First off, I would like to say that I am not here to promote my company.

I know many of you want this topic to die, but I do want to enter some thoughts from us before it does. I apologize to those who are tired of this.

I represent the company under fire in this topic. I am Very impressed at the thorough investigation by the users of this forum. I regret not seeing this topic earlier, as I would have loved to discuss this with everyone. (I just found this on Google)

You guys were correct, Skye's husband does work for Fox and they have a lovely home in Indiana. The address and phone number you posted on the form was correct, and is posted on our website.

I have a great deal of respect for you guys and I completely understand the posts on this forum. We have received a great response as a whole from your community, and we will never and have never scammed anyone. We put our real address for everyone to see and as you know Skye's husband is a public figure. We welcome your calls and concerns, and we can provide you with references from some big companies.

We do not take any money from our videographers, we only pay them. We use ADP to pay our videographers and we will provide you with a contact there if you want to verify this. Every videographer who has done work with us has received payment, and we have paid videographers who we sent out who did bad work, we just didn't use them again or fixed the problem.

We did hit some roadblocks in our launch, which required us to push back our release for a few months. We have pushed through that barrier and have recently reworked our entire backend systems.

As far as the price, we understand this may be too low for some people. We do not intend for a videographer who works full time and would have to give up work to shoot for us. We are targetting videographers who have the great equipment, but are doing weekend work or events that may not take up the full week. We have a great zip code tracking system, so you can choose to only do shoots within 10 miles of your location. This means, you can
get to and from a shoot pretty quick, spend 1 hour on location and get home. We require very little editing and we have you FTP the video to us.

The non-compete contract is not as restrictive as some of the posts here said. The first part of the non-compete only deals with clients We send you. We simply want the clients we send you to have their repeat business done through us for similar work. If a client we send you wants a video outside the realm of a $199 video, you are free to do whatever you want with them. Any client you get on your own, even if it is a video like what we do, will remain yours and we Never want to restrict your business. The second part deals with companies like GoLookInside.com, National video production And streaming companies out there. At this point in time, I am not away of a single company out there like ours. So this part of the non-compete currently doesn't come into play. By saying a company like ours, I mean a company that has a set price and contracts videographers
to do shoots Nationwide and the company also does the streaming/marketing/encoding etc. We really try
to be fair here and really just want business we get to stay with us, thats all.

Like I said, I am not here to promote the company. I understand I will probably get "flamed" but Skye and I really do have good intentions. We are currently working with a Fortune 100 company in 3 states and plan to release nationwide with them in the near future. We do have videos on Realtor.com
and we are doing a decent amount of business at this time. We are not at the point we initially intended to be at this time, but we are growing pretty quick now. Contracts and partnerships took longer than we hoped,
but we are pleased with the response from businesses and we believe we are still on our way to becoming a big force in this industry.

Each videographer who signs up is given a profile page that is viewed by potential customers. These pages are controlled by a real-time backend that you can change 24/7. Our demo profile is at
http://www.golookinside.com/videographer/display.php?g=1261&h=1012

I do not want to anger the forum admins more with this post getting any bigger, so you are welcome to email me at reggie@golookinside.com and I would love to chat with you about any concerns.

We do not take any money from you and we do not need much info from you to get started. ADP requires certain information that some people may not want to give us, so we offer to pay you via personal checks from us for the first few jobs to earn your trust. However, to get started we do ask to complete the personal profile and show us demo work so we can see that you do good work. Obviously, for $199 we don't ask too much from our videographers. 1 Light kit, tripod , mic and a small amount of editing (music and intro-text). We also do bulk shoots, where a company like a broker, may schedule 5-6 personal profile videos to be shot in a day and you can walk away with a decent amount of money.

I am not trying to say you will become rich quick and have business the moment you sign up.. We are sorry if we have given some people the impression we are a get-rich-quick kind of company. We can give videographers some extra work during the week at their conveinance with reasonable expectations. In the future, I do envision videographers shooting full-time for us, especially if they do good work. We are doing the best we can to get business and we are releasing a load of press/marketing campaigns in the near future. We have a great source of funding and
do not intend to die off like some of the other companies out there.

