http://ping.fm/FQbh0 Here are some links to some new eye candy ;)

A Couple Realtor.com Tips!

Here you go folks...you can thank the #1 video editor for these little tips! Thanks, Mark!

1. If you are part of the Enhancements/Showcase upgrade with Realtor.com, each listing you can easily add a headline! Instead of "Wow what a beautiful home!" try "Contact 'Your Name' at 'Your Phone#' "

Now your listing will show on the search results with a phone# that is blazingly obvious...

2. Info. from Realtor.com Site - Full Motion Listing Videos - get more sellers to sign on the dotted line 73% of buyers say that they would be more willing to list with an agent who offered to shoot a video 100 million Americans watch over a billion online videos every month, make sure they are watching...

If you need help with posting your WhirligigHD videos into Realtor.com, contact us!

Four new brochures and counting...there's one in there for YOU! Click here to view them!

http://ping.fm/nocRj A whole new meaning to the "24 hour open house".

http://bit.ly/REVideo Here is a post about RE Video - a couple of major points highlighted - full article is linked.

http://bit.ly/Video2010 Great article from Inman News today about Video - things we can help you with!

http://bit.ly/WhirligigHDPlaxo Come join me on Plaxo! It rolls everything you do all into one stream - check it out!

Even more flexibility in your virtual tour

We listened again and have come up with a way for you to open your tour to a specific page. While we don't recommend this, we understand this is something worth-while!

It's not that we don't recommend it...we just think the normal landing page is best because it is MOBILE.

The "normal" landing page is designed to open in mobile browsers and display all pertinent information about the property - including description, 8 photos (that can be enlarged), and information about you. Also, the other items can be displayed in a mobile browser - like any documents you want to upload or even hyperlinks you add in the description.

However, we know you may want to have it open to the photo gallery, panoramas, or even the video tab. Once in the tour, visitors can click anywhere.

So...let's say you want to have the tour open to the Video tab by default. Here is all you need to do.

We provide you a link to the tour - you only need to add &show=video at the end of the URL and that's it! The tour link now opens to the video tab by default.

Adding &show=photos or &show=panos or even &show=map will take visitors to that portion of the tour by default.

So this link would take you to the normal landing page:
http://www.whirligighd.com/vtour/vtour.php?action=listingtour&listingID=300

This link would take you to the same tour but open the video tab first:
http://www.whirligighd.com/vtour/vtour.php?action=listingtour&listingID=300&show=video

as always, let us know if you have any questions or feedback!

Current MLS photos

Someone sent me a funny picture of a bad Real Estate photo - things you don't want to do for your sellers. If you're not going to hire out to do photos, at least we can all agree that technology has come a long way that there is no reason to have any photos like these here.

These are all recent examples directly from submitted entries from several MLS sites. Many of them are for recent listings in our very own SCWMLS...I won't pick on anyone.

We can also agree that you don't have to look far for many examples like this. Remember, sellers give referrals.

Bottom line is this....DID YOU KNOW....

As a do-it-yourself customer of WhirligigHD ($15 per listing...no monthly fee), we give you access to a secure help blog that helps you take better photos - recommended equipment, how to take better panoramas, how to shoot better video, angles of attack, etc.

Yes, we have all the equipment and experience to make it look great...but we also understand $$ is an issue and you would rather wear two hats - Real Estate professional and photographer.

You shoot at will, upload everything to our site (including video, documents, photos, panoramas, hyperlinks, logos, etc.) and we'll submit your listings to our community blog network and even spread it out to heavily-indexed mapping sites and other major Real Estate sites.

Drum roll please...these took 10 minutes to find.

Click here to see the tour of photos

http://bit.ly/MiddletonXmas Christmas tree shopping fun in Middleton, WI! Thanks Cathy Lacy and Pam Widen!

http://bit.ly/Silverdome Let's see, Waunakee Wisconsin Condo or professional sports arena? What would you do with it?

http://ping.fm/VmuGJ A double-whammy...visitors love it, and more syndication for Realtors!

Help yourself - it's about Web You.0

Show that you ARE connected and drive traffic to your blog or web site. Heck, you can even invite people to connect with you through Twitter or Facebook.

Say someone is viewing your virtual tour. They can click on your name to take you to your personal WhirligigHD page. Our new interface houses a lot of information about you:

• Name and Photo
• Broker Affiliation
• Phone number(s)
• Find me on Twitter
• Twitter Feed
• Find me on Facebook
• Blog link
• Website link
• List of your properties with us (add them all...it's easy and cheap and you'll get more exposure with our local blogs and Portal)
• Video(s)
• Testimonials
• Uploaded documents about yourself

Make this your one-stop shop for all things you.

Don't have a web site? Make this one your site...purchase a domain name and point it to this page or just leave it the way it is!

Have a web site? Make this a compliment and pull everything in and complete the circle. Take advantage of it - it's free when you're a client.

Like we said - it's free as a client. Whether you accept our full-service or you opt to do everything yourself, you get it. Do-it-yourselfers -- it's only $10 per listing with no setup cost or monthly fees. We'll post your listings in our local blogs and portal. Pay for only what you use.

Google Launches New Picasa Update

Yea! That's all I can ever say about Google's Picasa.

It's an amazing piece for the price - which by the way is FREE.

WhirligigHD prefers to use a web-gallery to upload your photos to, and we do that for many of our customers. For those that we still email them to, we highly recommend downloading Picasa here. Again, it's FREE and it's from Google.

It's a great way to download our photos, store them on your computer, manipulate if you must (we usually do that for you), export them, or even create your own web gallery.

Mayor Dave Cieslewicz and County Exec Kathleen Falk declares Women's Health Day in Dane County Wisconsin and Madison Wednesday Sept. 23rd, 2009 http://ping.fm/AJkdM

WhirligigHD Community Blog Network

Here is a simple video to help you understand blogs in more detail...

Why do we bring this up? We blog for you! Look at the RIGHT sidebar of any of our blogs, and you will see that WhirligigHD has created a new, hyper-local community blog network just for you.

It's included with any full or self-service tour. We post your listing on the Dane County blog as well as the closest community blog.

We don't just stop there, either...we update the blogs on a regular basis to make this a one-stop shop for the community. Our goal is to give an accurate depiction of what it is like to live in that community with local listings, news, and other items of interest.

Want to become a contributing member? Contact WhirligigHD about how you can increase your exposure at the same time as being a leader in the community!

We will never forget September 11th, 2001

FREE:WI Realtors:Whirligig WRA Booth 4:DIY tour w/local syndication-Community Blog Network-14 blogs in Dane Co! http://ping.fm/PlTxY

Photos and other size limits

Photos:

The best size photos for this site is 800x600 (or close to that). A good rule of thumb is to use the same size or slightly larger photos that you use for the MLS. You are allowed up to 35 photos for the slide show.

Panoramas:

If you are uploading panoramas, we currently support 180-degree partial panoramas best. We are working on a solution to be flexible for any size...but for now please refrain to 180-degress. You are allowed up to 10 partial panoramas.

Files:

Under the Files section, you are currently able to upload up to four documents, PDF, brochures, etc.

Adding Captions:

Yes, you can add captions to each photo to be displayed under the photo! Simply use the "caption" text box under the uploaded photos. Be sure to hit "update" at the bottom of the screen!

Wishing all the workers out there a Happy Labor Day!