Posts Tagged ‘music app’

Tour Wrist 360-Degree Panoramic Virtual Tour Hosting Company Surpasses 20,000 Virtual Tour Scenes; Launches API & 8 White Label Apps

July 18, 2011 • Atlanta, GA USA – Tour Wrist, a mobile and web-based 360-degree virtual tour hosting company, announced today it has surpassed hosting 20,000 virtual tour scenes; released eight white label apps; surpassed 250,000 downloads of its free Tour Wrist app; and that its Tour Wrist Publishing API (“Application Programming Interface”) is now available, free to developers.

Tour Wrist Adds More Than 20,000 360-degree Virtual Tour Scenes

“Tour Wrist is the YouTube of virtual tours and quickly becoming the definitive destination for searching for and viewing virtual tours,” said Tour Wrist CEO and Founder Charles Armstrong.

“Of the more than 20,000 virtual tour scenes we have added in just months of our launch, nearly 15,000 are hotels. Plus, with our recently announced RE/MAX® Approved Supplier status for virtual tours, we anticipate huge growth in real estate for sale virtual tour scenes on Tour Wrist.”

Companies seeking a professional virtual tour photographer can email their contact information to: orders@TourWrist.com.

Tour Wrist White Label Apps

Since its 1/1/11 commercial launch, Tour Wrist has developed and released these eight white label apps – nearly all available in the Apple iTunes App Store:

1. Eckerd College provides immersive virtual tour of its Florida Gulf Coast college including: the gulf coach beach, classrooms, cafeteria, library, auditoriums and student housing. The app seamlessy integrates an Eckerd College created and maintained mobile optimized webpage with dynamic content such as Eckerd College news and sport scores.
2. CrimeSeen 360 allows students of the University of Florida’s Forensic Science program to enter mock crime scenes, capturing photographic evidence in an immersive and engaging new way; then submitting forensic reports to their instructors. (This is a private app with the required password available only from the instructors.)
3. ProTours360 offers virtual tours of businesses, including a strong emphasis on service industries such as dental and medical practices.
4. Drink Wine 360 delivers virtual tours of wineries in exciting locations such as Arizona and Setubal, Portugal.
5. Home Tours Florida allows users to view immersive virtual tours of some of Florida’s most beautiful properties for sale.
6. 360iTours presents a diverse collection of 360-degree experiences spanning many industries.
7. City of Redlands delivers a single mobile destination for the many tourist destinations that make up Redlands, CA. This app is being distributed outside of the Apple iTunes App Store, using the city’s own distribution technology.
8. Redlands PD is a community safety app for use by the Redlands’ Police Department. This app is also being distributed via the city’s own distribution infrastructure.

Additional white label apps are in development. Companies interested in learning about Tour Wrist white app solutions, can email their contact info to: orders@TourWrist.com.

Tour Wrist Publishing API Available Free To Developers

“Millions of iPhone and iPod Touch users will soon be able to shoot and share 360-degree virtual tour images – free, as a result of Tour Wrist making available the use of its powerful Tour Wrist publishing API free to developers,” says Armstrong. “Tour Wrist has embraced developers and manufacturers that specialize in 360-degree imaging.”

Tour Wrist on an iPad

“Developers and manufacturers can now focus on their core competencies; including image capture; stitching; and processing from computers; smartphones; and other devices, says Armstrong. “Tour Wrist picks up where they leave off, providing an easy and seamless consumer experience that extends to uploading; hosting; searching; viewing; and sharing the resulting images through our best–in–class virtual tour platform.”

“While Tour Wrist’s Panoguide photographer website has over 6,000 registered pros and semi-pros,” releasing the Tour Wrist Publishing API truly democratizes panoramic photography – enabling virtually anyone with a smartphone to create and share 360-degree images for free,” says Armstrong.

“Businesses – such as travel and tourism destinations (hotels, bed and breakfasts), real estate professionals and restaurants – will embrace digital panoramic image solutions that enable them to shoot, share and promote their business at little or no cost,” said Armstrong. “Until recently, shooting and sharing panoramic images normally required thousands of dollars in camera gear and software, plus hosting – not to mention an expertise in using it all.”

