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How it went Viral

August 23, 2017 By Bob Henderson Leave a Comment

Viral Video of a 1000′ phone drop: “This Ain’t my Phone”

Filming a WW I biplane* flying over Bowling Green Kentucky, my brother (Blake Henderson) accidentally dropped his Samsung S5 from 1000′ above the ground. It recorded spinning all the way down, plopping into a garden unscathed. The footage after that is hysterical.

Knowing this was a jem, we planned a viral marketing strategy. August 11, 2017, was a going away party for my son Ryan, who was moving to the Czech Republic. With the council of him, my other I.T. son Eric, and my world renowned video branding wizard cousin, Billy Pittard (MTSU Media Arts Chairman), we came up with a plan:

Consider legal repercussions. In this case we had two concerns: the FAA, and the property owner. We talked to both.

Cut the video down as much as possible (due to silence in-between auto recording). I ended up with just under 2 minutes of an 11 minute .mpg file.

Post to Youtube: Sunday morning August 13, 2017 about 11 AM.

Post to Reddit: (/r/videos) This was the most critical element. Reddit is a snake pit of tech savvy #millennial/GenY/futurist/disruptor/guru/putz’s 😉. They pounced on it immediately crying fraud, fake, hoax! Ryan monitored the chatter and responded with diplomacy. After a few hours, he asked me for the unedited 11 minute .mpg file. He posted it in response to the fraudster “pundits”.

We hadn’t planned this (at least I didn’t), but it was perfect. He had all the nay-sayers going after the second video. It climbed the charts as well, pulled by the first one, with almost as many views.

The crack-pot comments ranged from; bad math on the calculated speed of terminal velocity, to some idiot that asserted that an airplane could not have a window you could open during flight (pictures of the Beechcraft Bonanza).

Wait for the offers. As the videos climbed through 100,000 views, news brokers started contacting us. This happened about 3 PM Sunday, four hours after posting. Eric suggested we wait a few days, but with it trending upwards, when do you blink?

Wait 24 – Sign the deal. Monday 3PM – $xxx up front and $xx/$xx split over 8 months (negotiated up, with competing bids from three sources). Ryan selected Storyful (video below).

Answer the phone. By monday night, came calls for interviews. The first one with Blake was Right This Minute that evening via Skype from his home. By monday morning NBC and CBS were on the line. International stories started to appear all over (local news was last to pick this up). 2 days later, Inside Edition did an interview via FaceTime† to my office with Blake and Ryan. They cross-examined both as hard as a trial lawyer! (I have a private video of that).

Storyful: Our News Broker

They basically monetize the pay per click, and sell the story to various news agencies. I think this video is a good example of their video examination prowess. They apparently were able to analyze the video content very quickly to validate the authenticity of the story. We believe a combination of the frame sequence in rotation, and the audio made this possible. It would be almost impossible to stage.

Some of the news broadcasters edited the video down, adding their own commentary. Some of them used the comments from the YouTube feed. I think this is a bad idea, as it adds legitimacy to inaccurate and dim-witted comments. At least one network got the altitude wrong. There is a big difference between 11,000’ and 1,000’ fall!

10 Days later: 2,872,843 views on YouTube. Estimated revenue: $xxxx+. The Youtube videos are: This Ain’t My Phone and This Ain’t My Phone (unedited).

Is the purpose of this blog obvious? 😉 @belmontguy

* Ironically, two weeks later the World War I Curtis Jenny crashed. It did not hold up as well as the phone, but the pilot is ok and the plane reparable.

**YouTube comment: (13 second freefall —> h=0.5*g*t^2 —> 0.5 * 9.81m/s^2 * 13sec^2 = 829 meter freefall distance. Maximum freefall velocity of 459km/h) The error in this does not account for mass resistance of the atmosphere. It was probably more like 42 miles per hour.

†FaceTime seemed to have better clarity. Inside Edition prefers it they said.

