Latest / PropMedia Podcast / Is Property Media Dead? (and what's replacing it)

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Is Property Media Dead? (and what's replacing it) · PropMedia Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, I'm Maddie.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: This is Moses.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: We are the co-founders of propmedia.com and pixelmob.com.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: This is the Prop Media Podcast where we talk about everything around property media.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: Today we're going to talk about the death of property media.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: Because every, I don't know, every year or so, something comes along that threatens to kill real estate media.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, it's it's possible.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Real estate media hasn't been around all that long.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Probably early 2000s is kind of the advent of what we think of as property media.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, architectural photography and all that jazz has been around a long time.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: But real production, taking 25 to 50 photos of a house that really only really started with the advent of digital cameras and digital MLSs and all of that.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not like it's been around for a thousand years and couldn't be disrupted.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: And there have been multiple technologies in that time that have, I don't know, I've probably heard from in my short time since 2020 in the industry, a half dozen or so different people tell me that they were going to get out of the business because X was going to destroy it or whatever.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know whether they did or not, but that was just the conversation at a conference.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: So anyway, you are much more steeped in the media side of the world.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: What are some of these technologies that have come and gone?
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: And then we we do want to talk particularly about one that we see coming that really does have a shot.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: It'll be it'll be our moment of this really could disrupt and and transform, cause the industry to evolve.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: So I I mean, I feel like if you've been in real estate media for more than a year, you'll see the cycle in the the different media or you'll see it on Facebook.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: Facebook groups, real estate media groups.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but it a new iPhone comes out and the cameras look incredible.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: And the just the idea that everyone's walking around with a professional camera in their pocket.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's the annual one.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: Every September, there's like a post into several groups that is like, Have you seen the new iPhone camera?
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: Are we out of a job?
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: Every year, like clockwork.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: But there's also other things too.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: There's companies that uh provide services.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I don't know if we should name names.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe we have to bleep this out, but like I'll see this about Kubi Casa, a popular floor plan thing.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, they sell to agents and they sell to photographers.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: Does that mean photographers will go to the job or people feel threatened by that?
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, all the realtors just do it because yeah, that was a big stink maybe two, three years ago, because Kubi Casa went to all the MLSs and like struck deals with a lot of the MLSs to do, they offered for the realtors to do their basic one for free, provide it.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's very similar to what many photographers at that point were doing for uh floor plans, which was very threatening and was very difficult for a lot of people to process.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm sure people changed loyalties and moved around and all that jazz.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: And yet we still sell a hundred floor plans a month in our media company for lots of reasons, not the least of which is the realtor doesn't want to be bothered to go around and do that.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: And Matterport is the same story.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh five years before that.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: Matterport's gonna put everybody out of business.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: The list goes on in there.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think now in the age of AI, people, this is the new one, right?
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: Like, yeah, what uh in editing can an agent be able to go and just edit their own stuff, particularly like the higher end editing, virtual staging, and uh doing a twilight uh day to dusk, you know, that kind of stuff, virtual twilights, uh you can just drop that into Chat GPT and and an agent could do that on their own.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: And so there's this constant threat that media companies have that, like if the technology gets disruptive in the barrier to entry and that skill gap gets reduced down uh to basically zero, like I can just talk to a computer and tell it what I want in the same way I would tell my photographer to go do that.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: And now what happens when that technology gets that barrier to entry becomes zero or very low?
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: We'll we'll go ahead and hint at this like uh to unpack in a minute, but like there's new technologies coming on online now with like Gaussian splitting that Gaussian splatting.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: I always I always get confused on how to I'm pretty sure it's Gaussian.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's Gaussian, but I don't know.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: Gaussian almost sounds better.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: I I grew up saying a Gaussian blur.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: That's how Gaussian blur, Gaussian, but that's how I'd see it's the same guy, Gauss, right?
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: But also that guy was crazy, yeah, and cool.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, mathematical genius that got a bunch of Photoshop things named after him.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: And now he's got this thing named after him, and then he had nothing to do with that.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's just kind of derivative from you know, how's that versum impact?