I appreciate any and all thoughts on this, and again I do not wish to upset anyone over this. You may reach me at reggie@golookinside.com

Thanks,
Reggie Renner
President
GoLookInside.com

Michel,
You sent what to where?. I am not spoiling the name of the country but please please please never send any Bank Information to anyone you don't know in Nigeria.

There are emails flying over the place someone claiming money here and there. They are all scams.

Relax Eniola, he's just kidding. He said that to downplay the original subject. If you want to learn more about the Nigerian scams and laugh very hard, just visit this site.

www.419eater.com

If you want to learn more about the Nigerian scams and laugh very hard, just visit this site.

www.419eater.comhttp://www.quatloos.com/brad-c/directory02.htm

is a good one too.

Whew!. I would have cried for he/she men!.

Is this a legit business or not?


What is the final word?

Has anyone gotten a pay check from this company?

Ponder. Talk. Do.

If any of you want to shoot video tours, why not just go out and shoot them on your on. I have for over a year, and I'm a 21 (just turned 22) college kid. I shoot anywhere between 10-20 tours a week, I do all the taping, editing, web hosting, and design, and selling.

I'm not going to lie, it isn't the easiest to sell these tours, but if you are persistent on the realtors, they will soon see that it is 10x better then a virtual tour, and that these tours really work! I had a realtor call me the other day that said she sold a home to a couple from out of town only because they saw my tours. Wow, that's quite a compliment. This lady spent $75 on a home, and sold it and made $7500 (it was a $250,000 house @ 3%)

Now all you are griping saying I'm not shooting a tour for $75. Well my tours start at $75 for up to 2000 sq ft, and $25 per additional 1000 sq ft. The whole thing is on the pricing the realtors pick up the bill, not the broker or the real estate company. It's a hard task to convince the realtor that they need to spend the money on the tour. But once you do, they are hooked, because it works. And I am making good money. Most of my tours average around $100, but let's take the low and saw $75. So I make anywhere between $750 to $1500 a week, not bad for a college kid (and not bad for anyone) considering all my friends are making $6.50 an hour.

I think what the golookinside company is doing is fine, but I would never join, why join when you can be on you own. And I did talk to Sky a long time ago when this thread started, she seemed very nice, but she was asking me how I operated, and called me with a few questions. This just goes to show you that they don't have it all figured out quite yet, it's a business venture they are hoping works. Why not take the same venture on your own, and not be connected to anyone.

While I really hate to see this old thread get resurrected, I just have to tip my hat to you Todd. Wow... it's great to see someone who is so motivated and has developed such keen business sense at the age of 22!

Congratulations on the business you've started. I suspect you're going to be very successful in whatever you do after college. Keep up the good work!

I was looking though my old posts and saw this thread. Anything ever become of this? I remember a lot of discussion, but not a lot of results.

www.golookinside is still up and running, with a pretty decent website. www.yourgoldenopportunity has been bought by squatters. A pretty cheezy name anyway.

I decided it was sketchy and left it alone. It had that feel of being one of the 10,000 other things I've applied for where you're promised plenty of work, etc., and then they never ever ever call you.

Yeah, well I personally wouldn't touch this. Maybe it is legit but it has all the earmarks of a "get rich quick" scheme if not an outright scam. I'd wait until December and look at a couple of the "90,000 websites" or talk to a few of the "6,000 photographers."


This is possibly a legit company. Another competitor that wasnt to have an "affiliate" network of videographers is http://www.realestatevideos.com They operate under a similar premise.

I have researched this segment of the real estate business because I am in the real estate video business. :-) How RealEstateVideos.com works is that they send you work if they get it, or you drum up your own. You get to use their name, stationary, business cards, etc. When you book a shoot, you get paid 1/2. 1/4 for the marketing effort, 1/4 for shooting the video. Then you send yoru raw DV tape back to them with a check for th remaining 1/2 of the fee. They do the edit and host the video on their servers.