#phonedrop #storyful @belmontguy

Athens of the South Visual Design

417 Prestwick Court
Nashville, TN 37205
United States (US)
Phone: (615) 576-0495


Filed Under: Social Media Marketing

That ain’t my phone

August 15, 2017 By Bob Henderson Leave a Comment

Airdrops a s5 Galaxy 1000′

It’s amazing what can be done with a funny video and social media. With the help of my son Ryan Henderson, this went viral on Youtube with a Reddit post.  Critics have attacked this as a hoax, but meta data doesn’t lie. Additionally, it would take an army of digital masterminds to create the hundreds of frames this video contains. I’m a digital designer, but I’m not THAT good.

The portal window of the Beechcraft Bonanza is above the pilots left shoulder.

beech-bonanza

#airdrop #phone

Athens of the South Visual Design

417 Prestwick Court
Nashville, TN 37205
United States (US)
Phone: (615) 576-0495


Filed Under: Social Media Marketing

Level 7 Tour Guide

July 23, 2017 By Bob Henderson Leave a Comment

Google Local Tour Guide in Nashville

With over 10 million views on Google into years, I have reached Level 7 with over 9000 points. This is primarily due to my 3D like virtual tour imagery. My 360º imagery gets results. 2 weeks after my first luxury apartment tour, over 5600 views were recorded of Elliston 23 in Nashville.

Athens of the South Visual Design

417 Prestwick Court
Nashville, TN 37205
United States (US)
Phone: (615) 576-0495


Filed Under: 360º photography, Google, SEO, Social Media Marketing, Virtual Tours

Plagiarism

February 17, 2017 By Bob Henderson Leave a Comment

Plagiarism on the internet:

Remember what a big deal plagiarism was in high-school? It’s an even bigger deal on the web – and easy to detect. Aside from the ethical issues, it can also seriously effect your SEO (search engine optimization). Google accounts for 100 billion searches. How you rank with them, is determined by A LOT of things. Duplicate copy content is one of them – even if you have permission to use someone else’s. This can be remedied by modifying the meta data in the post or page. Using a “no-follow” line of instruction will tell Google not to crawl that page or post, but it will also prevent that document from being searchable on the internet.

So, if you pay a third-party for copy content (i.e. blog posts) make sure that they are creating original content for you. According to Ross Jones of 2 the Top Web Site Design & Promotion, one way to run a check on your own, is with copyscape.com. You can run a free search of any page or post, or pay for an automated detection system.

©

Athens of the South Visual Design

417 Prestwick Court
Nashville, TN 37205
United States (US)
Phone: (615) 576-0495

Filed Under: Google, SEO, Website Design

Certified Google Street View

February 15, 2017 By Bob Henderson Leave a Comment

Certified Google Street View in Nashville:

There are Trusted Google Street View photographers, and there are Certified Trusted Google Street View photographers. I am now one of only 24 Certified Google Photographers in Tennessee, the 7th in Nashville (as of February 15, 2017). In the last 12 months I have over 4.8 million views on Google. Not only can I shoot for Google, I can also customize virtual tour points for websites or video monitors. I can embed video, audio, pop-up imagery or informational text in these 3D like tours. 360º photo spheres can be up to 30,000 pixels wide (Google limits their perspectives to 10,000 pixels).

Learn More

Athens of the South Visual Design

417 Prestwick Court
Nashville, TN 37205
United States (US)
Phone: (615) 576-0495

Filed Under: Google, Virtual Tours

Google Street View

August 27, 2016 By Bob Henderson Leave a Comment

Google Street View goes indoors

Google offers indoor 360º tours on Google Maps. These tours are shot by Trusted Google Photographers such as myself. They consist of panoramic sphere’s shot every three feet, to provide a virtual tour of the business or organization.

The clarity must be at least 8000 x 4000 pixels. Mine are typically 15,000 x 7,500, but can go as high as 26,000 x 13,000 depending on the subject. In this case I shot most of the frames at 15,000 pixels wide with bracketing exposure to utilize HDR (high dynamic range). These spheres consist of 56 images, with 3 exposure shots each. This level of clarity allows one to zoom in and read the title of most any book on the shelf of the store (Landmark Booksellers, located at 114 Main Street in Franklin, Tennessee).

