It’s been a long time coming, but we are here to officially announce that video professionals can now manage all of their clients on WellcomeMat, and do it with style/efficiency. “Client Management” is the means by which video pros can do all of the following (and more):

Listen in below on our Friday (Feb 6th) Video Producer call as Co-Founders Christian and Phil discuss how to master Client Management and move up the ranks on WellcomeMat.

Some Bullet Points About Client Management:
* Add/Subtract Clients from Your Dashboard
* Upload and Assign Videos to Your Clients
* Provide Your Clients With Access to Their Own WellcomeMat Account, and Provide Them With The Most Powerful Tools Known to the Local Video Marketplace.
* Quickly and Easily Log Into Each Client’s Account and Manage Their Videos in Their Behalf.

Cheers to all of us sticking to our strengths and taking local video to the next level! Questions Wellcome.

Mark Robertson of ReelSEO cranked a ball out of the park today with his post about how to control the search bar within embedded YouTube videos.

I wasn’t aware of the fix for this when I put up our post on YouTube’s search function, so-as it turns out-there is control over this function (sorry YouTube).

Truth is that ad/entertainment based video sites have no place in the local scene. Yes, there are SEO benefits of sending content to specific sites (not all), but when videos ARE the advertisement (ie…local video), we are going to see the generalist sites become less and less applicable to the local cause. It’s a natural progression and one that we are actually very excited about (of course).

It would be tough to count the number of times that a reporter or potential partner asked us “how many members do you have on WellcomeMat?” We did not talk about this number, partly because it’s better to keep competition guessing, and partly because the total number of WellcomeMat members wasn’t, in our mind, something to be vocally proud of…until now!

Few people (you know who you are) know as much as team WellcomeMat how much of a shlog local video has been. It’s been a lot like marching up a vertical, muddy slope, with a boulder strapped to your back, every single day for years on end. There hasn’t always been a lot of believers, there haven’t always been a ton of video success stories to point to and say “that’s why you use video,” and-quite simply-only people with a clear vision into the future adopt new ideas, tools and systems.

While we in no way believe that we have “arrived,” it is with great pleasure that we announce that WellcomeMat has exceeded the 10,000 member mark! We have a lot of people to thank for helping us early on and don’t forget where we come from (ever):

-First and foremost, thanks to all of our local production teams. Our common thread has always been the massive challenge that we collectively faced in making real estate and local video happen.

-Joel Burslem, publisher of FOREM (futureofrealestatemarketing.com) .
-Joseph Ferarra of Sellsius
-The Inman News team
-Rudy Bachratay of Trulia (and Sellsius past)
-Fred Light of Nashua Video Tours
-Doug Heddings of TrueGotham.com
-Erick Hersman of White African
-Dustin Luther – 4Realz.net
-Marc Davison of 1000WattConsulting
-The Active Rain Team. While they liked video enough to start a competing video platform, they are a great group of people and had our backs since way back.

One of the many internal strifes that I have these days is with iPhone apps in the real estate space. There is a ton of buzz around the idea of iPhone apps (see Joel Burslem’s recent deep dive/round up here). However, there are two reasons why my gut is telling me to steer WellcomeMat entirely clear of the app trap.

1) Although the iPhone clearly set the bar for true, web-enabled handsets, there are many, many competitors that are right on Apple’s heels. This means that developing an app for the iPhone is quite literally a one-trick pony, meaning apps built on their platform will only be applicable on APPLE’S platform. I therefore wonder if real estate iPhone app creators are trigger happy (anyone for the “old bull young bull” tale?). If handsets are simply site visitors with a different display mechanism, then what is the future of proprietary mobile development platforms?

2) Other than real estate pros, technologists and vendors, who really wants a real estate app installed on their phone long-term? Web companies all like to think that we are doing something that the world will appreciate. And, many times, we are right. However, why would someone want a real estate application in poll position on their hand-held computer? I’m from a software background, so please excuse me toting along my “baggage.” But, people don’t like downloading anything anymore. Why would we think handsets are any different?