Matterport’s sale to CoStar will ignite interest in the value of digital twins and tour marketing, and the options for creating them are many.
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Common sense suggests that because of the temperature of the portal drama, CoStar’s plans will be to integrate Matterport’s digital twin content into the Homes.com value proposition as quickly as it can.
Matterport set the standard for how to view properties online, but remains burdened by its hardware. The cameras are expensive, heavy and surpass the needs of most listing media creators. Expect CoStar to limit sales of Matterport’s Pro-level cameras to institutional customers and special uses. The mobile experience is likely where the company will inject its engineering resources.
What this deal should do for the space is give it some much needed adrenaline. Don’t forget about the third-party virtual staging providers, interior designers, computer vision systems and other peripheral services that can benefit from the Matterport ecosystem. This is all good stuff, especially for the competition, who would be wise to start updating their SEO spends. Let’s look at who else is out there.
iGuide
This company has been running parallel to Matterport for years and boasts a highly engaging solution for translating the physical into the digital. Its latest offering captures an average-sized home in 20 minutes. The lightweight marketing solution still leverages the company’s high-end Planix camera system and built-in artificial intelligence algorithms but allows photographers and creators to generate content in around 20 minutes for less than $8.
The Planix form factor makes it very manageable, and it too has a mobile phone option. IGuide’s interactive floorpans embed in the tour viewer for an always-on, whole-home perspective.
Inside Maps
Rich with in-app features, like its one-shot renovation renderings with automated pricing breakdowns, this app goes beyond making a property only look good. It uses real estate visuals to help drive the business aspects of selling property. It’s been around for quite a while and has long served the mortgage, appraisal and inspection verticals of the transaction.
Ricoh Tours
The camera manufacturer moved into the space some years ago after its Theta line of pocket-sized picture takers became the antithesis of what Matterport was selling.
It’s an end-to-end solution that just about anyone would feel comfortable using, with a low price point and high usability factor. The quality is impressive, offering even the most budget-conscious listing agent an impressive bit of marketing kit. The company states it’s completed more than 13,000,000 virtual tours.
BoxBrownie
The Aussie image marketing company can do just about anything an agent needs to have done to a property image, 3D tours included. The company set the standard for fast and affordable twilight edits, object removal, virtual decluttering and even exterior enhancements.
Its tour service invisibly stitches 360 individual images captured with something like the Theta, but any 360-degree-capable camera can be used, and the tours typically come back complete within 24 hours.
EyeSpy360
The app can allow up to eight people to “tour” a home at the same time, making it an ideal way to capitalize on collaborative search and ensure that influential stakeholders, like parents, are part of the process.
Agents will like its call-to-action form that presents itself on the screen at scheduled moments during a tour, as well as the ability to create a tour from a number of different devices, meaning there’s no proprietary equipment to buy. Naturally, a tour would look best if captured by a Ricoh Theta or Matterport Pro3.
Asteroom
This is all about ease of use, as the company sells its own kit of options to attach to a mobile phone, a wide-angle lens and a rotating mount. You can hire a professional, too, using the company’s list of approved providers. The company openly markets its tours to be portal-friendly, so they’re Zillow and Realtor.com-ready. Like others on this list, Asteroom offers clickable action points in tours, floor plans and in-window navigation panels for quick teleportation to a new perspective.
Cloudpano
This device-agnostic tour app has become a highly popular option and is used across industries, filtering into automotive and academia. Its viewer windows come with calls-to-action to contact the listing agent, view floor plans and if desired, tours can be experienced under a VR headset. The backend makes it easy to drop and edit hotspots, integrate branding, label rooms and customize viewer controls.