BACKGROUND

Embodiments of the invention described in this specification relate generally to virtual tour creation systems, and more particularly, to a process for converting an unbranded virtual tour of a real estate listing into a branded virtual tour of the real estate listing enhanced with branding, contact, and marketing information and a system that converts an unbranded virtual tour of a real estate listing into a branded virtual tour of the real estate listing enhanced with branding of a marketing agent, contact information of the marketing agent, marketing information, and a lead capture form to contact the marketing agent.

Real estate agents typically use a multiple listing service (“MLS”) to input listings of properties for sale or lease. They often hire photographers or virtual tour companies to visit the property and take photos, create digital floor plans, and/or create videos. This content is used to build the property listing in the MLS. A virtual tour, or property specific website, may be created by the agent, the virtual tour company, the agent's website vendor, or through an automated process. Regardless of how it is created, any virtual tour or single property website or page link created is also added as additional media for the listing beyond the traditional text and photographs of the property. The MLS typically requires an unbranded version of the virtual tour to be input into the MLS. This unbranded version has no listing agent branding or contact information because of the desire to protect the buy-side agent who might share the real estate listing with their client, the potential buyer. The theory behind this requirement is this unbranded tour makes it harder for a buyer to reach out to the listing agent directly.

The MLS listing is typically the original source of the property data used for distributing the listing information to other websites, including public listing websites (such as Zillow, Trulia, Realtor.com, Homes.com, etc.) and brokerage or agent websites (such as remax.com, Redfin.com, coldwellbanker.com, individual agent websites, etc.). The same listing information is passed from the MLS to all of these sites, including the unbranded virtual tour link through data feeds.

Most consumers visit the larger public listing sites. In fact, about 96% of the top ten sites are concentrated into five sites, namely, Zillow, Realtor.com, Trulia, Redfin, and Homes.com. The virtual tour link on these sites is the unbranded version since the original data source is the MLS. This prevents agent information from being displayed on the virtual tour and, therefore, the agent's exposure to consumers is minimized because the agent's brand and contact information is not visible. Similarly, these agents have fewer opportunities for organic leads, and this forces them to have to pay for leads on the larger public listing websites.

The problems with other virtual tour systems is there is no intelligence employed to determine what website a user came from when they clicked the virtual tour URL or property website page. In addition, many virtual tours do not employ secure certificates or use the HTTPS protocol. Therefore, they do not or cannot display the branded virtual tour and the agent exposure is minimized, while potential lead capture opportunities are lost and the agent ends up having to pay money for leads.

Therefore, what is needed is a way to enable unbranded virtual tours to by viewed as branded virtual tours, complete with agent branding and contact information and with the potential to engage no cost opportunities for lead capturing.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION

A novel process for converting an unbranded virtual tour of a real estate listing into a branded virtual tour of the real estate listing enhanced with branding, contact, and marketing information and a novel system that converts an unbranded virtual tour of a real estate listing into a branded virtual tour of the real estate listing enhanced with branding of a marketing agent, contact information of the marketing agent, marketing information, and a lead capture form to contact the marketing agent are disclosed. In some embodiments, the system and process for converting an unbranded virtual tour of a real estate listing into a branded virtual tour of the real estate listing enhanced with branding, contact, and marketing information enables unbranded to branded conversion automatically when a user clicks its proprietary virtual tour link. In some embodiments, automatic unbranded to branded conversion happens by the system and process for converting an unbranded virtual tour of a real estate listing into a branded virtual tour of the real estate listing enhanced with branding, contact, and marketing information when (i) the destination website (the virtual tour website) uses the HTTPS protocol to display its content, (ii) the server of the virtual tour website employs intelligence to recognize the referring website name as passed via the HTTP referrer header field when both websites use the HTTPS protocol, and (iii) the server of the virtual tour website uses an algorithm to determine if a branded virtual tour link is allowed to be seen by the end user, based on the referring website name and associated URL or website address.

In some embodiments, the process for converting an unbranded virtual tour of a real estate listing into a branded virtual tour of the real estate listing enhanced with branding, contact, and marketing information includes a plurality of steps comprising (i) receiving profile data input from a computing device of a real estate agent for a virtual tour associated with a property for sale, (ii) configuring a default website list that includes named website list entries associated with popular real estate websites which support secure hypertext transfer protocol (HTTPS) for links to property websites and the virtual tour associated with the property for sale, (iii) receiving website profile data input including one or more other websites not in the default website list from the computing device of the real estate agent, (iv) receiving an unbranded virtual tour link to a multiple listing service (MLS) site for distribution to other websites for viewing by anyone, (v) distributing the unbranded virtual tour link to multiple real estate listing websites that display real estate listings as part of an MLS data feed and which include popular real estate websites in the default website list, (vi) capturing referring website identity information from an HTTPS request that is triggered based on a user selection of the unbranded virtual tour link at a particular website, (vii) reading the default website list and the website profile data to determine whether the referring website identity information corresponds to any website configured to convert the unbranded virtual tour into a branded virtual tour, (viii) converting the unbranded virtual tour into the branded virtual tour when the referring website identity corresponds to a website configured to convert the unbranded virtual tour into the branded virtual tour, (ix) displaying the branded virtual tour with agent branding and contract information, and (x) optionally displaying a lead capture input form or a lead capture button, which when selected, triggers visual display of the lead capture input form.

The preceding Summary is intended to serve as a brief introduction to some embodiments of the invention. It is not meant to be an introduction or overview of all inventive subject matter disclosed in this specification. The Detailed Description that follows and the Drawings that are referred to in the Detailed Description will further describe the embodiments described in the Summary as well as other embodiments. Accordingly, to understand all the embodiments described by this document, a full review of the Summary, Detailed Description, and Drawings is needed. Moreover, the claimed subject matters are not to be limited by the illustrative details in the Summary, Detailed Description, and Drawings, but rather are to be defined by the appended claims, because the claimed subject matter can be embodied in other specific forms without departing from the spirit of the subject matter.