Plus, with its free–to–paid “freemium” pricing model, Tour Wrist will offer enhanced tour hosting with services that include:

1. Interactive hotspots linking to web pages, other scenes, photos and more
2. Standard links to companies’ branding/marketing documents
3. Inclusion in industry–specific sales categories (e.g. Real Estate for Sale)
4. Turn–key microsites
5. Custom advertising spaces
6. Advanced traffic reporting

“For businesses that require professional virtual tour shoots, Tour Wrist offers a world–wide, professional ‘pano’ photographer community,” says industry veteran and Chief Operating Officer, Jeff Handley.

Video - Tour Wrist: Virtual Tours of Hotels

“We anticipate great uses of the Tour Wrist Publishing API will include mashups that we haven’t even imagined; just as developers have done for other social platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Flickr,” says Armstrong. “Tour Wrist has created the very best virtual tour authoring experience by enabling pano developers and manufacturers to do what they do best while leveraging our robust hosting, searching and sharing infrastructure.”

“By enabling consumers to have a seamless shoot and share experience from their choice of multiple apps, programs, and cameras, Tour Wrist will continue to be the new ‘go to’ critical mass repository for geo-searching, viewing and sharing virtual tours — just as YouTube is for video,” said Chief Strategy Officer Tony Miller. “Plus, when appropriate, tours will be syndicated to our other private label apps, supporting individual businesses such as real estate brokers.”

Developers and manufacturers who would like to use the Tour Wrist Publishing API, can email their contact info to: API@TourWrist.com.

About Tour Wrist

Spark Mobile, LLC has been doing business as Tour Wrist since September 2010. The Tour Wrist service was launched commercially on January 1, 2011. The free Tour Wrist viewing app (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch) is available from the Apple iTunes App Store and has been downloaded over 250,000 times as of July 5, 2011.

Tour Wrist App

The highly acclaimed and award winning Tour Wrist app allows user to control what they see. On iDevices, it appears as a window to each space. So, for example, pointing upward may reveal the ceiling within a room and looking down, the floor. The Tour Wrist user experience on an Android device will be optimized by August 1, 2011.

Tour Wrist was among the Apple Picks for Great Free Apps, Hot Apps, and New and Noteworthy for much of April 2011 in the iTunes App Store. Also in April, Tour Wrist was among the Top 10 Free Entertainment iPad Apps in the App Store.  And in July, Tour Wrist was among the Top 10 What’s Hot in Travel Apps in the App Store and Top 30 iPad Travel Apps.

The Tour Wrist app is rated 4.5 out of 5 stars among 1,100+ reviewers of the app in the Apple iTunes App Store, as of July 5, 2011.

Tour Wrist owns and operates the world’s largest panoramic photography forum, Panoguide, with 6,000 professional virtual tour photographers globally.

Tour Wrist is a member of the International VR Photography Association (IVRPA).

The Tour Wrist company (private) is headquartered in Tampa, FL with satellite offices around the country. Tour Wrist® and AmaTour® are registered trademarks of Spark Mobile, LLC. For more information about Tour Wrist, please visit:

• iTunes App Store: www.itunes.com/app/TourWrist
• Web: www.TourWrist.com
• YouTube: www.YouTube.com/TourWrist
• Twitter: www.Twitter.com/TourWrist

Short URL for this Article

• http://j.mp/GREAT-TourWrist-360

Additional Resources

• All That’s GREAT! Tour Wrist Stories

First Ever Booth Babes Bingo™ Held at 2010 CES Trade Show in Las Vegas – ‘We Have A Bingo!’

ATLANTA, GA USA – February 12, 2010 – “Please don’t bring home any photos of Booth Babes; and eat a green vegetable,*” said my wife, before my trip to the world’s largest consumer technology trade show.

Thank you to my wife for inspiring (another) GREAT! idea: the first ever Booth Babes Bingo™ game at the 2010 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas (Exhibits: January 6-10, 2010).