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: Do a bunch of math like 150, 200 years ago, and then you got all this modern crap named after you, yeah.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: Pretty cool.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so you know the Gaussian splats are really interesting too because in theory, you can go in and capture a property with without any super specialized technology.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and you don't need to pause there.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like, just like you were saying, that's probably that's really the key.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: And that's maybe the common thread through all of them is that it we we have these things that we think are the barriers to entry.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like we think it's because we have this professional mirrorless camera, and then we're like, oh crap, Apple launched something that can do a lot of the same thing that my professional equipment could do.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: But in reality, maybe maybe a spoiler, but like the thread I would pull on is the the mirrorless camera was never what the realtor was buying.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and that's why the iPhone didn't disrupt because they don't want to go do it with their iPhone, even though it's in their pocket.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: They don't have the at one level, they don't have the art artistic sometimes ability to do even the simple framing and things in the industry.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: But at other points, they just don't want to make another trip out to the house after it's been staged and decluttered and all that jazz.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: They want to go find another client.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: So there's this natural pressure in the industry of they at least want someone else to do that step because they got people to see, clients to find, and they would love to outsource this function.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that's insulated a lot of things, but this one does seem maybe a little different in how much it could lower the barrier of entry.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: So before we get too far into this, here's my general thought.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: Like, uh, if we're gonna take this, this uh uh concept all the way to like actually like think this through.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: Like, we need to kind of really think about like what is real estate media when we're talking about like, is it dead or is it dying or will it die?
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: Or we see that all the time, those kind of questions.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what are we talking about when we say that?
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: You know, is it the technology that's being changing?
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: Is it the businesses?
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: Is it you know the actual media that's changing?
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: Or or like a few weeks ago is uh our friend where it's a meditative enterprise where you spend all day out at the house.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you explore the story of the home.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's a lot, there's a big um big spread of like what real estate media touches, exactly, yeah.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: And and so the industry being disrupted is kind of uh you could say this about literally any industry, like every industry is gonna go through some transformative constantly.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: Technology is always evolving, yes.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and and the business models, and there's new people coming in and out of it.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I think what we are seeing though, there is more broadly a uh technology is moving very quick, and what that's doing is in many cases it's lowering the barrier to entry for a lot of things.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: Skill, the skill gap used to be a coded thing.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: You have to know these special skills, you know how need to know how to frame a composition, you need to know how to do auto exposure uh brackets, you need to know how to use the tripod and you know getting the vertical straight.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: Well, what if those things you didn't need to know anymore in order to go shoot a house?
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: And the it's not just the technology with the technology now enables you to remove the skill gap.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so well, but maybe you'll call that out.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: So there's the skill gap, and that's the part that we think the Gaussian is gonna make it hit the floor, or or could, particularly coupled with some AI technology.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: The convenience function, I don't know if it does that.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think that's yeah, exactly.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: And that might be I'll give a glimmer of hope here in the middle.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: Is like I I I still don't think, even with this technology that could make the barrier of entry and the skill needed to produce excellent real estate media could make that hit the floor.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: I do still think the industry survives in the sense that realtors still want someone else to take that part of the production of a listing, most likely.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: But I think that shifts things.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like it shifts like how much that's worth potentially.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: This is a great point.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: And it could shift um where maybe the realtor wants to outsource it, but if there's no uh no no barrier of entry and it's just buying a piece of technology, they could they could outsource it in-house.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like if they have an assistant or something like that, maybe they go back out to the house.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm not saying it has zero impact, but there are these two balancing functions of the the artistic and skill component and technology component of how we make media today, that is going to perpetually change.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: The fact that people like to outsource so that they can um grow their businesses, I don't think that ever changes.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's just a question of how and how you stay in relationship with those individuals to be able to provide that service competitively.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: I I think you really nailed it.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: There, the there's the concept of jobs to be done.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: What is the actual thing?
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: Like when you buy a drill, why are you buying the drill?
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: Is it because you want this machine or is it because you want a hole in the wall?
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: And that's really the job to be done, right?
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so the tool is actually a method to actually complete a job.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: And when you own a business, that is the question you have to fundamentally understand.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: And in real estate media, that's absolutely true.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: What is the job being done there?
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I think you are hitting on something that I think is easy to miss.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: That in real estate media, the job to be done oftentimes is uh a little bit abstract.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: It is not necessarily that uh it's just the photos, that's actually like surface level, that's the table stakes.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: The job to be done oftentimes is freeing up the agent to go and show up at uh new meetings and go get new clients.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's representing uh that agent well in front of their existing customers.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: Like they may hire a photographer only for the clout, just to have someone show up at the door and make their team look big, you know?
