Printable View
Dan
Not sure what the architecture is, somewhat of a cross between Craftsmen and Contemporary. I uploaded to Animoto and they send it to You Tube. I like the HQ (High Quality) version on Animoto better than YouTube. By the way, Animo is a great deal at $30/yr, but it is a pain in some ways. The HQ function costs $5.00, you have to pay each time you convert to HQ or make any changes. And it takes a bit of time for every vidio you make, or when you make changes.
Huh, I thought they had to be downloaded to your pc and then sent to Youtube. Looked good and the length was perfect.
Dan
I like Animoto for what it is, but for displaying photos I also like Picasa, especially if you use the slideshow and go Full Screen (F11).
This house is my next spec. These are architectural renderings my architect did, I think this is remarkable marketing stuff. These look more like photos than renderings.
[url]http://picasaweb.google.com/edwards.allan1/6035Blossom02?authkey=Gv1sRgCJeqqOj1yvqJAg#[/url]
Allan,
I used to use Picassa. That is, until I found other contractors using my photos on their websites.
Picassa makes is WAY too easy for some dopey web designer to snag photos and use them in other places.
Watermark your photos with your URL and phone number. Done properly, the time it requires to strip that stuff is nowhere worth the effort to the one-truck web designer. .
I'm of the other opinion ... I WANT my project photos (and my clients' photos) all over the web.. on every website. Viral distribution of a photo can gain you an audience similar in size to mass media -- for $0. But only if there's a way for anyone looking at them to contact the builder - and that's why you need the watermark.
Your product is the house - not the photos. Don't get stuck trying to protect something that's unprotectable anyway. and could literally fill your sales pipeline if approached properly.
Viral distribution is like magic. The best possible scenario is to have your watermarked photos on Flickr or Picassa... have 10 of your clients each put one on their Facebook page.... have that picked up by 10 of their friends.... and by 10 of theirs... etc. That is how you become a thought leader (one step toward that at least).
JLS
Joe,
All of my edge watermarks were cropped out. I refuse to watermark OVER the main area of an image because, at that point, what IS the point? I'm not smacking my translucent logo over the image.
The client needs to see the image, not a massive watermark. It defeats the purpose.
Any half-assed high school kid can crop out a watermark.
In my case, I have enough contractor friends around the internet that know me and know my work. They were the ones that saw these images on other guys' sites representing MY work as theirs as a sales tool.
I completely disagree with you argument for construction-related images being viral. Perhaps if the content of the image is a recognizable trademarked mass market item available any strip mall across the country, but an addition? A kitchen remodel? No way. Ever.
First off, you tell me if you'd waste your own time randomly picking out some photo of a kitchen remodel and link to it on your Facebook page. You wouldn't and neither would anyone else. It's just not done. You won't live to see the day when some posts a status update that reads, "Thank God it's Friday....oh and I found this random kitchen picture".
Secondly, it takes a loooooong time for something to go truly viral and it usually has to be something much more interesting that something as self serving as a photo of "my new addition".
Obviously, publicity is good and social networking is good, but there is a bad side to it too.
Greg
You can always watermark the copies you put on the web only and keep the originals watermark free.
Embed them in flash is the best way. It's not bomb proof but it keeps the average web developer from pulling them. It takes a little more work to copy them than a simple right click and save.
[QUOTE=Mark Parlee;526871]Greg
You can always watermark the copies you put on the web only and keep the originals watermark free.[/QUOTE]
Mark,
I don't even know what to say or how to respond to that.
Please give me a little credit. I sure hope that with nearly 4,000 posts here you'd realize that I didn't need to be told that little nugget.
In fact, your post makes ME wonder! :)
The whole issue I was commenting on is that watermarks don't work to protect your work on the web and then you post saying to watermark images. I don't get it.
Ah..it's a Friday. Maybe that's it. LOL
Sorry Greg, no discredit intended whatsoever. It is Friday night and I am still working here at the computer figuring out photo's of poor details for a TV taping Monday so I may not have put a lot of thought in that response.
I have just been thinking of how to get some of my photos to go viral with my name as Joe was describing.
What about the idea Josh had of embedding them in flash?
Greg - it's Friday buddy - almost Miller time.
Honestly - nobody is discrediting you. We're just trying to get you to see the changing world a little differently. Open note to all builders: Your product is your HOUSES - not the photos of your houses. If you have to sacrifice the sanctity of one or the other... sacrifice the photos. There is literally no way to totally protect an image on the web anyway, and even if there was the resolution is too low for anyone to do anything with it except another website... so you're trying to avoid the unavoidable and protect the unprotectable.
My point is this - and only this: Those images could be - and should be - working a lot harder for you. A nice image that goes viral on Facebook can easily have as many viewers as Jay Leno and possibly as many as American Idol - and not cost you a dime... either in money, or effort, or credibility. You're not doing the selling and will never be accused of spamming - your customers and prospects are doing all the work for you. And... because people tend to know each other in the same geography.. a lot of that sharing could be future potential customers for you.
The tools are out there to automate the whole workflow of watermarking images. It's no big deal to have a copy that is "clean' and another copy that is watermarked if that's what you want to do. And I'd compose the web copies so your watermark sits down in the corner or something out of the way - always viewable - and "clickable" when possible. That's a lot of "ables" but you get the idea.
Protect your product - exploit the images of your product. Everything and anything that can potentially be shared, and that sharing happen with no effort or cost - that's a good thing .
JLS
I agree with Greg. No one posts a picture of this nice deck they saw on fb. It's more like watch this funny stuff on Jay Leno.
Your biggest advantage is actually showing all your friends what you do. That's about it.
Greg (and all) - PS...
There's a big difference between your CLIENTS and their pals distributing your images for you on Facebook (that's good - and that's what I'm talking about) ... and your competition representing your work as their work. If I found competition (in my market area) using my images, I'd call them out on it. I would literally have my atty call them, write them a cease and desist letter - rattle whatever chains you can. I'd start with their web developer and go from there. You can discredit them on Angie's List , etc. etc. I don't think it would take that much pressure to get them to stop.
f it was out of my market area- then it's not going to matter anyway to your business. I'd probably have to live with the irritation, but I would still contact them and ask them to stop.
You can be sued for a copyright infringement if you simply snap a photo of an existing building or feature of a building built after 1972 (from memory) in order to copy the design... Read the "Copyrights and Wrongs" column here on the site by Georgia Leslie and David Bennett who is one of the leading experts on copyright law. I edited that piece.
So... you could really hammer a competitor for using your images on their websites. But again - that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about encouraging clients and their circle to distribute your images for you - marked with a way for prospects to call you or find you online. Big difference.
Joe,
I brought up the point to Allan about not letting his images get STOLEN. Something he may not have thought about. I know I didn't before it happened to me.
There is a HUGE difference between purposely wanting images to be wildly linked to, viewed and commented on, versus someone STEALING the image to use for their own promotional purposes with blatant disregard of the moral issues of the action.
Case in point.
There was a deckbuilder in upstate NY that took EVERY single image I had on my site and used it as HIS portfolio.
Viral? No.
Theft? Yes.
That's my point.
If your images get out there and they aren't working for you, what exactly are they doing? Working for someone else?
I still think it's spitting into the wind for anyone to be spending time trying to make something as banal and common as what we all do (relative to other things in the world) go viral. It's not realistic in my opinion. The only one that cares about it is the originator.
But that's my opinion.
You type faster than me! Your post be mine!