New Project!! High Desert Nature Museum VR Tour and 360° Video

In The Cloud Studios is very happy and excited to announce our latest project!!  We are working with our local museum, The High Desert Nature Museum, producing a Virtual Tour, as well as a 360° Video highlighting what it has to offer its visitors. It can be used to attract new guests, both locally and from out of town, as well as raise awareness of local history and culture.

We will be completing the work mid February,  so stay tuned for the official Press Release, as well as updates, and the Final Products!!

Please check us out on Facebook, and drop us a like so you get future announcements.  https://www.facebook.com/InTheCloudStudios/

Follow us twitter at @V_R_Evangelist

Lyle Bush ∙ VR Evangelist ∙ In The Cloud Studios
Email:  lbush@inthecloudstudios.com

360 Video on Twitter

Live streaming has become a very popular part of social media applications. Recently we have seen more users go live to show and give other users a different experience. Remember that time when talking to someone famous was almost impossible? Those times are gone, live streaming has opened an opportunity to have that connection. So, what can we expect to meet this demand? Twitter’s live 360 Video began its first stream at the end of December 2016, allowing users to get an inside look and behind the scenes of various events. Why limit your post to something that doesn’t have much detail or show your true expression? Many artist have been broadcasting live videos to show fans who they truly are. No fancy camera, no cutting or editing, the real thing!  Virtual Reality is a different universe within ours, anything is possible.

Robert Duran ∙ 360° Videographer ∙ In The Cloud Studios
Email: rduran@inthecloudstudios.com

Commercials are Dead

Let’s face it. We live in a world that is becoming easier and easier to control. Options, choices, and alternatives surround us and help shape our lives. When something happens to us that we do not like we simply change course and continue with our day.

Marketing Strategy in todays on demand society.

How does this affect marketing?

On demand content and stick and move entertainment, have whittled our attention span down to that of a fly with ADD. We click on a video, watch it for 10 seconds…”boring!”-click- another video watch it for 10 seconds…”boring!” -click- watch another video…and so on, and so on. If we don’t get the message in this short time span, we never get it, because we have already moved on.

Ad blockers are standard fare on pretty much any device we use. We got so tired of all of those flashing ads on every web page we view, their invention was inevitable. We DVR live shows and wait just long enough to watch them so we can forward through the commercials. We have developed a Pavlovian response to YouTube ads where we are able to tune them out just enough to get to the “skip ad” button while still holding a conversation. When forced to watch a 30 second ad (skip ad button removed…thanks YouTube) we only get mad and vow never to support that vendor.

Swimming in a river of spam.

When you swim in a river of spam……

You learn to ignore everything-even the relevant stuff. Commercials and advertisements started life with the noble purpose of getting product information to those who actually need it. ABC, NBC, and CBS coupled with the local newspaper were once the primary source of information. As media outlets grew, so did their advertising revenues. 30 minute TV shows with 6 minutes of commercials became hour long shows with 20 minutes of commercials. Our lives became one big commercial and we responded by not playing. Now we can speed click our way through facepage without hindrance and never know that “widget X”, the magic solution to all of the problems that you were complaining about yesterday, was filtered by your ad blocker along with all of the other spam.

VR Marketing is set to explode.

Enter VR

VR or Virtual Reality as a media platform is exploding. From the humble Google cardboard to the high end HTC Vive, a whole new world of content is opening up to the masses and the developers know this. This medium of the future is not compatible with advertisements of the past. Gone are the old rules of mass media. In this brave new world of VR, the guidelines for content are still being created. Marketing in the old sense will surely fail. Simply jamming a commercial in front of your video will only cause your message not to be viewed. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t someone out there who needs and is looking for “widget X”.

People still want relevant information. New thinking is required to get the right message in front of the right people.
The one constant in VR is immersive content. To have the ability to fully experience what you see, travel to a new place, or live in a different time. This is a powerful message and attracts more and more users daily. This same quality also lends itself to deliver your marketing message as a relevant part of the overall message.

For example:

3d rendering of vr glasses isolated on white with white business city pop out

Corporate applications- By far the easiest to picture incarnation for VR marketing is corporate marketing. This is a very wide scope for VR content. VR has been successfully used by industry giants such as Ford, Airbus, Patron Tequila, Tommy Hilfiger, and Lockheed Martin.
Immersion- VR, as a medium is best used for things that are out of reach for most people. Things that are too dangerous, too expensive, un practical, or just impossible now are available for anyone to experience. The marketing advantages of being able to teleport someone anywhere are just now being discovered.
Entertainment- Content becomes more real when you are a part of it. Live events once, reserved for those actually there, now expand their audience globally. VR cinema is only now starting to spread its wings.

The bottom line is that VR marketing is pretty much the same as VR content creation. There can no longer be a distinction between the two and still get a real message across. The old ways of doing things are now in the past. There is a whole new world out there and we are the ones to make the rules.

Kevin Shannon ∙ Marketing Director ∙ In The Cloud Studios
Email:  kshannon@inthecloudstudios.com

VRLA Summer Expo 2016 – Quick Wrap Up

In The Cloud Studios attended VRLA’s 2016 Summer Expo.  Amid the myriad of booths, displays and attractions was an exciting mix of new  hardware and software, content developers and 360° producers.

They had two theaters going at most times throughout both days, on subjects all pertaining to Virtual Reality its development, deployment, perception, use,  and even legal issues around it.  They had speakers from Industry leaders, from companies such as AMD, Nvidia, Mettle and Sennheiser and many others.
If you are new to VR, or maybe just want to see whats new, or want to talk shop with some of the Movers in the Biz, this was the place to be.  So far its the best VR Expo/Conference I have seen, and I will be back for VRLA Winter Expo.