Thomas Wright of Spotlight Tours is dedicated to an online photography strategy

BrokerIPTV: Today we are talking with Thomas Wright, owner of Spotlight Tours and Thomas, welcome.

Thomas Wright: Thank you Dan.

BrokerIPTV: Glad you are here. You know when I was not in the business, I used to think being on the outside looking in, how tough can it be to do photography for a house? You know, it doesn't move or anything, but really, there is a knack and a specialty to it.

Thomas Wright: Well, the stories of our lives unfold in homes and people get attached to their homes because they are the most special places and they are usually our biggest investment. So, photography is really important in real estate #1 because brokers have to justify the fee and the service they are providing and one of the best ways to do that is to provide romantic, high quality photography that's going to show the story of their life, the place where their life has taken place over the last several years and photography is critical with the Internet and Web 2.0 and everything that's going on.

BrokerIPTV: All right. Now, you obviously provide photography for a lot of different companies and it is really a two part deal here because you take the pictures, but once you hand them off to the company, they have to display them well. Who is displaying it the best these days?

Thomas Wright: Well, the people that display the best are dedicated to an online strategy. They are into the Web 2.0 concept, they are moving away from... they are moving their marketing budgets from offline to online and there are some great examples with all brands and in various markets where we are, so, to point one out probably wouldn't be fair, but we are helping our customers display their properties better and one of the ways we are doing that is we have a patent filed and pending that allows people to text to a number and have the photos come to their iPhone, their Blackberry or their cellphone and that's going to really help brokers deliver the photography to the consumer in a much more efficient manner. So, now all of a sudden the Internet now is in their home and driving the neighborhood, it is a merger of the two. They are driving the neighborhood, but they are also looking at the photography online.

BrokerIPTV: What about video? I mean there is a lot of back and forth that some brokers would say video doesn't do anything, it is not good. I happen to be in the other camp. I like video. I like narrated video with my listings and so forth. What's your thought and are you getting into it?

Thomas Wright: Video, I am with you. You are way ahead of your time. Video is a fabulous medium. There are two problems with video in today's market; #1 is is it really expensive and a lot of agents and brokers and brokerage firms don't want to pay for that just because it is very cost prohibitive and #2, about video is that it's taking a large... it takes a large amount of time and you are videoing something that's not moving in a moving fashion and with our motion tour, which is really unique, and some of the providers in the country have copied our motion tours since we rolled it out, it allows us to use still photography, but have some motion in it. So, it is not the one shot fish bowl lens that really distorts the angles and distorts the furniture and looks like you are looking through a pair of somebody else's glasses and the human brain just doesn't work like that. When you have a distorted, poor quality photography image, your mind just doesn't want to look at it.

BrokerIPTV: What's next on the horizon? What are we looking forward in the next six months to a year?

Thomas Wright: Well, we are going to keep developing video and we are going to find a cost effective way to deliver video to brokers because it is important and it will happen eventually and we are going to be on the cutting edge of that. In the meantime, we are going to continue to provide the highest quality photography available at the most affordable price. We are going to continue to help our brokers sell homes and we are going to launch our text message service that will allow people from the site to text a simple number and get the photography on the home straight to their iPhone, Blackberry or whatever mobile device they use.

BrokerIPTV: Thanks so much.

Thomas Wright: Thank you Dan.

BrokerIPTV: Appreciate having you.

Thomas Wright: Yeah, thank you.

Posted on October 31, 2008 10:23:08 by Blog Author