By Steve Huettel, Times Staff Writer
Friday, October 15, 2010
As Charles Armstrong, right, takes a 360-degree iPad tour of upstairs rooms at Villa Terranova on Snell Isle, listing agent Eileen Bedinghaus shows fellow RE/MAX Metro Realtor Scott Samuels the app on an iPhone from the home’s great room.
From the waterfront patio of a 12,500-square-foot Snell Isle mansion, real estate agent Eileen Bedinghaus gives visitors a tour — on the screen of her iPhone.
Point down, and you see the floor of a room inside. Move the phone left, right or up, and the panoramic image slides in that direction. Anything you want to see in the house is accessible on the screen, whenever you want to see it and for however long you care to look.
But it's not just houses. You can see 360-degree views of new vehicle interiors and hotel rooms around the world. And you can watch them from anywhere.
It's done through a new app called Tour Wrist, developed by Spark Labs in Tampa's Ybor City.
Since it debuted on Apple's App Store last month, more than 30,000 iPhone and iPad users have downloaded the free app, Spark Labs chief executive Charles Armstrong said.
Armstrong, 29, talked Thursday with the Times about his business model, how the app might help future crime scene investigators and the Next Big Thing in mobile technology:
How do you build the library of images for the virtual tours?
The best way is when we do it with a digital (camera) on a tripod and mount. You have a package of pictures, and the program stitches them together into one panoramic image. The second way will be for consumers to upload their photos for a $9.99 one-time cost.
You're also accepting uploaded photos of hotel tours, cars and travel destinations?
Right. Just today, we've gone from 3,000 images to 10,000 — maybe as many as 33,000. We'll have 165,000 images in the library by the end of the year. We've also developed a curriculum for the University of Florida's forensic science program.
There are three environments: an active meth lab, a terrorist cell and a drug house. It will give students the ability to find things that could hold evidence, zoom in and take photos, then put all the elements into a report for an instructor to review.
How do you make money?
We're not charging (users) up front or selling advertising. We charge for photo commissions (to take pictures of properties). We let companies put their private label on the app for a fee, and we'll make commissions on hotel bookings made through Tour Wrist.
What's the next big thing in apps?
"Socation." It's a word I made up for the interaction of social media platforms and location-based services, such as foursquare, Tour Wrist and Yelp. People want to participate more in digital dialogue, but they want to do it in reference to specific environments. With foursquare, every time you check in at a location (a shop, restaurant or attraction), you earn badges.
Why would a panoramic view of some place on Tour Wrist be better than watching a YouTube video?
Think about special events like New Year's Eve in Times Square. Unlike a video, (with Tour Wrist) you can watch what you want to look at, not what's been scripted for you.
So, what's the big thing you expect five years from now?
The line between the Web and mobile will disappear as (hand-held) devices get smaller and more powerful. The next big thing will be augmented reality.
Say you're going down a supermarket aisle and your devise will say, "Hey, Joe, the kind of dog food you buy is on the aisle over there."
It will be big for gaming. It could plop you in the middle of town and have the ability to overlay Godzilla going between buildings you're looking at.