Geo-Spatial Imaging and Virtual Tours
Virtual tours have been around for years. Companies like Agent Cast provide picture- and video-based tours of properties. With Google maps bringing global positioning data to the mainstream, companies, including Google, are layering data on top of maps. Keyhole Markup Language allows for anyone to create their own map layers, allowing companies such as For Sale by Owner Center to list FSBO homes geo-spatially, HotPads to show foreclosures by county, and Zillow to show houses on flat maps from an angle. While Microsoft’s Virtual Earth fights for a piece of 3D integration supremacy, iLookAbout tries to plot 3D views for commercial real estate purposes. The winner of the “real cool” 3D application for real estate is still TBD.