Over the last year, video is slowly but surely stealing the cutting edge virtual tours held on the online listings market. Now more than ever, video is prepped and ready to roll out - more internet users are utilizing higher bandwidth connections like cable and DSL making streaming video quicker to load and watch, video production costs are dropping drastically with an explosion of production companies entering the scene, and well... video is what the next gen wants and expects. Bernice Ross wrote an excellent piece on Inman news entitled "Tap into Gen X, Gen Y goldmine" explaining this generation switch.

But really, what is the appeal?

To examine this is to recognize the differences between a virtual tour and video. A virtual tour is a series of still photos set in a flash presentation or similar, oftentimes to music. Sure, some of the photos appear to "move", but really that is just fancy software panning across a still photo or zooming in or out - hardly animation.

Virtual tours, although a FAR better presentation technique than a series of photos on a website, still make it difficult to completely capture the essence of a space in a property. Even stitched photos, a great way to see 360 degree views within a home, aren't perfect.

Video, on the other hand, is undeniable. Yes, video can be edited and modified just like photos, but it's probably the closest thing one can get to physically experiencing a property first hand online. However, as much as video production costs have dropped, virtual tours still hold the market based on simple economics and companies like RealBiz360 produce excellent quality virtual tours - a great bang for your buck.

So I ask - has video arrived or are virtual tours still the tried and true? Which do you use?