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: You laugh, but that is uh literally something I've heard coaching on.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: And and some of the things that I would coach introductory agents in was one of the easiest things you can outsource so you can focus on growing your business is photography.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: Because you don't have to hire a media professional, it's just an easy way to get back several hours of time so that they can focus on growing their clientele.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's there and it's taught and it's it's supported in the real estate industry that real agents, if you will, hire professional photographers and they do that to support their brand with the artistic higher quality media, and they do that so they have time back so they can grow.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and both sides of it are taught, yeah.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: And and by like all of your major coaching companies.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's gonna be a basic principle of how do you grow a real estate business, outsource whatever you can, stay in front of the right people so you can grow.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's really easy.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um a lot of people that come into real estate media are technicians or technical people, they're artists, and the tools of their trade, they think all the time about how the tools enable them to do what they do.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and so when those tools get democratized, they think, man, I know that if I had that tool, I could do all these things.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's easy to be feel threatened that if someone else had that tool, they could go do all those things.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: The crazy thing though is like that has already happened.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like the DSLR that was five thousand dollars, the Canon Rebel, whatever you needed 10 years ago, I don't know that you even needed it then.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the that from 10 years ago is$500 now, like or or close to it, where you're gonna get a very good quality for not very much.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's not that our equipment is too expensive for realtors to buy, it never was, to be honest.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it just they didn't want to learn that little little curve.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_01: There's a couple metaphors that I often use when I think about this, like getting your lawn cut, like anyone can push a lawnmower across their yard.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: Well, why do lawn companies and landscaping companies exist if that's true?
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: And the same thing.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's a great example.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: Another one that it hits home even more for me is is hamburgers, right?
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: So well, I like the lawn one because it's also there's a little artistry to how you keep a lawn.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: There's sure some people love to do it themselves, some people like it's their therapy to go do their lawn.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: For me, I specifically moved about 10 years ago, so I could never have to do my lawn again.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: And it was built into my HOA.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I think the the thing is is that it doesn't eliminate the idea that those threats are real.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: Like there are agents that shoot their own stuff, they they go and buy a drone.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_01: There's thousands of them.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean, and this is probably 95% of people we onboard on a Pixamob are photographers, but then there's this other five percent that are they're realtors, they are realtors who have like a photographer's heart.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they love to do that.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's not usually that they want to save a buck and not hire a photographer, it's because they they like that in another life.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: They probably would have been a real estate media photographer.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: All right, it's that time.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: We have recently launched some pretty cool tools inside of Pixel Mob that you may have already seen, you probably have already seen.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but if you haven't, inside Pixel Mob now, you have inline access to a variety of AI tools for manipulating what the actual finished photo is going to look like.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: So you get a beautiful photo back from an editor, and it still maybe you chose to do things differently because these things have this possibility.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you took the front elevation of the house with the sign so that you could give that to the photographer so that they have their branding, but they can't put that in the MLS.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: So now you have a tool that in 30 seconds can delete the sign.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: So you don't have to take that photo twice.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: You can clear the room easily, right in line in your phone in your Pixelma workflow.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: You can restage that room in a variety of styles.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: You can green grass, do pools, all of this stuff right there, 30 seconds, 60 seconds to render, and you can build little chains of them, which I think is one of my favorite parts of it, is you can clear the room and then restage it.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: And then if you want to, use the custom function to add a marching band.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: You can you can do all of it right there.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: Maddie, Maddie hates when I do that to photos, but you know, I think it's kind of fun.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyway, check it out.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: There's how many different 15 effects.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: The one I'm most excited about actually is uh lot line overlays.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: Ooh, I forgot that one.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: So being able to go lot lines are super cool.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: You've never seen anything like this particular product.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, being able to go pull in your uh your aerial photos, it automatically will pull up the satellite view with the lot lines that you can actually reference and draw right on the image.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then it has some cool AI effects to actually make the house pop up over the lines too.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: So being able to darken the background and then so like if the lot line goes behind the house, it'll actually like make it.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: Extrude the house essentially, so it blocks the back lot line and stuff like that.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: And when he says draw, he means draw.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: So you've got the the plot next to you and you've got the image that's in perspective, right?