Landmark Booksellers in Google Street View

To view Google Virtual Tours:

  1. Logon to Google Street View
  2. Zoom into the area of the map your interested in
  3. Click on the little man at the bottom right corner of the screen
  4. Click on the orange circle located on the buildingstreet-view-image

The Peg Man image above is in celebration of the National Parks 100 year anniversary.

Athens of the South Visual Design

417 Prestwick Court
Nashville, TN 37205
United States (US)
Phone: (615) 576-0495

Imagery by Bob Henderson

Filed Under: 360º photography, Google, Virtual Tours

Indoor Virtual Tours

August 17, 2016 By Bob Henderson Leave a Comment

Virtual Tours shot with the GigaPan Epic Provirtual-tours-image

Starting this week, I am shooting indoor, as well as outdoor virtual tours.  As a Trusted Google Street View Photographer, I can shoot any non-residential business for Google Maps. For residential virtual tours, such as homes for sale, I use Pano2VR embedded in a WordPress webpage. These images can also be used with a VR headset, such as Google Cardboard or Oculus Rift.

This Gigapan Epic Pro technology was developed for the NASA Mars missions. This robotic tripod head and the new Canon 70D, produces life-like panoramas. I shoot up to 50 HDR images in a single location and stitch them together with a sophisticated software which produces a photo sphere free of distortion. Tours are shot by shooting a series of perspectives three feet a part to create the experience like Google Street View. It’s as close as you can get to being there.

I have now passed the 2 million view mark on Google Maps.

  • Bob Henderson

#virtualtours

Athens of the South Visual Design

417 Prestwick Court
Nashville, TN 37205
United States (US)
Phone: (615) 576-0495

Imagery by Bob Henderson

Filed Under: 360º photography, Google, Virtual Home Tours, Virtual Tours

The Year of 360º

July 23, 2016 By Bob Henderson Leave a Comment

iPhone + Pano2VR + Facebook 360º linkedin-360-400

Photography has evolved with new technology that can enhance the interpretive experience. It’s now possible to look at landscapes from a new 360º perspective with embedded photos and informational “hot spots”. FaceBook now interfaces with some 360º images. I shot this with a iPhone 6S, and stitched it with the Google Street View app. It was output with Pano2VR.

  • 3D minié ball was extruded with PS 3D and embedded in a Pano2VR patch
  • Output was Equirectangular .jpg file (8704 × 4352 px)
  • WordPress Website / Genesis Theme
  • Pano2VR 5.0
  • Google Street View App
  • iPhone 6S
  • Tripod with a MeFoto camera mount

As I look at new camera’s, the iPhone 6S is still the best bang for the buck for outdoor 3D . For indoor, or close-quarters shots, the parallax error induced by the position of the iPhone camera lens creates distortion of linear lines. The best results are with a DSLR and a camera mount with a fixed nodal point. Nodal Nija has a good one for around $350 USD. The Giga Pan Pro has an automated robotic tripod mount for $1000.

Virtual Tour of Franklin, Tennessee

Athens of the South Visual Design

417 Prestwick Court
Nashville, TN 37205
United States (US)
Phone: (615) 576-0495

Imagery by Bob Henderson

#virtualtour #franklin

Filed Under: 360º photography, Facebook, Google, Virtual Tours

Shooting 360

May 31, 2016 By Bob Henderson Leave a Comment

Shooting 360º Panoramas with Google Street View:

There are many options for creating 3D like imagery. You can use a DSLR camera, a smart phone, or a dedicated 360 camera like the Ricoh Theta or the NCTech Iris 360.

Using a smart phone, there are plenty of programs to choose from. I like the Google Street View application because it integrates with Google Maps. Launch the app, and follow the orange circles to shoot a panorama (usually 24 photos). It automatically stitches them all together for you. The images can be published public (private by default) and the public ones are counted for the number of views by Google. You can also download the images in high resolution to your computer, but touch-ups can’t be reloaded to Google Street View as far as I can tell.

