selected on the order as you place create a new tour.

This new tool works on all new tours created as of Monday, Aug 30th 2010. Click here to view an example video on YouTube or just play the sample below:

As with most enhancements and improvements to FPO tours, there is no additional fee for this feature.  Other companies charge up to $20 or more.  This feature is even available for our low cost, self service Photo Tour at $29.  As long as your tour is active, including tours that have been renewed, you can create a video file and have the video uploaded to YouTube.  Please read our FAQ below for more details on how to create a video file.  Additionally, word from the FloorPlanOnline development department is that further options and YouTube related tools are being tested and tweaked for launch before the end of the year.

To learn more, just click on one of the FAQs below to read more details (click again to hide the detail). Please also complete the poll to help guide our future development of this feature.

Do you Create a video for YouTube & Realtor.com?

Yes! As of August 30, 2010, we automatically produce a video file of our Virtual WalkThru Video and automatically upload the video to the FloorPlanOnline YouTube Channel. It is an exact replica of the video, including music, transitions and any text you may have added to the video scenes. There is no upgrade request - it just happens!

How do you add YouTube Videos to your account? The only thing you need to do is login and go to Edit Profile, then select the Edit Linking Info button and check the box for the FloorPlanOnline YouTube Channel linking option under Automated Website Distribution Service. Then save at the bottom. Once the tour is approved, the video will be uploaded within approximately 24 hours or less. As part of the video on YouTube, we include a link to the complete tour, the marketing description, and the contact information of the marketing representative.

As an added bonus, we also provide the video file for download under Marketing Materials. Just click the link under Marketing Materials and then select the Download Video button. You can use this file to upload to your own YouTube channel, or use it to upload into your Realtor.com Showcase listing (note - Realtor.com does not allow us to upload the video file to them...so something you must do). You can even use a third party program, such as the Windows DVD Maker included with Windows 7, to burn it to a DVD.

We provide 3 file formats. For YouTube, any version should work for uploading.
- Download AVI File - good for Windows Media or Windows DVD Maker
- Download MP4 File - Windows or Apple users
- Download MOV File - QuickTime video file for Apple users

What happens if I change the video or I want videos for my older listings?
If you change a video, a new video file will be created and added to your account under Marketing Materials within 30 to 60 minutes (the actual time may vary based on the size of your video and other videos that are concurrently being processed). To create a video file for past listings, just login, go to Manage Orders and then FIRST select the Edit tour link, then the Edit Property Details button, scroll down to the bottom to the Link To Website area and select the option to link to the FloorPlanOnline YouTube Channel. Save. Then, select the Edit Tour link for the listing in question. Then select the Edit WalkThru Video & Photos button, then just select the Save & Close button (or you can do some edits if you'd like). This will queue the video for rendering, and it will show up in your account under Marketing Materials.

How do I upload a video to my own YouTube Channel?

If you would like to take the WalkThru Video we create as part of the tour and upload it to your own YouTube Channel, please follow the below steps.

1. Download the video file.
Login at www.floorplanonline.com.
-If your tour was created after August 29, 2010, go to Manage Orders and select the VIEW link under Marketing Materials. Then select the Download Video button. You have 3 file types...anyone should work for uploading to YouTube, but we suggest the first option, AVI file.
-If your tour was created before August 30th, you first need to generate the video file. Any older active tour can have a video file created. To do this, from the Manage Orders page, select the Edit Tour link for the tour, then select the Edit WalkThru Video & Photos button. Select the Save & Close button...and this will then queue up the video for rendering. Once the video has been rendered, the video should show up under Marketing Materials, generally within 30 to 60 minutes...but it could vary based on how many other videos are concurrently in process. So check back later under the Marketing Materials section, then download the video file to your computer.

2. Upload the Video to YouTube.
-If you do not have a YouTube account, create one first. We suggest you create a channel for your business so you can separate personal from business videos.
-Login to your YouTube account. When you get to YouTube's homepage, click the "Upload" link on the top of the screen. Click the "Upload Video" button then fill in the required details of the Video:
We suggest title (street address), add the tour link first so it will show - www.seetheproperty.com/xxxxx or the vanity domain, description, category, your contact info, tags.

You can fill in the Broadcast Options - Date, Map Options, Sharing Options.