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: So you're looking at this and you're drawing the cul-de-sac, and you're literally drawing the rough shape, and then it'll expand that rough shape into little anchor points that you can then do fine detail with.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: But it really is as simple as if you got a pretty good hand, you're just drawing this shape, and it'll auto automatically put those anchor points on there, and then you can extrude the house like Maddie's talking about, and things like that.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: So it gives a really cool effect, and then sell it to your customers, and that's it.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: Go check out AIFX.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think you know, the landscaper metaphor, it's really about in those cases, it's the reason the landscaper still exists is there's a convenience factor.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: There's a I don't want to go get grass stains on my boots, on my shoes, whatever.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: Like, there's just it's very similar in the real estate media, real estate industry, media companies exist in part because they don't want to go walk through the house and spend an hour doing something.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: They don't want to go uh literally walk through the yard and get dog poop on their shoes, you know.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_01: Like uh they don't want to go talk to their customer again.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: Like, there's a bunch of reasons why they don't want that.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so and I think on the hamburger side, there's a it's even more like obvious to me.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_01: The anyone can go buy hamburger meat, anyone can go buy buns and put together a hamburger.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: Pretty much everybody has a stove and they can throw it on there.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: And yes, most people have a grill, and but it's all there.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_01: McDonald's is doing great.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like that is that does not put Burger King out of the McDonald's good for the yeah, anyway.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry, that's another discussion.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: That is a completely different kind of discussion.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, at the high level, what we're talking about are like what is what is threaten, what are the threats that real estate media companies and the industry as a whole are experiencing?
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_01: And is there a point where we need to take these things seriously?
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: Like, are there actual threats?
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like, um you know, is it a hamburgers are food that's nourishment, like humans will always need food?
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: And so like there's a good chance if you think of it.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we're getting to the real existential crux of uh existence, really.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, I think with these questions.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um that's another question.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: Is life worth living without hamburgers?
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: Without McDonald's, yeah.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but you know, what are what are the threats that um a real estate media company should be paying attention to um so that they either don't get left behind or are there things, you know, like will the real estate media companies just always be there?
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: Will realtors always need them?
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: Will realtors always exist?
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like all those are let's drill high-level questions.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, let's drill into that one.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, just real quick.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: So, like if there's there have been all of these things, and we're kind of trying to highlight and and run around them for a second.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: That there's been the digital camera, there's been the iPhone, there's been Matterport, there's Benzillo Showcase, there's Benzillo trying to take over all the photographers in California.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: There's been like all of these things of like, is this it for our little industry?
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't, I don't think so.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I think each time the other side, the convenience factor or the technology factor, they balance each other out, and there's this space to forge your own company of serving the different pieces of the industry.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: But the one that we're teasing at with the title of this is Gaussian splatting and what you can do with that.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it would be great.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: Let's dive into that and why we think that might be a little different.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the reasons we want to talk about that is if it's gonna be different, then how do companies respond to that and engage with the technology and forge a new channel in the industry using the technology instead of being terrified by it?
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: So, I mean, for the most part, I mean, this technology is available today, right?
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: But it is still, it's it's your mirrorless camera of 10 years ago.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's still relatively expensive, several thousand dollars to get it.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: The delivery mechanisms for it are not very, I'll go with, they're not very robust yet.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: There's no like integration with MLSs, you're not gonna be able to syndicate this out very well yet, but I think all of that will be coming in the next few years.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: MLSs can be a little slow, so it might actually be a few years if the MLSs stay relevant.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: But let's for anyone who's not familiar with what Gaussian splatting is, why don't you give uh a little a little spiel of what does this technology actually do?
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: And then we'll talk through like how it really does lower the barrier and the skill dramatically compared to some of these other events in our industry.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Getting too technical, the real promise of a Gaussian splat is that you get a photorealistic reproduction of the house in 3D.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: And what that means, that's different than what we see in today's like matter ports or different than an instant 360 how.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: The main thing is that you have these dynamic, realistic reflections.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so this gives us extremely photorealistic.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um when you move the virtual camera, the light moves and like you were really there and uh bouncing off the table and off the walls just dynamically.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so no no anchor points.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: So right now, most of this technology has anchor points that does a 360, and then you stitch them together and figure out some way to transition.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: And you kind of like jump between these kind of like bubbles.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: You're inside these little 360 bubble domes.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: Here, and then you're here, and then you're here.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it's cool, but there is a fair amount of friction in that product where like there's a lot of statistics that typically people only go to like two or three anchor points in a matterport, and very few people actually spend a lot of time in them.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like investigating, right?
