nuCloud » Virtual Tours

New Report: 58% of Students Value a Virtual Tour On A College Website

Kyle James — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 14:05:44 +0000

Last week Noel-Levitz released their 2010 edition on the E-Expectations Report about what college-bound students are looking for in terms of online engagement during the admissions process. To create their report they surveyed more than 1,000 high school students about their online behavior and expectations. I’m not going to rehash the complete report here, but if you are looking for that, Karlyn over at .eduGuru wrote a nice summary or simply go download the report for yourself. What I would like to do is present a few very interesting data points and discuss exactly how we address those points.

76% of Students Use Facebook

Facebook was the clear winner of the social media websites surveyed although at 79% it still seemed this number is a little low. With Facebook even this week expecting its 500 millionth user and the entire phenomenon starting in colleges and universities, you would think this number would be closer to 95% of the audience. The slight difference here is that we are talking about college bound high school students in this survey. Either way if over three quarters of your audience is on a channel, you simply can’t ignore it. nuCloud gives you the ability to embed your virtual tour right on your Facebook page. Don’t just take my word for it; check out this example of one of our customers actually doing it.

58% of Students Identified Virtual Tours as Extremely Valuable or Adds a lot of Value

Speaking of embedding those virtual tours we have to be extremely excited to hear that almost 60% of incoming students find our product valuable! It has never been more important than it is today to have a compelling and easy to use virtual tour on your website. I think the big key in that last sentence is “easy to use.” If you try to use a lot of the tours out there on college websites many are hard to figure out and even more painful to let them load. Many prospective students have a well known dislike of being patient for things.

77% of Students Identified Campus Visit Request Forms as Extremely Valuable or Adds a lot Of Value

I very strongly believe that a campus visit is one of the strongest elements in the decision process of where a student chooses to go to school. Any admission office will tell you that if they can get a student to visit their school they can get that individual to apply. With this being such an important part of the recruitment funnel you have to think about as many ways as possible to open up it up more. I strongly believe that an online virtual tour is definitely one of these methods. If a student visits 30 school websites and knows they are only going to visit maybe five of them then seeing a virtual tour of the campus might be one of those important decision makers to keep a school on the list.

52% Have Viewed Videos About Colleges But Only 10% on YouTube

Finally this last data point shows how valuable students think videos are, but interestingly enough the world’s biggest video website isn’t where they watch this content about schools. According to Alexa YouTube is the 3^rd largest website in the world. If you drill down into the data a little deeper then you will see 42% of the students are watching video on your website. If you don’t have video on your website then you probably want to get some up there. nuCloud does give you the ability to embed video in your map stops on your website as you can see in this example. This probably isn’t exactly what students have in mind, but we are already in the process of developing a tool to let you embed video on your website.

Conclusion

These four data points are just a few of the many in this report. Once again I highly recommend you learn what college bound students expect from your online efforts and read the report. Just as we have to understand the data and what students desire so we can build products and services accordingly. It is important for colleges and universities to address these same desires. You can download the full report here »

Download our Interactive Campus Map Kit and learn exactly how nuCloud can help your recruitment efforts. We are here to help.

More Than an Interactive Campus Tour – Stadium Tours

Kyle James — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 16:40:23 +0000

One of the first things we realized when starting nuCloud is that our map tools can be used for so much more than just campus maps. Any sort of virtual tour that can be accomplished through a map is a possible use of the software. Because we have a strong background in higher education it makes sense for us to start with that market, but it is by no means the only viable solution. Part of demonstrating these different uses is giving examples. By clicking on the image below you can see an example of our mapping tool used to explore historic Fenway Park in Boston, MA.

We are going to continue to find creative ways to use our maps and share these with you. This really is just the tip of the iceberg. All of the following are potential uses for our software:

Real Estate Home Tours
National Park Tours
Residential/Commercial Development Area Tours
Tours of the Human Body
Sports Venues – baseball like Fenway, as well as basketball, soccer, football, etc.
Museum Tours
State Tours

The list could go on. The idea here is to think of things that could be better displayed through a mapping tool and then working together to help make that vision come true. Expect more examples in the future, and as we continue to share more interactive map examples, hopefully you will continue to think creatively.