Select a category. We post our tours under the Entertainment category. The other option is How to & Style. There is no real estate option at the time of this writing.

Then select "Save".

Congratulations....you just uploaded a video to YouTube.

Marketing Materials - Features

Your marketing materials, such as your flyer and your virtual tour links, can be found in the Marketing Materials area of our Order Management System. Follow these steps to get there.

- Log in to your account, then select "Manage Orders." Select the "View" link under the "Marketing Materials" column which brings you to the Marketing Materials menu. This menu is slightly different depending on what type of tour you ordered and if you have customized your online flyer.

Here is an overview of your options:

- VIEW TOUR. You can view your tour here.

- TOUR LINKS. Branded and Unbranded links appear here for approved tours. Use these links to add your tour to your MLS, to forward the tour to other agents and to the seller.

-EMBEDDABLE OBJECT. You can use this tool to put both the floor plan part of the tour and the video into your own website, a blog post, etc. Many company sites now allow you to paste in embeddable code. This is similar code to a YouTube video embed code. Check with your IT help desk to make sure it will work. You can configure the object to show a button to the full tour, change the button and text colors, etc. It is a great tool to make the tour a more seamless part of your own website or blog.

- SAVE TOUR to PC/BURN a CD. Select this option to save your tour to your PC or make a CD of the tour.

- FEATURED LISTING PAGE. Select this option if you want to see and/or copy the special website address we create for you that lists all of your active tour. You can also add a button to your website of emails to promote all of your FloorPlanOnline tours.

- DOWNLOAD PHOTOS. Select this option to save the photos to your computer. You have options to download a "zip" file of all photos, in different sizes, or download individual photos in different sizes. If you are downloading the zip file, how you do this depends on the type of operating system you are using (Windows vs Apple) and whether you have installed any third party file zipping program (like Winzip) or not. Normally, you click the button to download the zip file - after several seconds, a window should appear that has icons on it. Look for a menu option that says EXTRACT ALL FILES or something similar - click that, find a place to save your photos on your computer, such as My Pictures, and walk through the steps.

- DOWNLOAD FLYER. This option opens a smaller PDF of the flyer, which is the same version found on the tour when you click the Print button.

- DOWNLOAD HI RES FLYER. This option appears if you requested to save a High Resolution Flyer when you edited the online flyer in the Tour Editor function. Select this option if you want to save the High Resolution Flyer to your computer.

- DOWNLOAD FLOOR PLAN as PDF or JPEG. Select one of these options to save the floor plan to your computer.

- DOWNLOAD HI RES FLOOR PLAN. Select this option to save a high resolution floor plan to your computer. Individual files are provided for each level.

- VIEW INVOICE. Select this option to see a copy of your invoice for this tour. There is a date stamp for different charges and all charges associated with the tour are shown on the invoice. This can include tour renewals that happened in a different year.

That’s FloorPlanOnline – Simple, Effective and Affordable.

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.

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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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

We wanted to let you know we just launched a few new enhancements/tour features you might like:

1. Custom Video. You can now embed your own custom video into the FloorPlanOnline virtual tour. You can even turn off our Virtual WalkThruTM Video and just display the video button for your embedded video! This is great for listings that have a custom produced video and you want to prominently display it under the Media section on the new FPO 2.0 tours. In order to use this, you will need the embed code provided by the company that created your custom video, or you can upload a video to YouTube and use the embed code YouTube provides. Select the largest size possible (like 960×745 pixels) so it fills the content area. Note: this feature is not available for the original FPO 1.0 tour format.

2. Property Documents. With the launch of the FPO 2.0 tour in May, we added the ability to upload property documents, such as disclosures or other reports, to your tours for display under More Info. There is now a way to delete a previously uploaded document. To upload a document, just select the button to upload the document (PDF or Word file) when you create the tour, or go to Manage Orders, then click on “edit” under Order Form and then scroll down to the property documents section. To delete a document, just select the “delete” link.

3. Tour Formats. We are working to add a new “Classic Virtual Tour” template that is more landscape oriented with the media buttons on the bottom….so it will be a little more like the original tour format but with larger content areas and more customizable (colors, features, additional resources), like the web page version of the FPO 2.0 tour. Look for this in the coming weeks. We have also heard from some of you that you would like to keep the original FPO 1.0 format for your tours. We can certainly accommodate this request. Right now, there is no way for you to select this option when you create a tour (but it will be there in the future). For now, you can email us or call us and we can add a note to your account to have your tours produced in the original format. Note: some items, such as the Feature list, additional resources, and property documents are not available on the original tour format.

