|
|
||||||||
|
F O R I M M E D I A T E R E L E A S E 
VisualTour.com™
Contact: J. L. Winn, TRF Systems, Inc. Which
Virtual Tour is Right for You?
July 24, 2001 Virtual tours not only provide 360-degree visual images so that buyers can see the style and surroundings of a home. They also present you as a technologically aware practitioner, able to assist buyers in every way. Many Internet-related companies are trying to gain your online real estate business, but which one fits your needs? Although you have a variety of alternatives if you're content to post static pictures of your listings, your options for virtual tours are more limited. Major providers include iPIX's and a newcomer called VisualTours. iPIX also offers a real-estate specific version of its tours, 360-degree home tour, exclusively to REALTORS in the United States through Homestore.com and REALTOR.COM. Many other smaller companies, such as Virtual Tours USA, VpixUSA, and Virtual Tours 360 also offer virtual tour options. With a good digital camera and a tripod, and some vendor-supplied "stitching" software to integrate the pictures, you or your Web designer may be able to do some or all of the work needed to put together a moving tour. But if you are considering a major virtual tour vendor, you might want to evaluate some of the pluses and minuses of the two leaders—iPIX and VisualTours. First, the amount of time you or your assistant has to spend scheduling, creating, posting, and updating your virtual tours may influence which provider you find most appealing. iPIX is great for time-pressed practitioners because the company does all the work for you. Basically, you schedule a meeting with a photographer at a property, and the company does the rest. Five business days after the photos are shot, you have a visual tour to post. In addition, iPIX offers a self-service option that lets you create tours yourself. VisualTour allows you or an assistant to take pictures of the property, use software to create the tour, and then post it to the Web. Although this may sound like too much work, the software is easy to use, and the entire process should take only an hour or two if you or your assistant is reasonably computer literate. Doing it yourself also gives you a chance to offer virtual tours even if you don't live in an area with an iPIX photographer. The convenience of having iPIX create the tours for you does have a higher cost than doing it yourself. iPIX tours usually run $99, but if there's not a local photographer working for iPIX, you may have to pay extra. And because a standard tour only includes four images, you'll pay $25 each for extra shots. On the plus side, iPIX holds a patent on the "fish-eye" panoramic lens, which many viewers feel creates more of a sense of actual "being there" than more conventional panorama photos. In addition, the company is currently developing an all-inclusive tour that will allow visitors to scroll from floor to ceiling in each picture—giving a 360-degree effect horizontally and vertically. If you choose iPIX's self-service option, you can select from one of several packages. The "Starter" package ($499.95) gives you the stitching software, which allows you to piece the individual images together; a tripod rotator; a fisheye lens; and twelve image "keys." If you already have the necessary hardware, the "Real Estate Wizard' option gives you just the software and four keys for just $59.95. Each key is a series of coding that allows you to save one final image into the software and distribute it via the Web or e-mail. After you use your first twelve images, you can purchase additional keys for $15 to $25, depending on the software version you use. The software can be used on any computer with 32MB of memory and 60 MB of free hard disk space, but the camera equipment is compatible with only specific Nikon and Olympus models. All iPIX tour prices include the cost of placing your tour on one of the company's affiliated national real estate sites, which can be done directly through iPIX. Or for a one-time fee of $29.95, you can post to all four--REALTOR.COM, Homeseekers.com, Homeadvisor.com, and Homes.com. Because of IPIX's exclusive agreements with these sites, VisualTour users will need to set up an account with each site they plan to use regularly and work directly with each site to post completed tours. There is no charge for this, but it is time consuming. The price for each VisualTour is quite a bit less than an iPIX tour, but the start-up cost is much greater. Each VisualTour is only $25, but you must make an initial purchase of at least 10 tours (equaling $250), plus the stitching software ($249) to create the tours. After the initial purchase, you can buy tours one at a time or get discounts with purchases of 10, 50, or 100. In addition, you need a digital camera and computer with 16 megabytes of memory and 30 megabytes of disk space, as well as sound capabilities if you want to record voice streaming. VisualTours enables you to combine up to 50 still images, panoramic, wide-angle images, and 360-degree images in your tour. In addition, VisualTour presentations include captions, streaming-voice description of the photos, your contact information, and your photo. Prospective buyers can also page you directly from the tour. Another nice feature is that the Visual Tour appears as a smaller pop-up window on your Web site so users still see your identity. The Visual Tour package may make more sense if you plan to have a tour for each of your home listings, like to create multimedia listing packages, or have a large number of listings on the Web. But if you're just testing out the benefit of virtual tours or find them appropriate for only a few of your listings, the larger up-front investment for Visual Tours may not be warranted. Making changes to existing tours is easy with both providers. Because you create Visual Tours yourself, you have complete access to change text, delete or add pictures, and rearrange images without charge. Of course, you have to do the work yourself. With the exception of adding or changing photos, which requires additional photographer charges, iPIX will make changes within five business days, including reshooting poor quality photographs at no charge to you. If you want to grab your share of the Internet real estate business, you must advertise yourself and your listings online. Virtual tours are the newest and best way to do so. Whatever option fits your needs best, isn't it time to embrace virtual realty? Heather
Riley is a senior English major at Mesa State College in Grand Junction,
Colo. She has worked as a personal assistant for four years in Grand Junction
and Pagosa Springs.
About TRF Systems VisualTour.com is developed by TRF Systems, Inc. of Coral Springs, Florida. Incorporated in 1991, TRF Systems is the leading provider of innovative digital photo management software and services in a number of vertical markets. TRF is an Alliance Partner of MGI Software Corp. (www.MGIsoft.com), a worldwide leader of Internet visual media tools. The VisualTour.com system is recommended by the Council of Residential Specialists, the Allen F. Hainge CyberStarsä, and the Real Estate CyberSpace Society. For more information, please contact J. L. Winn at TRF Systems at 954.345.9701 or by email at JLWinn@VisualTour.com. VisualTour.com is a trademark of TRF Systems. MGI is a registered trademark of MGI Software Corp. All other company and/or product names are trademarks of their respective manufacturers. |
|||||||||
