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RISMEDIA, January 16, 2009-VHT, Inc., a leading full service provider of Visual Marketing Services designed for the real estate industry, announced the addition of Alex Zoghlin, 38, founder and CTO of Orbitz.com and founder of multiple other successful start-ups, to the company’s management team as Chief Executive Officer (CEO).
Zoghlin is recognized as one of the Internet’s most influential minds, and is well-known and respected throughout the industry for building companies with cutting-edge and easy-to-use Web-based technologies. He began his career in 1995 as the founder and CEO of website development firm Neoglyphics Media Corporation, which he later sold to Renaissance Worldwide. In 1999, he founded Sportsgear.com, an online virtual distribution company for small sporting goods retailers, which he sold to GSI one year later. Next, he became founder and CTO of Orbitz.com in 2000 and architected the online agency’s industry leading website and Supplier Link technology. He left Orbitz in 2004 to become founder and CEO of G2 SwitchWorks, a travel distribution provider that he sold to Travelport in 2008.
The selection of Zoghlin to lead the company is the latest in a series of strategic moves intended to position VHT in an evolving real estate market, says the company. In August 2008, VHT received its most recent round of venture funding. Led by Hopewell Ventures, which made its initial investment in 2007, the latest funding will enable VHT to further develop its innovative and soon-to-be-released technology solutions.
For example, Zoghlin’s experience will be instrumental in VHT’s latest initiative, the Real Estate Media Marketplace (www.realestatemediamarketplace.com), a one-stop time and money saving Web-based platform where real estate professionals and brokerages can purchase and manage media and marketing services from a broad spectrum of leading providers, including Web, print, TV, wireless and direct mail media outlets.
“The current economic climate and the explosion of new media and marketing options is challenging for real estate professionals. In times like these, successful companies identify innovative ways to reinvent themselves and increase productivity, which is why I was drawn to VHT. I’m excited to be able to leverage my experience in creating online solutions that will help VHT and its client roster of market leaders,” said Zoghlin.
“Alex brings to VHT a proven track record in leading and developing high growth technology companies. I’m thrilled to have him join us and lead VHT as we continue to leverage the tremendous growth opportunities inherent in our business model,” said Brian Balduf, VHT co-founder and chairman.
While attending the University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign, Zoghlin was an original member of the renowned Project Mosaic Web team, helping to develop the first Internet Web server/browser. Zoghlin also served for eight years in the United States Navy (four active and four reserves) as an encryption specialist.
For more information, visit www.VHT.com.
Here is a really interesting article showing a possible direction of where the Real Estate industry is headed:
(Crain’s) — Alex Zoghlin, the former chief technology officer of Orbitz Inc., has booked a trip to residential real estate. Mr. Zoghlin, 38, who created the travel Web site’s search engine, started this week as CEO of VHT Inc., a real estate marketing firm backed by Chicago-based Hopewell Ventures, the venture capital firm founded by former Democratic National Committee Chairman David Wilhelm.
Mr. Zoghlin’s task will be to build an audience for VHT’s RealEstateMediaMarketplace.com, where residential brokers can go to buy ads in other media. Inert residential sales and the difficulty raising investment capital would seemingly make this a tough time to launch such a venture, but Mr. Zoghlin says the slow housing market increases the importance of marketing, which should benefit the site.
"I certainly wouldn't bet against Alex on this," says Jeff Clarke, president and CEO of New Jersey-based Travelport Inc., which last year bought G2 SwitchWorks Corp., a travel technology firm Mr. Zoghlin started after leaving Orbitz in 2004.
RealEstateMediaMarketplace.com is intended to make it easier for brokers to place and manage ads in numerous online outlets and print publications at the same time. Started in August, it has just 3,000 registered users and will be relaunched this spring. VHT doesn’t charge users a fee, instead collecting commissions from the companies where the ads are placed.
"I see so much potential here," Mr. Zoghlin says. "No one else is going after real estate agents to help them take advantage of new technology." Even for the high-tech industry, Mr. Zoghlin is a colorful character. He’s known for his ponytail, which he cut off about 18 months ago after some boys teased his then-5-year-old daughter for having hair shorter than her dad’s.
Without the long hair, Mr. Zoghlin jokes that he’s lost his “tech cred.” But even a shorter-haired Mr. Zoghlin has given a boost to VHT, says Brian Balduf, VHT’s co-founder and chairman. "
This sends the message that we're serious," he says.
Des Plaines-based VHT, founded in 1999, already provides high-definition photography, video property tours and other visual marketing services to a customer base of about 75,000 real estate brokers. Now, the 50-employee company’s ambitious plan is to persuade about half of the nation’s 1 million residential brokers to regularly use the new site.
Many larger residential real estate firms already have marketing staff that handles ad placement for their brokers, limiting VHT’s potential audience, says James Kinney, president of Chicago-based Rubloff Residential Properties.