Looks like this other company wants you to do more of the work, not that I would mind that. Te problem they will have it that their affiliates will not have a constant editing style. Each affiliate will cut and edit in their style so the vidoes might not look uniform.

NOTE: I don't work for either company. In fact, I hope to cut them out and get the real estate video business in my town. They both have advantages and disadvantages. One gives more control, the other allows you to have more free time.

If anyone has questions about this sort of business, send me a line.

jason

Man... I thought this thread had died.

I keep hoping also...

Funny, I'm getting ready to sell my house right now. I have a great agent who did really well selling my last home, and they use still panoramic (QuickTime VR type) shots for web marketing. I asked her if she might ever have an interest in video tours and she said that it's possible, although her company (one of the largest agencies in this part of the US) hasn't used them before.

Then she suggested that I might want to make a video to help her sell my own place, and I laughed when I realized that this obvious thought had never even crossed my mind! So I'm gonna get started on it in the next few days, will probably draft my daughter and her boyfriend for roles as the romantic young couple in love with the place ;-) So this video might have the potential to make a lot of money for me if it can attract the right kind of buyer :-)

But seriously, I'm thinking that real estate is really a localized business and you might want to find out who some of the better agents are in your own area, then make personal contact with them instead of involving various middle-men.

Man... I thought this thread had died.

That's why I revived it. :) Actually I was looking through my old posts, and since I have so few it didn't take long to hit this thread. I was just somewhat curious what the test of time had done to this project and if anyone here was involved.

Let it go man... Dying is natures way of thinning the threads ;)

I contacted these people a long time ago, and spoke to someone who promised to get back to me and never did. My feeling was that they are all smoke and mirrors, and don't actually have any paying business.
On another note, we did some videos for land investments that I have with a few other people (www.floridalandllc.com). After finishing these, I spoke to several realtors in those areas (a couple of whom we had bought property from), trying to interest them in this service. For the most part, these realtors are cheap, and lazy. They are terrified of spending anything more than $75 on surround photos. They're like flies on shite in a strong market,calling you constantly, but when times are tougher, and they actually have to WORK....well that's a different story.
Anyways, I gave up on real estate video (unless,like Boyd, it's to sell my own property).
Bruce Yarock

Have you guys seen the samples they put on their site, they are just horrible, you think they would be able to produce something bettter then that.

I've been doing tours for a while now, if you guys would take a couple of minutes to check it out and comment on the videos I would appreciate. The site is new I just wrote it a couple of days ago, so it's not 100 percent complete yet.

www.wowvideotours.com

Thanks,
Todd


Todd,

Nice job on those tours. I like the angles. Are you using a .5 wide angle for your interior shots? I have shot mine with out any wide angle lenses. To compensate, I provide more angles for each room so the clients see the room from both ends. What camera are you using? I have been shooting using a Sony HDFX1 (borrowed from my associate). I am considering a purchase of the GL2 (with an adaptor like .8 or something) for real estate and wedding videos.

Did you write the flash on your site your self? Any how, your site looks very smooth and the videos are well done.

jason

As a Realtor and part-time videographer, I gave interior/exterior videos on high-dollar properties a try. The time cost was high, the yield low. The standard and panoramic stills give the customer what they want to see -- enough of the inside to get a feel for the style and interior appearance. IMHO, video has too much overhead and too little (if any) advantage over the 360-degree panoramas to be worth the time or the bandwidth required for delivery. Since houses are still subjects, they are well displayed by still photography. Video is just the wrong tool for inanimate subjects as houses tend to be. When they do move, it's newsworthy.