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: They spend more time in a video than they do in a matterport typically.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, somebody who's buying sight on scene or something might explore every nook and cranny of a matterport.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: It is a useful technology, it's just not I don't know, very fun.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of exhausting to use where you're you're having to like examine and investigate as opposed to like what we wish it would be, which is you can just kind of move around the space, maybe put on VR goggles and look around.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: Or I actually don't think that's the big promise of a Gaussian spot, right?
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like the VR goggles part.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, not just that.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you could, and you could still think it like a matterport, and you could do it like a video game and move around in the space, but I also think that's exhausting.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_01: Like, yeah, the reality is that people want to get a glimpse, like there's a reason why photos and videos becoming more where it's just a passive uh media format, and like it doesn't involve me participating and just kind of entertainment almost.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: The virtual tour, and I think to your point uh about matter ports, like the statistic about people only going to two or three things, is they want to treat it passively, like they want to see it and then make a decision this is for me or not, and move on to the next thing.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_01: And photos allow you to do that very quickly, right?
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like they are two-dimensional, they're very cheap as far as like data movement, like so they load fast, they're you can scroll and scroll and scroll and just to have an infinite flow of of photos.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um and video is becoming more and more of that.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um so the virtual tour part of it, I don't think is the like the the big part, the big value.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: The big value, I think, is that essentially you can capture this Gaussian splat and have a photorealistic reproduction of the house that you can then go and create every kind of media type you want in finitum.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's crazy.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_01: So you can reproduce photos like before, and now let me also backtrack a little bit.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_01: We are not there yet.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, this technology, what I'm talking about, is not we're not at a place where you can go do this without really hacking it together today.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I was just saying that's a good thing.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_01: But conceptually, it's possible, right?
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: It is possible today.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: You've i you've shown me pieces.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like there's a fun thing that you had that blew up on Twitter, and this was several years ago, with a different technology, but it was videoing actually this space uh without a video camera and creating like a fly through of an apartment just from a nerf, yeah, which is a different kind of point cloud.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: The technology may not be exactly what takes off.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_01: I Gaussian Splats is developing very fast.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_01: It could be lightweight, they run in a browser.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: All this is stuff is kind of like the the first steps of seeing this technology take off.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's like the first rails of how it happens, and it it has hit people in places that they probably don't even know.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like the the Superman movie last year, some of those like holographic projections and things were actually made with splatting technology in order to make those shots work in completely different ways than filmography has done that before.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: And easier, less expensive ways.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_01: We're seeing it more and more.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we're seeing Google is investing tons of money.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: This is maybe for the term world model, this is kind of currently the uh it's pretty in vogue.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but it's the it is the core technology um that makes up world models where you can reproduce um these 3D environments essentially that is just being generated, generated in real time that you're exploring um in Google, like their Google maps and stuff like that are using is using this technology more and more uh to reproduce um you know landmarks and cityscapes and all this stuff.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: I will also say like Zillow's actually already introduced this um with aerials, so being able to explore neighborhoods and houses um from the exterior, right?
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_01: What does it actually look like when someone, you know, let's say it's two or three or five years down the road, the technology is cheap enough and the uh the processing is fast enough and all this stuff comes together.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_01: Well, what it probably looks like is someone can go into a space with like a simple 360 camera or even potentially down the road just using a phone and just walk around the perimeter of the interior of each room and capture a space, and you walk through each room just room by room, and then it's gonna reproduce this thing in 3D.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: No hiding, no nothing, no pausing and putting it in the right spot.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's literally just scanning the space and creating a digital twin of the space.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: And the really key thing to walk away with that, I think, is if the skill level of real estate media right now on average is I don't know, six or seven.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: Six, seven.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_01: Oh boy.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: It basically drops to one.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: You need to be able to hold a thing and you need to be able to walk around and not forget a room.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's about it.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: And you will have a digital representation of that space.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: And like you were pointing out, like the the the VR goggles, the walking around, like that's what we were sold of 3D imaging.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's the fun thing you could put on the Oculus and you could navigate to Zillow and go through a matterport or whatever.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like, sure.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: I think that I think that will have a life, but similar to a matterport, I I think that's gonna be the really high-intent buyer, the really like I I'm in Honolulu and I want to buy something in New York, and I for whatever reason need to close on it, and I'm never gonna visit it.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like that happens, like back in COVID, that was 60% of property sales, it's not a non-thing, yeah.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: But I think to your point, that's not the scary part.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like that will always be a thing.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: But the intriguing part where skill level approaches zero is that you can then take an artificially intelligent generative engine and give it that 3D map and say, I would like to model photos.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: I I need 29 photos from taken from waist height.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: I want it, and you can tell it like I want in the kitchen.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to raise it up a little so I don't see the underside of the cabinets, all the little tricks and things that our industry uses.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: You can give that data to the generative engine and have it create all of that media, and then you can have it create the videography out of the data set without anyone ever being on site.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_01: Well, outside of the capture, right?