"But if there's a cheaper, better or more efficient way, we'd look at it," he says.
VHT has already raised roughly $7 million since 2007, including about $5 million from Hopewell, Mr. Balduf says.
Mr. Zoghlin, a Wilmette native, dropped out of New Trier Township High School to join the U.S. Navy. He enrolled in the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 1992, where he was part of the team that invented an early Web browser called Mosaic, but never graduated.
Six years later he sold his first company, a Web site developer, for $65 million, according to published reports. In 2000, he was the first person hired by Orbitz, where he created the online travel agency's search engine before leaving four years ago.
Eye-Fi announced at Macworld that they will be releasing a free iPhone app for users that currently own a Eye-Fi card. PropertyPreviews happens to be a distribution site for Eye-Fi users. If you have not tried Eye-Fi it is certainly a great product. If you are taking a lot of photos on the run and would like to streamline your photo upload process, give it a try. Better yet give it a try with PropertyPreviews.com!!
The new application will let users aggregate all of their photos – from both an iPhone and a digital camera - into organized folders on a computer and to one of 25 online photo sharing and social networking Web sites. iPhone users who own an Eye-Fi card can download the free application from Apple’s App Store upon release.
“Whether you’re snapping pictures on-the-go with an iPhone or capturing life’s important moments with a digital camera, Eye-Fi will offer one easy way to manage and share all your photos – without docking a gadget or fussing with software,” said Jef Holove, CEO for Eye-Fi. “We are solving another real-world frustration for anyone who takes photos with both devices.”
Using the Eye-Fi application, users can select which iPhone photos to upload and where to share them. As with the Eye-Fi Explore card, photos taken on an iPhone can be automatically tagged with information about where the picture was taken. Users can then view geotagged photos on a digital map and organize photos by location.
Continue Reading here
--Scott from PP.com
PropertyPreviews.com
Blog.PropertyPreviews.com
Give your listing online curb appeal. The front photo of a listing is one of the most important photos in my opinion. If it captures interest, in will lead to the online shopper to go further down the rabbit hole to view and learn more about that listing.
This tip is mainly for listings where the garage is attached to the front of the house. A garage can take up a good majority of a front photo. Lets face it - a garage is a garage. There is nothing great about it, but you need to show it. Most people will take a front photo straight on giving the house and garage equal line of sight and making the garage appear large. What we want to achieve with this tip is a different line of sight, but still capturing the whole house and garage. If the garage is on the left of the house, you want to position yourself all the way to the right of the house. This way you are focusing on the house, and while the garage is still in your picture, it is not overpowering the house. This gives your listing online curb appeal. Thanks for reading and Happy Selling.
See Tom's example home Here.
Blog.PropertyPreviews.com
PropertyPreviews.com
By Maia Tihista
I was at the NAR conference last month. I am a newbie to the real estate space so it was a great opportunity for me to learn more about the service providers in this industry and to chat with agents and brokers. My background is in technology so I spent a lot of time learning more about the latest and greatest tools that are out there for real estate professionals.
I’ll bet if I walked the show floor some 10 years ago, I would not be seeing the number of vendors promoting some type of computer technology, hardware, online databases and multimedia products. And looking at the session topics, I’m sure the whole idea of social media would have made most brokers and agents heads spin back then.
But welcome to 2008 and the onslaught of technology – where the NAR session on Blogging 101 was packed and had to be repeated the next day because of all the interest. And like Carrie in Sex in the City writes – “Will technology really help you sell more?”
If you ask the more seasoned top producers (like I did), the answer would be “No”. They know how to sell, they know how to reach the buyers and sellers, and they don’t need all these fancy tools that are out there now to help them do any more business. It’s all about the relationships they tell me.
If you ask those that have less experience, the answer is “If you don’t embrace technology, you won’t survive in this business.”
I guess there is no right or wrong answer here – but after attending many sessions and talking to many people, my conclusion is – “It certainly can’t hurt”. Do you need a Web site in this day and age? Probably. It just makes sense given that the highest majority of buyers now are Gen X and Gen Y and guess what, they know what a computer is and they know how to surf the Internet.You know the number – 84% of home buyers begin their search on the Internet.
Do you need all this social media stuff? Blogging, twittering, Facebook-ing? It may help you get exposure to more people, but like the more seasoned pros would tell me, it doesn’t necessarily help you build that one-on-one relationship that will help you get referrals and gain repeat business. If you have the time, go for it – but I wouldn’t expect to measure the return on your efforts.
Do you need more ways to expose your listings to more people – Yes. Because it will help you sell more? Maybe, but primarily because you are demonstrating to your seller that you are doing all you can to actively promote their property. YouTube, GoogleBase, Trulia, Zillow, Oodle, Yahoo, Homescape and the list goes on.