Cortney, Yohana and Ashley with Creative Labs

How can you go to a trade show and not be photographed with a politically incorrect, draw-‘em-to-the-booth-for-the-wrong-reason Sexy-Sells-Says-CNET Booth Babes?

Over the years – Playmates, Penthouse Pets, Show Girls, Dancers, Models – all photographed with uber-tech-nerd-Dan (me!). Do you notice fewer booth babes at trade shows each year (perhaps because it is a politically incorrect marketing tactic left over from a different era)?

I suppose I should be walking the endless isles of 2,500+ CES exhibitors in search of the next big idea (or big idea inspiration) for our GREAT! television, entertainment and technology Clients – and I do – it’s just that I also enjoy playing our GREAT! newly conceived, Booth Babes Bingo™ game – the search for the top 24 Booth Babes. It was a challenge for me to find Booth Babes. It took me three days of ‘research’ to fill my Booth Babes Bingo game card. Perhaps the recession is causing companies to cut back (gasp!) on Booth Babes! A nip here; a tuck there …

Victoria with Earthquake

Booth Babe Bingo – The Official Rules

Here are our newly minted official rules for the Booth Babes Bingo game that you can use at virtually any trade show:

•  politely request a photo with the Booth Babe; it’s okay to be photographed with more than one Booth Babe, but the photo counts as one square on your card.

•  be respective of the Booth Babes: please and thank you

•  If you are attending CES, you can’t sneak over to the concurrent Adult Entertainment Expo 2010 at the Sands Expo Center.

•  You must appear in each photo.

•  Fill your Booth Babes Bingo card with 24 photos: 5 down and 5 across. You get the middle square – free. [What a GREAT! idea for an iPhone app: including crowd-sourcing; geo-tagging of all the booth babes.]

•  First person to post their Booth Babes Bingo card photos online – wins.

[Variations of game play: crowdsource with (or without) teams using an Eye-Fi card (with geotagging) in your camera or upload photos directly from your SmartPhone; require a row (down, across or diagonal) of bikini or blonds Booth Babes; or minimum of five Booth Babes per photo; must include booth signage; or Booth Babes holding a sign that says "I Love Booth Booth Babes Bingo™. Endless possibilities.]

In the spirit of social media, you get to vote for your Top 10 2010 CES Booth Babes based on my 24 Booth Babes Bingo photos (I did the initial research for you!)

Top 10 Take-Aways From the 2010 International Consumer Electronics Show

And, what about the next big idea or inspiration? After all, we are GREAT! IDEAologists! Here are my Top 10 Take-aways from the CES Exhibit floor and Conference that inspires me to think big.

1. Full HD 3DTV – I LOVED seeing all the 3D demonstrations: particularly Panasonic’s Viera Full HD 3DTV (1080p for each eye). Unfortunately, until the industry can agree on standards – think Blu-Ray versus HD DVD  – it will be many years before we see 3D going mainstream in the house. The initial market will be: gamers, gaming and sports bars; and movie theaters.
   

