Live Video Streams on RCG? With Facebook Chat?

I’ve been told my interest in using Facebook for marketing is a bit unhealthy, but I’ve been having so much fun, and this week I pushed the limits in some ways that I thought I’d share in the hope we could spark some interesting conversations…

275x229First off, I’ve been really fortunate to work with the team behind a really interesting movie called The Stoning of Soraya M. that’s being released in selected theaters today (and Seattle on July 17th). It’s a controversial movie based on the true story of a woman who was stoned to death in the Iran after being accused of adultly adultery by her husband. To help with outreach for the movie, I built (with some ridiculously well-timed help from Loren Nason of the Future of Real Estate Technology) a Facebook app that let me combine both a live video stream with a streaming facebook chat-style app. The result was an interview with the director where we took questions from the Facebook community. You can see a recording of the video on the Spinnio app page where we hosted the conversation.

However, before I was ready to go live with the app for the movie, I decided to use the Spinnio app to record a weekly radio show that I run with Rob Hahn called the RE:RnD (Real Estate Radio with Rob and Dustin)… Normally, Rob and I record our radio show form opposite sides of the country, but this week, we were both in Orange County for REBCOC. We took advantage of some of the great real estate people in attendance to interview:

You can watch the video here:

But wait, there’s more!!!

seattle-channelI happen to think the technology of streaming video with Facebook Chat is simply too interesting to resist… so I created a page on RCG that combines the live stream from the Seattle Channel with a chat box that lets you comment on the video with anyone else on RCG watching the video. While I doubt this page will get the critical mass to be extremely interesting, hopefully you can see how cool it could be and just where the Facebook chat/status update technology is heading.

Also, I’m somewhat hesitant to throw a generic chat on RCG in a prominent place, but what do you think?

FB.init(“639647c0b027e22dfc546244ab17a875”, “files/xd_receiver.htm”);

(By the way, this works! Feel free to try it out, although be prepared that each comment leaves a “status” update on your profile.)

I’ve never liked the idea of adding a message board because I simply don’t have the time to moderate it, but I have a feeling that this would be pretty self-moderating considering it’s tied to people’s Facebook account… But what do you think? Should I create a place on RCG where you can leave comments and engage in conversations that aren’t tied to any blog post?

Bye-Bye STI

NWMLS treesThe NWMLS has announced that as of June 24th 2008, they will no longer use the term. Active STI. It will become Pending Inspection and two new statuses will be created, Pending Feasibility and Pending BU Requested.

For those who are members and have access to the database, all three statuses will appear in the pending section of the Hotsheet. Pending Inspection will be used when the property has a signed Purchase and Sale Agreement and has an inspection scheduled. Pending Feasibility will be used for listings where a purchase and sale agreement is signed pending a feasibility study. Pending BU Requested will be used when the seller would like to receive back up offers.

Once the inspection or feasibility study is completed the listing must be changed. The listing would be set to Active, if the inspection or feasibility study were not waived and the sale fails, or Pending, if waived.

The most significant change is that properties with a Pending Inspection status (formally STI) will not be visible on the public websites. All pending statuses shall be considered off-market and will be treated as follows:

  • They will not accrue market time.
  • They will be included in the Pending section of the NWMLS monthly published statistics.
  • They will not be included in the NWMLS Standard IDX feed and cannot be displayed on a web site.

I’m sort of surprised that Pending BU Requested will not be in the IDX feed and can not be shown on public websites. This goes counter to what Sellers want. That is, continued exposure to the market. Perhaps this will change with time too if the NWMLS receives feedback about it.