You can do it yourself or certainly go the free route – it’s all about putting a dollar value on your time. Photography and videos – Yes. The stats are out there – 12% increase in perceived value with photography and almost a 6% increase in perceived value by using a video.
There are so many inexpensive options out there that can give you a quality product – and quite frankly, your sellers should be demanding it. Lead management systems, contact management systems? In this market, would be a luxury to have. I wonder how well these particular vendors did at this year’s show.
All in all, embracing technology is probably a good thing. And if you invest your time and efforts wisely in the right technologies, chances are that you will become more efficient and more effective over the long haul – and yes, that will probably translate for more sales.
Continue reading at Blog.PropertyPreviews.com
PropertyPreviews.com
HDR (High Dynamic Range) images try to highlight every spot in a photo and make it stand out. Usually to create a HDR image you need Photoshop or a similar desktop application. CreateHDR.com allows you to upload images from your desktop or Flickr account and create a HDR image from one photo. Typically HDR images are created from multiple images with different exposure settings. Currently the site only allows for the JPEG file format to be uploaded. There is a pro version under construction on the site that will allow for multiple exposure uploads and different file formats.
If you're marketing your properties yourself and using your own photos, this is a great tool to help ameture photographers make photos look more professional.
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--Scott from PP.com
Facebook’s ad targeting system is among the best targeting system out there in terms of deliverability and cost effectiveness. Through Facebook Pages, Real Estate professionals can directly market to their target demographic by placing ads within their prospective client’s Facebook interface. With 80% of home buying interest today starting online, it would seem reasonable to make an effort to get to the word out on your property through a platform that has become respected among all social circles and walks of life. It is for this reason that Facebook is the reasonable choice above other social networks.
Though Facebook is technically the second largest social networking site with 100 million active users (News Corporation’s MySpace still holds the first place title), it has become the cleaner alternative to the corporate-backed, ad-ridden, unprofessional landscape of MySpace. This puts Facebook in a position to learn from MySpace’s mistakes – let everyone market on the platform instead of just larger companies. Everyone from photographers to real estate professionals to vendors have started to use Facebook’s easy-to-use ad developer to place ads directly into a desired user’s homepage.
The site allows for advance targeting – target by age, gender, location, interests, whatever you want. It also allows for you to attach friend-to-friend interactions about your ads; friends of the target will show up as referring your business to them through your ad, which helps attract attention and credibility. Facebook is also flexible on how your purchase ads. Their system allows for both CPC (purchase clicks) or CPM (purchase impressions) styles of payment. Their CPC method allows you to bid on a cost-per-click, with the higher the bid equaling more impressions on the site. They also let you set a limit per day on each ad, allowing you to increase and decrease the ad rate according to your budget.
A great feature of this ad system is Facebook’s “trusted referral” option.
From Facebook.com: “The ads can also be shown to users whose friends have recently engaged with your Facebook Page or engaged with your application. Facebook Ads are more likely to influence users when they appear next to a story about a friend’s interaction with your business.”
This is great if you want to start building within a network of friends who have shared interests. So say you’re a photographer and you have a business selling real estate photography. If you tell your clients to become fans of your business on Facebook, you can advertise directly to their associates, using your clients as referrals. The end result of these targeted ads is delivering your message directly onto a prospect’s facebook homepage, which means (depending on your bidding settings) that your prospects can see your ad every time they refresh their homepage. This is a great way to advertise yourself as a professional in your field.
Check out more about this at our Official PropertyPreviews.com Blog.
--Scott from PP.com
Do you use an iPhone, or one of the new Android-based phones? We here at PP HQ are fans of these nifty devices, and are happy to let like-minded users of these phones in on a cool feature of this blog.
By bookmarking our blog page, when you visit our blog on your phone, you’ll automatically see something like what’s shown below.
No iTunes application store mess, just point and browse.
Kudos to our social media masters who got this going. Let us know what you think in the comments below.
--Jeff Harris
PropertyPreviews.com Blog
A post about twitter from the new PropertyPreviews.com Blog
Twitter is becoming the go-to tool to answer the one question on everyone’s mind: What are you doing right now? The two-year-old micro-blogging platform is quickly becoming known as an app that many people have heard of, but only a handful have mastered.
For those who don’t know, Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows its users to send and read other users’ updates (otherwise known as tweets). Updates are displayed on the user’s profile page and delivered to other users who have signed up to receive them. Users can receive updates Twitter’s website, SMS, RSS, email, or through an application such as Twitterrific or Facebook.
The question that real estate professional should be asking is: How can this be useful in selling a property? Twitter can be used to take a pulse of the home-buying community. Agents can search twitter to find real estate buyers in the area and get a sense of exactly what they’re looking for – thoughts, opinions, open house, time preferences, whatever.
Continue Reading this article at Blog.PropertyPreviews.com
--Scott from PP.com
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