   Ashley and Melissa with XpanD

2. Walking The Edge – as much as I enjoy visiting the mega booths (Panasonic, Sony Electronics, Microsoft Corporation, NBC Universal), the real excitement are the exhibitors in the low-rent back corners. That’s where you find the real innovation. In the less traveled isles, I enjoyed seeing: a) Mini DV: MD88 in the AEE Technology Co., Ltd. Booth: “The Smallest Digital Video Camera In The World With High Reoslution Image” at half the size of my pinky finger. [It’s smaller than the Muvi Micro DV Camcorder sold by Brookstone. The MD88 appears to be smaller than the Muvi which claims to be the World’s smallest camcorder on the Brookstone website. And, b) Xambox in the Xamance Booth: While OCR- document management is not the sexiest or among the newest technologies, thumbs up to Xamance demonstrating a total turn-key, document storage and retrieval system – that works! [Probably a great solution for law, insurance or other profession that receives many original documents.] I thought I would spend 12 seconds in the booth: literally.  I spent at least 15 minutes. [“The Xambox arranges, files, sorts and locates all of your documents whether you have sorted them or not!”]
3. Toon Me In the Sony booth – I LOVED being transformed into a dancing cartoon character in less than a minute. Simply amazing. (Yes! That was me putting my nearly two years of Argentine tango dance lessons to good use as a cartoon character.) [The experience looked and seemed like the new airport full body scanners. Perhaps in exchange for a full body scan, the TSA could post your video to YouTube showing you dancing through security transformed as a toon. An entertainment meets security experience sponsored by …
4. Mobile Apps Showdown CES 2010 – My favorite of the 10 finalists is Geodelic (and not because the presentation was insanely great): it browses your surroundings. A “shout out” to Intelius’ DateCheck (mobile) Booth Babes for handing me a blue condom while telling me, “you’ll look great in this. It matches your eyes.” DateCheck’s moto is “look up before you hook up." The mobile app provides personal background checks sent straight to your SmartPhone. Here are the 10 finalists: Shazam, Gwabbit, DateCheck, Truphone, BeeJiveIM, TeleNav GPS Navigator, SPB Mobile Shell, Aha, Clixtr and Geodelic.
5. Last Gadget Standing CES 2010 – My vote – and voice – goes to the new Neato Robotics Neato XV-11 all-floor robot vacuum cleaner. I had the winning Neato scream – loudest and longest -- during the four minute presentation to win the first Neato XV-11 robotic vacuum cleaner that rolls off the production line in March 2010. Check out my video of the Neato presentation (including my scream). The video is an homage to the Blair Witch Project.   The Top 10 Last Gadgets Standing “most likely to change the face of technology” are: SHOWWX Laser Pico Projector by Microvision, Motorala DROID, Kwikset with Home Connect, Sony Dash personal internet viewer, D-Link Boxee Box, QUE proReader, Neato Robotics Neato XV-11 Cleaner, Haier Ibiza Trainer, Acer Aspire 5738D 3D notebook, Intel Reader and the Nvidia Ultra Android tablet.
6. The Richard Dreyfuss Initiative – Semi-retired, Oscar-winning Actor Richard Dryfuss was a last-minute, unadvertised panelist during the Up Next at CES session: Creative Convergence: Energizing Entertainment. I enjoyed hearing Richard's vision for teaching ethics, civics and creative thinking in the classroom (even though it seemed off-topic for this panel). [My new media colleague of 25+ years, Gary Arlen, co-produced the excellent CES Up Next at CES sessions (along with Arthur Greenwald.]
   

   Showgirl Johanna with Your App Shop

7. Convergence of Video Content and the Web – Former NBC Entertainment Co-Chairman and Electus Founder and CEO Ben Sliverman announced an Electus strategic alliance with Yahoo that provides Electus with a worldwide distribution platform for premium branded video content (and volumes of viewer analytics).  Electus is a newly formed multimedia company  that will integrate social media and the web organically in to video content (rather than an after-the-fact-add-on). Ben also announced that comedic Writer/Director/Actor Jason Bateman will create exclusive content for Electus. Ben is a big thinker with big pockets, big strategic alliances (and more likely) that can implement a big idea.
8. The Twitter Revolution: How The Real-Time Web Is Changing the Consumer Electronics Landscape – since GREAT! handles the Social Media and Fan Engagement for ZOOZ Mobile, Inc. (ZOOZbeat, ZOOZbeat Sprite apps) I was delighted to hear more about Twitter/social media tools such as: BackTweets [enter an URL to see all the tweets that use this URL (including URL www.shorteners)]; Listorious (“Discover the best Twitter Lists”); TweetBeep (“like Google Alerts for Twitter); Seesmic (web version); Ping.fm (easy way to update 50 social networks); uStream.tv (live video mobile app); Trendistic (trends in Twitter); radian6 (web analytics: (“listen, measure and engage …”); PeopleBrowsr (“filter, sort, follow, post, repeat”); Search.Twitter.com, Co-Tweet (tweet platform for business); SocialToo.com (Automate, track and clean and protect); Oneforty.com (ratings and reviews of top Twitter tools for business); Cloud.li (word cloud from Twitter stream). Send an email for a list of all the social media tools discussed at this session. (Please let Steve know I sent you.) For an excellent session, a shout out to Steve Broback of The Parnassus Group/Twitter Conference (@SBroback, @140TC); Matt Scoble (@Scobleizer); Dave Taylor (@DaveTaylor); Jason Preston of The Parnassus Group (@Jasonp107); Eastman Kodak Company Chief Marketing Officer Jeffrey Hayzlett (@JeffreyHayzlett). Click Here for a Stickam video of The Twitter Revolution session.
   