Todd, I think you need to stick with cuts and dissolves. Those peels are not professional looking at all. Your presentation looks just fine but it also looks like every other home tour that I have seen and so did mine. I agree that IPix or any other 360 viewing tool is cool but I think it's better to move through spaces like video can instead of actually moving a space with a mouse. This would be best done with a stabilizer which means more money and that's not going to happen. $75 per project may seem like alot right now because you are so young. But just 5+ years from now when you have more bills and more responsibilities you will look back and consider that to be pocket change and NOT well worth your time. This may happen sooner when you get a big enough dose of the cheap asses out there. One more thing to remember is that if you are using copyrighted music without paying for the rights, you could get slammed not only for using it but distributing it on the internet. It's unlikely but possible.

I also agree with Bert in that there is not enough return on the investment of gear and most importantly, time. I also think real estate video is boring. I tried to get into this market 6 years ago by producing a demo with a full sized jib along with an interior pan and scan sequence complete with music and narration. Every realtor thought it was great but NOBODY would pay for it. I never did another one again. As far as working for companies that want to hire you to shoot. There's not enough room in the cost for them and you so you are better off doing it for yourself.

I think you guys are putting too much time into the video tours. When shooting I’m in the house 20 minutes top, and editing about 15 minutes. I use a GL2, wide angle lens, and a good tripod. This is not someone's wedding video it doesn't have to be perfect. Plus most people won't notice the little things that a videographer would.

Our tours are the same price as virtual tours with I think are horrible, and I would say every seller who sees my tours would agree that the virtual and panoramic tours are bad. When you look at a house in person you don't stand in the middle of the room and spin in a circle.

I have many testimonials from people saying they chose one company over the other based on whether or not the company used a video tour.

The main thing about video tours is they differentiate the realtor from the competition. Most of our realtors are getting more and more listings because they are going above and beyond by doing the tours.

If you are going to do video tours you need to be a business man first and a videographer second.

If your business is successful, then by definition what you're doing with video in real estate is worthwhile. I agree with the point about moving through houses being preferable to moving a panoramic picture. The video is a better look for the buyer, but the seller (or seller's agent) is the one paying for it, so he/she will want the house to show its best and hide flaws. The pictures are usually sharp and the video, due to compression, is not. Exposure adjustment and flash photography can compensate for unevenly lit rooms, where video is subject to window flare around every turn. Last, the photo/panorama tours let the viewing customer skip to the section of the house most relevant to their interests. Some do not care what the kitchen looks like, some care most about the kitchen. Skipping to the area of interest is easy in the photos and is not possible in video, unless it is divided into clips, which may be an approach worth considering.

It took 2 minutes to download your tour over a high-speed (cable) connection. If I remember Allan Dalton's (Realtor.com CEO) numbers correctly, a typical shopper on realtor.com would've moved on to the next house 1 minute 52 seconds earlier. Clipping your video into smaller labeled segments might help its view-ability.

Again, if you find demand for your product at a price making it worth doing, then power on and good luck. My comment was intended to increase skepticism should any more "videographers needed all over the U.S." solicitations come up.

Cheers.

Bert, our markets are very different so it is reasonable that some things work for you while others for me.

Also all of our videos should stream, so the videos will play almost immediately. Typically buyers see pictures on the transferring web page and then decide whether or not to watch the video. Basically if the buyer gets to the video page he or she wants to watch the video.

Clipping the videos into smaller segments may make it easier to skip around the house, but it complicates everything. With many smaller segments a viewer will have to click 8-15 times instead of 1 time. My general rule of thumb is if my mother can get the tour up then anyone can. My mom usually has a hard time running virtual tours (java plugin) especially Obeo, and Visual tours.

I'm just trying to give the perspective of someone who is finding success in the video real estate business. Video has the wow factor it's only a matter of time until everyone expects video on the internet. Honestly I'd be happy if no one got into the business so I didn't have to worry about competition.

are any videographers getting real work from this company?

It'll NEVER DIE!!!!!


unless a mod locks it. :)


AFAIK, there aren't any folks here that have signed up with this company, but a few do similar gigs on their own, or with a different company.

Well guess what domain name doesn't resolve anymore?

www.yourgoldenopportunity.net

It'll NEVER DIE! unless a mod locks it.Done. Thanks for the suggestion,