After you've created your video, you'll want to find a way to let the world, and hopefully a Buyer, see it.

For this blog entry, I created a short video called "Crabby" and uploaded it to four different free video hosting sites:

• WellcomeMat - A great video hosting site that is dedicated to Real Estate Video.  It's probably the best video hosting site available today for our industry.  The quality is excellent, the interface is intuitive and they have a nifty navigation tool for the viewer that is perfect for the typical Buyer.  You can just visualize Mr. Buyer calling Mrs. Buyer over to the computer and showing her the great kitchen in the home he's viewing.
• YouTube - Everyone knows about this site.  The wired generation lives with it. It's free and it's crowded but it has some advantages.  It offers good performance and it's a stable platform and, because it's so popular, many applications and sites make it easy to embed YouTube players easily.
• Google Video - Part of the Google Mega-Empire, (BTW so is YouTube), they offer easy uploads, good quality and a stable platform.  They are easy to embed and link as well.
• Yahoo Video - A relative newcomer in popular video hosting Yahoo Video is the least intuitive to use but has good quality, speed and reliability.
• Compare - All the sites above.  They're embedded in the bottom of this entry

Before uploading and using any of these hosting providers you'll have to sign up.  Just go to the site and mouse your way through the process,  for the most part it's pretty easy.  YouTube lets you upload immediately, you may have to wait a couple of minutes for the others.

Here's a couple of things you need to keep in mind.

• Your Internet connection - Video files are large files.  I recommend that you have a 500 kbps line (about 10 times the speed of dial-up modems) or better.  You'll need it for uploading and for viewing.  Luckily, ISP bandwith is getting cheaper with time and 500 kbps is common nowadays.
• File size - The larger the file the linger it will take to upload.  A typical file for one of my video tours in 640X480 WMV file format is from 20 to 40 MB.  That gives you a tour of around 4-8 minutes duration.  Many of the hosting services have an individual file limit, often 100MB per file.  Some have a total limit, (none of the above site do.)
• File Type - Most of the hosting services will take multiple formats.  WMV, MPEG, MPEG4, MOV, AVI and SWF are some popular ones.  Technology is always changing but the newer MPG4 and the old WMV formats are pretty efficient.  For Mac users MOV or MPG4 is probably the default choice.
• Don't Be Intimidated - Just go in and try it! If it doesn't work try something else.  You can't break anything and no one will get mad at you for making a mistake.

After your masterpiece is uploaded you need to make it available to your prospective buyers.  You can:

• Link to it - You can place a link in your web page(s) so people can click on it and go to the hosting site to see you video.  You can also email the link to someone.  When they click on the link it will open their browser and open the video. To get the link go to your video on the host's site and look for "link to this video" or "email to a friend" or "embed this video" and follow the instructions.  If you're lost at this point we'll cover links and embedding in a later blog entry.  The trend in hosting sites is to have a "channel" for a poster (you) or genre, etc. So you can also link to your channel which would have all of your videos.
• Embed it - You can embed your video on your web site or in an email (depends on the email program) so that you video plays on your site or email.  You may also be able to embed it in other applications like you MLS system.  Most MLS systems offer a link for Virtual Tours and Videos.  Some allow you to embed the Video right in the MLS page.  FlexMLS uses both methods as well as branded and un-branded options for Virtual Tours and Videos.

Here is the video "Crabby" embedded in this page from all four sites we've talked about so far:

Crabby?

That's probably enough to get you started.  Let us know about your uploading and hosting adventures!