   Deana with NTI

9. Serendipity – Among the 100,000+ people attending CES, I was delighted to stumble upon my colleague of many years: MultiVu (PR Newswire) Divisional Vice President of Business Development Marc Newman (along with his colleague, Jeff Shulman, who shares the same title). For many years, Marc has been my “go to” colleague (behind the curtain) for Video News Releases (VNR); Audio News Releases (ANR); Electronic Press Kits (EPK); and now electronic press releases that include video that Jeff pioneered at MultiVu (Flex Release). Marc is always a great listener, solutions provided, expert, ethical, trustworthy, creative thinker and with a let’s-make-it-happen attitude. Any success I may have had in my career are because of people like Marc providing terrific results for our Clients while making us all look … GREAT!
10. Creativity and Ideation – it’s great to see so many new/different ideas/products/services all in one place: it inspires creativity and ideas. Check out the CES website or CES press coverage. At night, I was inspired by the imagination and creativity of the Via Elvis show by Cirque du Soleil at Aria Resort & Casino and the grand architecture of $8 billion, 67-acre, six-tower CityCenter city-in-a-city and imaginative experience during dinner at SW Steakhouse at the Wynn Las Vegas.

My thanks to the CES Booth Babes! All graciously allowed me to take their photo and to be photographed with them.

Pamela and Lisa with Dice Electronics

As a weekend fashion and glamour photographer, it’s nice to have smart, personable, well-spoken, enthusiastic make-up ready, styled models up and down the exhibit isles to break up the day with a couple of photos (and to break up the text of my blog). Here are my CES Booth Babes photos as well as CES Booth Babes photos from: Gizmodo, IntoMobile, Soft Sailor, I4U NEWS, TechwareLabs and Desctructoid.

Do We Have a Bingo?

In the spirit of social media, you can help decide the Top 10 Booth Babes at the 2010 International Consumer Electronics Show. You may vote for up to 10 Booth Babes of your choice from my Booth Babes Bingo photos. You have until December 31, 2010 to cast your vote. (Please bookmark this page so you can check back for the results! A great way to be inspired to play Booth Babes Bingo at the 2011 CES.)

*does wasabi count? (Okay, after all those Las Vegas buffets, I did have salad and lettuce on a sandwich!) Booth Babes Bingo photos – or with –by Dan Smigrod

Short URL For This Story

• http://j.mp/BoothBabesBingo

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Dan Smigrod is GREAT! Chief Executive Officer & Chief Creative Officer.

Dan Gives Thumbs Up to Panasonic 3DHD

He founded his GREAT! Agency in 1988. His passions include international travel, Argentine Tango dancing, fashion and glamour photography and all things social media. Dan implements the social media and fan engagement strategy and tactics for GREAT! Client, ZOOZ Mobile, Inc. (ZOOZbeat), including ZOOZbeat Tweets, ZOOZbeat Blog, ZOOZbeat Update eNewsletter for the new ZOOZbeat Music reCreation Studio app for iPhone and iPod Touch.

A highlight of his 22+ years of his GREAT! Agency implementing turn-key travel experiences include chartering eight jet helicopters to fly a Client’s VIP guests from Las Vegas – in formation – to the Grand Canyon. Land. And, then have a champaign bunch with a former Miss America. Dan’s favorite travel/food/experience TV show is Anthony Bourdain No Reservations on the Travel Channel. Dan lives in Atlanta with his wife, Ann. Email: Dan Smigrod Twitter: @Smigrod