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and that captures the interesting part because I personally think realtors will still want somebody else to go capture it.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: Because I don't they don't want to be bothered with it.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's just it's a part of the thing that they've always outsourced and they probably will.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: Skills, technical, there's a ton of inertia beyond that.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: But I do think there will be more realtors who realize that they can go buy a$500 wand, walk around with it, and then maybe their business relationship is with either a uh an AI platform that specializes in taking that splat and turning it into finished media, or with like more like what we think about today, um with a media company that is using this technology to create specialized and differentiated kinds of media out of it.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like there's I I think it's it's a new kind of canvas that I'm kind of interested to see what could be done.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like suddenly your cost of producing the images probably also hits the floor.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: Can you have new photos every week?
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like, could you actually generate 500 photos out of it for the same effort we currently put into 25 and have them cycle so that it's always new online?
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, just a random idea, but like what where does this where does this end up going?
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_00: And how does a real estate media professional stay in the middle of servicing this niche and this whole, this job to be done?
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: I I think it's gonna be pretty fascinating.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think the the whole, the job to be done is gonna go away, but I do think that a lot of photographers are gonna be caught with their pants down, and some are gonna be ahead of this and skating toward it and figuring out how to stay relevant.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think this is actually one of those things where this actually has the potential to disrupt the way our business is done, and the skill knowledge gap will be wildly diminished.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_01: And the value, uh, the companies that will survive and not survive, it makes it sound like it's some apocalyptic thing.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_01: But the yeah, the ones that have the opportunity to grow in these scenarios is they really understand the job that they're actually doing.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_01: The job to be done was never the photos, it was never the media.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_01: The job to be done is how the media was created, um, and the convenience that you created while doing it.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so the things that last and matter there are still going to be the the things that you invest in in your operations, good systems, uh taking care of your customers, so good customer service, um, showing up on time and making your customer look good in front of their customer.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: All those things are still going to be valuable.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_01: Now, the value of the media might will probably change.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_01: This is the thing.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_01: Like, there's there's a couple things that do actually happen that do put the the existing model for business, real estate media businesses in uh in threat here or in some level of jeopardy.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um there's now the possibility with the new lawnmower that every 16-year-old kid can start a landscaping business.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_00: Can do this, or yeah.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like that's the thing that that starts to change.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_01: And so whereas before that was a a a technical and a skill gap um that allowed you to and this we saw this in 2020, you know, like the a new rise in in tutorials and coaching around real estate media brought in a flood of people into the into this industry.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_00: Because suddenly it was possible.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_00: They they knew how they had a little bit of capital to buy a lawnmower and and go do it.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: But I think that the analogy still holds, like, yeah, every 16-year-old can have a landscaping business and go mow lawns and make better money than working at Chick-fil-A.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: Probably.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: I think Chick-fil-A pays pretty well.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: If we'd have to map that out, I'll advise my children.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: But I I would bet you can make twice as much money as working whatever if you have that little bit of enterprising um gene.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, there's still massive landscaping companies that service our entire HOA, and they're one kind of thing, right?
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: This is not high art.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: This is just I need to mow 700 lawns in a day.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: How do I figure out that system to get that done for a large-scale client?
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then on the flip side, there are landscaping companies that are extremely fine, high gardening.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna pay through the nose to have them come make a better homes and garden worthy artistry out of your home.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_00: And then every 16-year-old can also start this kind of company.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like this exists a lot of different places, and I don't think real estate media will be any different.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's still gonna take that enterprising spark, that willingness to do the customer service, to go get the clients, all of those components are what make a business a business.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_00: But the ability to do it is gonna hit window washing status.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think the the things that change now are that before, if if you were a real estate media company and you wanted to just enter have a product that offered video, floor plans, photos, and a virtual tour, you're charging, you know,$500,$800, even at like in Middle America for a full package like that.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_01: And uh you potentially had multiple devices and multiple subscriptions, you were different skills.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_01: You might even not even have all the team members that can do all the things.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_01: Now, in theory, a you know, a 16-year-old with that could be equipped with a phone or a 360 camera could walk around and do that.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that just changes how your business is done.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_01: The value of those things potentially change.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it also means here's the opportunity, right?