It is best to use a tripod for optimal results, especially with objects that are near. The closer the object, the more crucial this is. In fact, it’s nearly impossible to get indoor panorama’s to stitch everything without some parallax error. Even with a tripod, utility poles and power lines usually always require touch-ups, as well as the tripod image itself.

Shooting with a DSLR is more accurate. Use a fish-eye lens and a tripod mount that has a calibrated nodal point. Stitching can be done with Adobe Lightroom or PTGui software for instance. But like the smart phone, this requires 24+ shoots per panoramic position (sphere). When shooting in HDR, this can multiply the photographic equation considerably.

If you are shooting a panoramic tour, there can be a lot of moving parts with all the images. For speed of use, a dedicated 360 camera is a good option. The Theta, at around $350, is a good value. But if you want to shoot professional Google Street View Virtual Tours, the resolution is not high enough. There are two high-end camera’s that are popular for professional use: the Matterport, used by many professional real estate photographers, and the NCTech Iris 360. The Iris is around $2000, and is the only dedicated 360 camera supported by Google Virtual Tours. The Theta will upload to Google Street View (blue spheres), but will not integrate with the Google Virtual Tour (orange spheres). The Iris 360 seems to be more adaptable to indoor and outdoor environments, vs. the Matterport. But for the highest resolution and clarity, a DSLR still has the best results.

To publish a Google Virtual Tour, you must be a Trusted Google Photographer. I was invited to join after the total views of all my photography on Google Maps passed the 500,000 mark (pano’s and stills combined – but mostly panos). Google Virtual Tour has its own software for organizing the tour images, which is accessible online only to certified shooters. Google Tours cannot be used for real estate sales.

For integrated 360 tours (including real estate listings), I like Pan2VR Pro software. The basic version is only $99, but if you want to interconnect multiple spheres, you will need the $500 pro version. It has a lot of integrations, including “hot spots” for info boxes, website links, sound, photo and video embeds. It integrates with Google Maps, Open Street Map, MapQuest and ArcGIS for correcting geographical points. It also links to Adobe Photoshop for super quick touch-ups. Outputs can be HTML, Quicktime VR, MPEG and Flash. It also supports a responsive design for mobile devices. Tech support by email is good (U.K. based) and they have plenty of detailed video tutorials online.

How to use the Google Street View Application with an iPhone 6S:

#googlestreetview #pano2vr #virtualtours

Athens of the South Visual Design

417 Prestwick Court
Nashville, TN 37205
United States (US)
Phone: (615) 576-0495

Imagery by Bob Henderson

Filed Under: 360º photography, Google, Virtual Tours

Google 3D Viewer

April 10, 2016 By Bob Henderson Leave a Comment

Google Cardboard 3D Viewer – $15:

The 3D virtual reality experience has never been easier – or cheaper. Download the free Google Street View app, and order the Google Cardboard Viewer for only $15 USD. Viewing (and creating) 3D Panoramic spheres is easy with the app. These also can be viewed on Google Maps and even embedded on a web page or post.

To find panorama’s go to Google maps and click on the stick-man icon on the bottom right hand of the screen. Zoom into an area and look for the blue and orange circles. The blue ones are amateur 3D spheres, the orange ones are Google Street View professional 3D virtual reality tours (I am certified to shoot both).

Screen Shot 2016-04-10 at 12.40.37 PMgoogle-cardboard-imageScreen Shot 2016-04-10 at 12.40.18 PM

Soon, I will be upgrading to the new state of the art NCTech Iris 360 camera. It’s the only approved 3D camera for Google virtual tours. They are on back-order, but I should have mine by June. This camera is designed to integrate with Google Street View and Google Maps for business virtual tours.

Panorama made with an iPhone 6S


Contact me for more information.

Bob Henderson

615-477-0737google-3d

Filed Under: 360º photography, Google, Technology

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