Turning Any Site into A Social Network with Spot.IM

Want to add a chat to your website? Spot.IM make it possible to turn any site into a social network with a few lines of code. By adding Spot.IM you can engage your community more.

For example in my real estate website, I encourage my visitors to leave a comment on their must haves for their dream home.

You can share what is the style of your dream house or what specific in your dream house would look like.

Business Card Reader App

Tired of entering business card in your contact list. Why not use a business card reader app?

CamCard is a free business card reader app. It transcribes the card instantly without waiting. It can also auto-crop the card image like CamScanner and save to your digital card holder.

Bizzcard is a free iphone app but is not for managing business cards but rather for giving people your electronic card through e-mail. They can then add your card to their contacts. You can create an electronic card or if you have an existing card, just capture the image to send electronically.

Community Information Apps

Buyers need to find out some important information about their preferred community when searching for a house. It would be nice if you had an app that can give you instant answers to their questions.

Sitegeist is a free app that lets you know about a community's Age Distribution, Political Contributions, Average Rent, Popular Local Spots, Recommended Restaurants, Record Temperatures, Housing Units Over Time and How people commute.

AroundMe is a free app that gives you information about the points of interest in a community such as banks, gas stations, restaurants, etc.

Panoramic Photo Apps

Pictures sell! Buyers tend to request showings from their real estate agents if there are pictures, especially in a buyers market. People are so busy right now some don't want to waste their time going to a showing without looking at pictures first. If you need a panoramic photo app to take your pictures (whether you actually use it to advertise or just use it before your professional photographers busy schedule can accommodate you, or just to take pictures to describe your listing better, there are several panoramic photo apps that you can use).

Photosynth is a free panoramic shooting app. Simply shoot your camera and start panning slowly. You can pan left to right or up and down to capture any room. The app lets you crop and save your panoramic creation to your camera roll You can also share any panoramic picture you've taken in your Facebook Timeline.

With GoPano you can create 360 videos and panoramic images with lens attachment like GoPano micro which allows you to capture video and audio in 360 degrees or the GoPano plus. You can upload and share your panoramic pictures through the GoPano website.

pixeet is a mobile app that helps you immediately create 180 or 360 degree panoramic views right after the shooting by attaching a special lens to any mobile device. With the kit or accessories that you can buy at their site you can create and manage virtual tours for your listings or real estate properties with your panoramas in the pixeet online studio. You can add music and hotspots to move from one room to another.  It is free but you have to upgrade to a pro account for branding; such as adding your company logo, for analytics, and to create PDF flyers out of your panoramic pictures. You can share them in websites, MLS and social networks.

Digital Invitation Tool

Planning a birthday party? You can mail the invitations or use digital invitations. I planned a party for my daughter's birthday party in White Post Farms, and I used Evite. So far so good. Only one Mom told me she didn't get the invitation. Luckily another Mom told her her kids are invited, (you can choose to show who are the other guests to those invited) so she was able to tell me she didn't get it. I just manually put her kids in to remember who are coming or not because I had to fax the names of each participating child to White Post Farms three days before the party.

I've used Punchbowl before but only to send digital cards. I probably used it for the next get-together just to give it a try.

Another online invitation that I want to try is whoozin because guest can easily RSVP from a computer or mobile device-without being required to create a Whoozin account. I probably use it for holiday get together. Being able to upload the menu will be cool since we always order guest food anyway.

Celebration is another online invitation tool. Although you can only invite up to 75 people for free.