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like instead of going and shooting uh four or five in a day, you could go shoot 2530 in a day, you know.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you still have to, you know, like drive, but like the cost isn't the the doing and the special skill, it's it's showing up and doing the operations and the system and everything else.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but I think you brought up a really great point, which is I think the way um I think real estate media companies will evolve, um, in the industry will evolve, is one that the commodity, what becomes commodity commoditized will change pretty dramatically.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_01: You'll be able to make cinematic videos, get an infinite amount of photos, and the time it takes C dance to render it.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_01: And in theory, you could provide a link to your customer and they could generate whatever media they wanted from this capture.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_01: You have so much latent data.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_01: Now they have information about the water heater and the floors in every room, you know, like every square inch of this house is captured with great detail.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um but the the next layer is that the commodity part is taken care of.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_01: The part that remains is the bespoke stuff.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_01: And so the the really specialized looking videos, you I think real estate media companies will become more and more either high vol super high volume commodity like capture technical work, or it they'll become more bespoke agencies where they actually are doing creative and basically real estate marketing companies.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and you work with agents in the market.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I think that's a that's a third one.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I think there's the high art one, and then there's the more of a service company that's like taking it the last mile all the way to social media and all that jazz.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: And but that's the thing, like there's not just these three, there's the sky's the limit.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: The canvas is shifting.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_00: What you're gonna paint with is shifting.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_00: Now you get to figure it out.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what is what is the next era of this art?
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: The art of the business, or the art of the actually what are we doing with photos and property?
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_00: All of that can shift, and that's okay.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't think we have to freak out about that, but we also can't put our heads in the sand about it.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I think to your point, there's gonna be the the large-scale production ones, and then the higher art ones, and then the service ones.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_00: I would put some money, I think, that there is gonna be a whole new, not just in real estate media vein, that because AI can create 500 photos, the differentiation is actually the editorial ability and the taste making choices.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_00: The we're only going to have these 12 photos.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_00: These are the 12 photos that are gonna be.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_00: I I don't know if it's 12 or 25 or what it, whatever it is.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_00: But when you can create everything, the wave of a hand, yeah, the specific choices of what it should be, I think might actually gain value.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_00: I I could be wrong.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe the the AI engine also does a better job at picking the should.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_01: Well, yeah, I think that's who knows.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_01: But I mean, like, if you run ads on Meta, like it's interesting because you give it like one, you give it all the building blocks of your creative, whatever your ad is, and it's gonna reassemble it 4,000 times however long it takes until like enough people start clicking on it.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_01: And the things that actually start testing, well, it will reassemble until it makes it work.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I kind of think it might actually be more like that, where that could be it puts it out, and you have a thing that can be infinitely.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that that kind of thing for sure, I think could happen.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it just the on the on the on the tastemaking side, like I know photographers in New York that specifically they get hired because they only give you six images, like that's it, but they give you the six images of this property.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, but what you're saying, like algorithm algorithmically with the internet, if the goal is to get the maximum exposure, the most eyeballs, but I don't know that that's always the goal with property because you don't actually want max exposure, you want the exposure to the people who can actually buy that property.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean it it depends on the property.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_01: Interesting.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_00: We'll see.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_00: We can't determine that one today, but anyway, I hope this is interesting to you guys.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_00: I think this is something you can go ahead and start exploring, really.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_00: Google Gaussian and splatting.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_00: If you are a real estate media photographer and you've never done at least that and exploring where the industry is probably shifting, do it.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_00: Look like we're describing this verbally, but really a picture is worth a thousand words or a splat is worth a hundred thousand words.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like you can go see this stuff, explore it, start imagining what it looks like for your particular business to use this.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_00: And how do you sell it to a realtor?
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_00: How do you sell it to an architecture firm?
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_00: What does it look like for you to stay in the middle?
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that if that conversation can start right now, the industry, the real estate media, as we know it, may die.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_00: But it'll be reborn into something that is doing splatting and creating media in a different method.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_00: You may not be doing it with a mirrorless camera anymore, but the space that it occupies, that job still is going to need to be done as long as you're smart enough and wise enough to actually skate toward where the puck is going.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_01: Nailed it.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_00: We'll see you next time.