Virtual Tours?

VT start-ups have had a hard time finding support. Historically, magazines have paid for initial photo shoots in exchange for first publishing rights. After that, the yard is generally free to distribute the images to other forms of media. Virtual Tours have NO value to a magazine.

Over the years, several start-ups have approached me on publishing tours of the boats we review. The "overview" is nice, but it tends to attract more curiosity seekers, whereas a YF review focuses on the details, something I believe our readers favor over fluff. I think VT's for pre-construction can be beneficial, but I can't justify the costs post-launch. Plus, VT's take considerable bandwidth, offer no SEO significance (unless YT based) and are more taxing on server resources; a definite concern with YF's traffic.

Quattroelle was the only one I can recall that was over 250'. I know Hakvoort's Apostrophe has one just like Quatroelle's.

Here's the avatar for Apostrophe. She's one of my favorites but I feel the crew accommodations are a bit small. I feel that Quattroelle's VT was taken down after the change of ownership.

http://www.************/apostrophe/START.html

New link for virtual tour yacht quattroelle. VRCloud | Lurssen Quattroelle .

By

Perfect points, Carl.
One thing I would like to add is that (*here goes a long rant about how late-90-dotcom-bubble-startups were ideologically different from recent-late-businesses and how we-still-get-too-many of the former*) these are no virtual tours, I beg your pardon. These are a collection of interlinked panorama photoshots, a revolutionary technology of the late 19th century (panorama) and a revolutionary technology of the late 70's (hyperlinks). Breathtaking.

I am dang sure that a true virtual tour, where one could "personally" go to the breaker panel to check the wiring arrangement - all without getting one's ass off the coach - will do it's trick at "killing it"(as they say in the valley).

Carl you need a pair of Xeon 8 core processors cooled down to -150 degrees centigrade with a three stage cascade and overclocked .

Walt

In May, we upgraded to a killer server; an Intel Xeon E3-1240 Quad Core 3.7 GHz with 4 Cores. No cryogenics needed (yet).