Cisco’s Interactive Map Tour of their Flagship New Data Center

Kyle James — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 14:00:29 +0000

Leave it to a major player like Cisco Systems to investment in showing off their newest data center through a flashy interactive map. Cisco recently spent $80 million in the renovation of an unused office building on its campus in Richardson, Texas. What better way to fully display this achievement than through an interactive map?

Cisco's Richardson Data Center Interactive Map Tour

View the Richardson Data Center Interactive Tour.

The tour has a collection of videos with all the details about the data center, including close looks and insights from the architect. Not only can you see a cross-section of their whole campus and drill into a few different buildings but the crowning achievement of the Richardson Data Center is that it has details on all the cool dorky networking tech things a Cisco certified professional (CCNP, CCNA, etc) would care to know.

The 3-D cross-section of the center has galleries of photos along with videos on the following subjects:

AC Handling
Building Ramps
Server Racks
Data Distribution
Structured Cable
Etc.

For any world enterprise company looking to build a world class data center, this is a great resource to explore and see how a company that provides the backbone for most of the Internet builds their data centers. From a marketing standpoint the transparency and open access to information like this build huge amounts of credibility with their target audience.

I won’t go into all the details of the facility, like the 25,000 gallon thermal storage tank that stores up to 5 hours of water supply to the facility in the event of a water system failure. I’m guessing many of you simply aren’t interested in the details of a data center, and if you were you probably aren’t still reading this post as you have moved on to check out the interactive map for yourself.

I really recommend checking out this interactive map tour even if you are a true network administrator junkie.

The Difference Between a Virtual Tour and an Interactive Map

Kyle James — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 15:39:44 +0000

When I look at different interactive maps and virtual tours around the web, more often than not there is a very distinct difference between the two. After all, a map is a map and a tour sometimes includes a map, but I’ve noticed that people commonly call anything a virtual tour including the following:

360 degree panorama photographs
A video of someone walking through locations
Detailed text with pictures of locations
Pictures accompanied by an audio track of what you are viewing

Defining a Virtual Tour

As you can see by just the four examples above virtual tours can mean different things to different individuals. If you look up the word virtual in any dictionary it has a pretty open meaning. Dictionary.com defines the adjective virtual as:

being such in power, force, or effect, though not actually or expressly such: a virtual dependence on charity.

So yes, based on that definition pictures, video, audio and any other online elements that can create the “virtual” sensation of a tour really do count as virtual tours.

Defining an Interactive Map

Defining interactive is just as straight forward. Once again utilizing dictionary.com there is a great definition of interactive as it pertains to the context of a map:

(of a computer program or system) interacting with a human user, often in a conversational way, to obtain data or commands and to give immediate results or updated information: For many years airline reservations have been handled by interactive computer systems.

So being interactive is virtual but being virtual isn’t always interactive. And I think that is the main point. Someone can easily have a virtual tour inside of an interactive map but not always the other way around. So an interactive map is always a virtual tour, but a virtual tour isn’t always an interactive map.

Power of an Interactive Map

What really makes interactive maps like our interactive campus map offering so compelling is the fact that you can have both a virtual tour and an interactive map in one! Keeping things simple but powerful builds a strong case about why you would rather have something interactive than simply virtual. Of course there is more programming and logic that goes into creating an interactive element, which is why you want a system that can handle the logic in place.

So if you are still curious about examples of interactive maps and virtual tours, a simple Google search on each will bring back lots of examples. What you will notice is that some of those virtual tours will be interactive maps and very few interactive maps will make the mistake of simply calling themselves a virtual tour. Why not go ahead and take the extra step next time you create a virtual tour and just make it an interactive map?

Photo by: samuelviani

Open Your Campus Visit “Secret Menu”

Kyle James — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 15:00:46 +0000

Did you see the post last week on the TargetX iThink blog, The “Secret Menu” of the Campus Visit by Trent Gilbert? Trent has been exploring college campuses getting his fair share of tours of the scripted nature. In a short video clip Trent tells us, “There are all these things I could do… but I’m never invited to do them.”