4. Video File/YouTube. Many of you have expressed the desire to have the WalkThruTM Video uploaded to YouTube, as well as additional tour distribution options. These things ranked high on the recent survey as well. I am pleased to announce we are actively working the conversion of the video to a format that is acceptable for upload to YouTube, so this should be ready within 1 to 2 months after some testing and purchase of additional software. It will include the ability to download the video file under Marketing Materials for your use as well. Once this is completed we will work to add more tour distribution options, such as Zillow, Trulia, etc.

We have a long list of other enhancements coming in the next 6 months. Once some of these projects get closer I will provide a more detailed update. We really value your business and your feedback to help FloorPlanOnline be the best property tour out there. Please feel free to email me directly with any comments, questions, testimonies or concerns.

Best Regards,
Kris Cone
email: kris@floorplanonline.com  kris@floorplanonline.com

I would like to take a few moments to get your thoughts on the new and old tour formats to help guide our summer development efforts.  Please click here to open up the short survey.

You will also get an email on this topic and there will also be an online message once you are logged in, so please only complete the survey one time.

Thank you in advance for your help in making FloorPlanOnline the most robust tour in the marketplace!

Sincerely,
Kris Cone

FPO in the News

http://atlanta.daybooknetwork.com/story/2010/05/26/32181fpo.shtml

http://www.greenbuiltblog.com/floorplanonline-offers-unique-virtual-tour-tools-507/

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/innovative-virtual-home-tour-website-launches-upgraded-version,1310750.shtml

http://www.atlantarealestateforum.com/floorplanonline-launches-version-2-25731/

http://jacksonvillerealestateforum.com/2010/05/26/tour-homes-online-with-floorplanonline%C2%AE-virtual-home-tour-website-launches-updated-site/

http://www.carolinarealestateforum.com/agents-need-floorplans-323/

http://www.chicagolandrealestateforum.com/2010/05/26/web-site-upgrade-makes-virtual-home-tour-better-than-reality/

You can easily showcase an area just with photos, or if you have a map you would like to use, you can make it an interactive map tour. Click Here for an example of an Area Tour created by the first official customer of FloorPlanOnline in the US, Linda Cone of the Cone Team. See more of Linda at www.KansasCityLifestyles.com.  Note – we provide both a widescreen version of the tour and a portrait version.  By default people get the widescreen – except some users with a very narrow screen will get the portrait version.  In this case, I think the portrait version works good for a map tour…so I used that.  Just change the 1 to a 0 to see and use the portrait version at the end after ws=  http://www.seetheproperty.com/presentation_v2/presentation.php?order_id=8606&mode=branded&ws=0  We will be adding some Map tour types in the future…but for now, you can work the system this way.

To see a tour with the Area Tour (and a lot more Additional Resources), click here.

How do you add an Area Tour to your tours?  It is simple.  First, just create a new tour for the area you would like to showcase.  To create a self service Area Tour with photos, it is just $29 for a year of hosting.  Just select the tour option for Photos only.  To add a Map, select the FloorPlan and Photos option.  That is just $59 for the first year to create the map and tour, and then $29 a year thereafter.

One you have the Area Tour, just login, go to Manage Orders and then click the Edit link under Order Form (or Edit Tour then edit Property Details).  Scroll down to the section where it says Content Display Options.  Under the Additional Resources column, select the +Add Custom Resource button.  Then just type in text for how you want it to show on your tour, and then the link to the Area Tour, such as www.floorplanonline.com/8606 (or www.seetheproperty.com/8606 works too).  Then select the button to add it.  Just make sure the box is checked for this Area Tour, go to the bottom and save.  For your next tour, this resource should be checked.

If you service different areas, you can add multiple area tours, and just select the one needed for your particular listing.

Also, you can use the Additional Resource tools to add links to your website, your blog, your MLS search page, and more.  The more you put links back to your website, the more “Google Juice” you get…and we both get.  Just check out the link above to the listing with the Area Tour for an example.