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Matterport injects social media and ‘storytelling’ functionality into platform

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Takeaways:

SAN FRANCISCO — Although 3-D tours are a big leap ahead of still photographs in terms of marketing a property, agents haven’t been able to offer guided 3-D property tours, and sharing a tour on social media still required a cut-and-paste.

3-D provider Matterport is about to change that; it has unveiled a new set of features that let agents inject an element of salesmanship into 3-D models of listings.

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Matterport’s models will soon be able to display a name for the model, a description of the listing and a link to the property’s location in the upper left-hand corner of the model.


Matterport promotional video explaining new features

Matterport has also taken steps to make it easier to promote its models on social media. Facebook and Twitter share tabs will appear in the upper right-hand corner of every model. And users who see Matterport models in their Facebook news feed will be able to navigate them from inside the social media site.

Some real estate agents are on the fence about whether Matterport models benefit them overall. They can cut down on the number of pointless showings, but they might also potentially diminish an agent’s ability to “sell” buyers on a home in person.

The 3-D provider has taken a step towards countering that effect by helping real estate agents employ salesmanship inside the models.

Agents can now add images to the bottom of the screen that viewers can click to jump to highlights of the home, and the highlights can be strung together into guided tours.

“Mattertags,” meanwhile, will let agents label any object in a model with a photo and description. “It’s basically storytelling around the property,” Matterport CEO Bill Brown said of the new feature.

Email Teke Wiggin.