Touring certain things like the football stadium might seem obvious to inquire for a football player, but why aren’t we given a menu of things available to see and then allowed to choose what we want to see and explore? Trent goes on to say that if we ask, then we could do those things, but we aren’t encouraged to do them and aren’t offered to do them in the first place.

“We all want what we want, when we want it,” Trent explains. This is such an accurate assessment especially for younger generations. With technology we are given more and more choices and can choose things a la carte. Television today consists of hundreds of different channels, and if we don’t like what we find there is usually a collection of DVDs, TiVo recordings, NetFlix, Hulu and many other options. Restaurants don’t limit you to a hamburger and a Coke anymore, do they? Burger King promises its customers “Have it your way.” Shouldn’t we be able to give those who want to explore our campus the same options?

An Interactive Campus Map Opens Your Menu

Technology and the web give us the freedom to open up our campus and let visitors choose to explore and learn what they want to about our campus. A map allows you to create as many or as few “stops” as you see fit. Let visitors explore buildings off the beaten path. Have interviews of professors who teach in that building or let students who live in a dorm tell their stories. These voices are not only so much more authentic than even the best admission tour guides, but they allow visitors to explore at their own pace and come back as often as they want.

Remember people want what they want when they want it. So although I might be interested in exploring your science facilities, someone else cares more about your religion department and a third prospective student only cares about the athletic facilities. All these are valid and important inquires. The more you can have on your campus visit menu the better! Although it’s hard to give everyone a tour of exactly what they want when they want it you can accomplish a good portion of this through an interactive map of your campus.

Give your audience everything they could ask for and more, and you will build an experience that they will share with others, which will increase your own reputation.

Virtual Tours: A Campus Visit without the Travel

Kyle James — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 16:37:48 +0000

As the costs of gas and traveling continue to go up many prospective students will not visit as many campuses as previous classes enjoyed. A simple to use and vibrant interactive map or virtual tour can sometimes be the deciding factor in your institution making the short list of travel destinations. A recent Associated Press article, 10 ways to control the cost of college visits, instructs prospective students to take virtual tours as the #1 step before actually visiting a college. The article also shares that “It’s not atypical for someone to spend $3,000 on travel, food, and lodging costs for such visits before selecting a school to attend”.

In viewing lots of interactive maps on college websites they all seem to be a little different, but very few come from the approach of the user experience first. With so many opinions and so many wonderful people, places, and hidden gems on your campus it can be very difficult to decide what to feature. Deciding what can have the biggest impact on someone wanting to visit your campus over another is a challenging, but necessary decision. Some important questions to consider include:

What buildings are important for visitors to see?
How much information is enough and what is information overload?
Does the tour take too long to load?
What audience is this tour four? Do we need different tours for various audiences?
Is my information clean and concise?
Does the photography compliment and add to the experience?
Do we want video? How much video is appropriate?

Spending the time upfront to seriously consider questions like this can make all the difference in the end if the experience you are presenting is being effective and converting to visits scheduled. Sometimes this online campus experience is the only chance that you will get and making it count is important.

In a recent article in University Business, A Virtual Visit Welcome, Ron Reis a co-founder of YOUniversity goes as far as saying that the tour is “singlehandedly the most important element” of a college website. The article goes on really describing the importance of an interactive tour element of each college website while reminding of the expectations of the user and limits of what should be done. A great example that I solidly stand behind is shorter and more authentic videos. A visitor doesn’t want a scripted presentation that doesn’t feel authentic and they definitely will not have the patience for an online video that is five minutes or longer.

I would highly recommend reading both of these articles mentioned to gain some additional insight from the prospective student and the recruitment angles about what goes into the interest end but also the potential costs and development that creating a stand out virtual tour. A rough estimate given in the University Business article is upwards of $10,000, but what are you really paying all this for and is it more than you need by attempting to do too much? Really thinking about those decisions and choosing a good product is very important especially when you’re considering spending five figures on a piece of your website.