Virtual Tours of Zoos

October 25, 2020 in Blog, Virtual Tours

Virtual Tours of Zoos

Hey everyone and welcome back to another Momentum 360 blog! In this week’s blog, we are going to be taking a look at some virtual tours of zoos around the world. Right now is the perfect time to be taking advantage of virtual tours of zoos, not only because of visitor restrictions due to the Coronavirus but also because the weather is getting colder as we move closer to winter.

In today’s blog, we’re going to talk about the benefits of virtual tours in zoos and we’re going to be highlighting a couple of awesome zoos and animal habitats available to see online. These exhibits are perfect for animal lovers of all ages and are the perfect way to learn about animals you don’t see every day. Check it out!

Benefits of Virtual Tours of Zoos

Let’s be honest, nothing in the world has been completely normal for months now. We’re all learning to live with our new normal as best as we can. One of my favorite activities as a kid was going to the zoo in the summer and seeing the coolest animals in the world. When the virus shut everything down, zoos were forced to close to the public to ensure the safety of the zoologists and the animals they care for.

In a time where everyone was stuck at home trying to figure out how to keep themselves and their children entertained and learning, people turned to exciting educational opportunities they could access online.

Now, doing a virtual tour of a zoo isn’t the same as a museum’s virtual tour. In a museum, exhibitions are mostly stagnant and can be captured in a photograph. In a zoo, however, the main attraction is the animals who are living, breathing, and moving creatures. You can’t capture the majesticness of a lion in a photograph.

So how do these virtual tours work? Well, a combination of virtual reality, live cams, and 360 technology.

The live cams are pretty self-explanatory, a camera is set up on a specific enclosure and sends a live stream to the zoo’s website. People can log on at any time and from anywhere to see what’s going on in that enclosure. These are very popular for when an animal is about to give birth.

360 technology and virtual reality are used to simulate an in-person visit to the zoo, with renderings of the attractions to make you feel like you are actually there.

Online Virtual Tours of Zoos

Paignton Zoo

This UK Zoo has one of the most comprehensive zoo virtual tours. Paignton has a 360 aerial view tour of eight areas of their zoo. In this tour, visitors can learn about species of different animals while actually seeing what they look like in their enclosures. Some of these include crocodiles, lions, giraffes, and more!

In addition to this virtual tour, Paignton Zoo also has live cams set up for their flamingos, meerkats, and the Sulawesi Crested Macaque.

National Aquarium

The National Aquarium is an exhibit we have highlighted before in our “Educational 3D Tours” blog. This Baltimore-based aquarium is home to over 20,000 animals, including over 800 species. When you think aquarium, chances are you think of tropical fish, sharks, and turtles. While the National Aquarium has all these, they also have animals like birds, amphibians, and even mammals. All the animals housed in the National Aquarium have a unique connection to water, even if you wouldn’t think of them as fitting in an aquarium.

In this virtual tour, users can explore different areas like the Tropical Rainforest, the Atlantic Coral Reef, the Amazon Rainforest, and so much more! In these areas, visitors can also click and learn more information about the animals and fish native to these regions. This is an easy-to-use tour full of information that is perfect for any age.

Plus, it has some really cute pictures of dolphins!

Taronga Zoo

Taronga Zoo in Sydney, Australia is home to many exhibits including a wildlife retreat, African Savannah, rainforest, and more! Using 3D technology in Google Street View, visitors can explore the Taronga Zoo in detail. You can see all the different enclosures and animals that the zoo has to offer.

This includes animals usually only found in Australia, so if you’re like us, this may be the only opportunity to see cute and cuddly koalas, kangaroos, and more!

That’s it for this week’s blog! As always, check out our website and social media to learn more about Momentum 360 and all that we do.

For information about pricing, check out our pricing page here.

For a complete list of Momentum 360 Services, check out our website here.

Still not convinced? Check out our portfolio and see our work for yourself!

Our team members have also worked at Google and Facebook before, so we have the most up-to-date knowledge in the business. All to help your business rank at the top of Google and kickstart your journey to be a future lead generation machine!

Here at Momentum 360, we want to make growing your business easier than ever. Investing in a virtual tour is without a doubt an imperative step in making that happen. Our society is prioritizing digital content now more than ever, and we likely will not see a decline in this mindset in the future years.

If you are interested in learning more about Momentum 360 Virtual Tours or would like to have one made for your business, feel free to email us or schedule a call with Sean or Mac. For more information, visit our website! Mac Frederick and Sean Boyle, owners of Momentum, have over twenty years of experience in the digital marketing field and have a passion for helping businesses reach their fullest potential.

We post our Momentum Monday and Small Business Saturday blog every week, so feel free to subscribe and make sure you are up to date on the latest trends in the industry. If you have any questions or concerns, leave them in the comments below! From everyone at Momentum 360, thanks for the love, stay healthy, and until next time, build Momentum!

Virtual Tours on College Campuses

October 13, 2020 in Blog, Education, Virtual Tours

Virtual Tours on College Campuses

Hey everyone, and welcome back to another Momentum Monday! We’re getting deep into fall now, and before you know it, it’ll be Halloween and Thanksgiving!

Fall is an exciting time of year for a bunch of reasons, not just those aforementioned holidays. Fall means apple picking, sweater weather, and pumpkin spice everything, just to name a few reasons. The best part of fall is that everyone is in a preparation mindset – preparing for the holidays, wrapping up this year (finally!), and getting ready for the next one. For a lot of high school seniors, this is also the time of year to be sending out college applications and waiting patiently (or impatiently) to hear back from their dream schools.

The college application process is a little different this year than in years past. Because of the Coronavirus pandemic, there are no in-person campus tours or open houses. Even if you manage to go visit a campus, it’s not likely to be the hub of activity it once was.

This can be challenging for universities. Because going to college is so expensive, many people are skeptical of committing to a school they haven’t actually seen. So, like all of us during these troubling times, colleges have had to adapt from business-as-usual. What does this look like for colleges? You guessed it, virtual tours!

To be fair, many schools already employed some level of 3D tours for the campuses. Even without a global pandemic, virtual tours are an excellent way to showcase a college campus and can be an invaluable tool for prospective students that don’t have the means to visit a campus in-person.

That being said, since many campuses this semester are fully online, incorporating a hybrid class schedule, or operating at reduced capacity, there has never been a better time to get a virtual tour of campus.

In this week’s blog, we’re going to be highlighting some tools to find virtual campus tours and showcasing some universities that have taken the leap into 3D tour technology.

Virtual tour tools

Unless you know exactly what you’re looking for, navigating a university’s website can be time-consuming, tricky, or disheartening. But don’t worry, there are ways to circumvent this arduous process.

Google is your friend when looking for a virtual tour. By simply typing “[Name of College] virtual tour” into your browser, if the school you are looking up has a virtual tour, it should pop up as the first result.

This is especially helpful if you know exactly which college you want to check out. However, not all prospective students know immediately which schools they want to see. That’s fine, too!

One great tool to utilize if you’re looking to get a broader range of results is CampusTours. This is a search engine specifically designed to show you virtual tours of college campuses. CampusTours offers you the choice of searching for a specific school, schools in a certain state/providence, or even in countries outside of the USA. If you look through their advanced search tool, there are even more options to search by including tuition costs, student body size, selectivity of the school, sports, majors, and more!

Examples of Virtual Tours

Harvard University – Cambridge, MA

Harvard University is one of the most selective and prestigious universities in the world. It has produced more politicians, doctors, lawyers, engineers, and other world-changing professionals than can be named. So it comes as no surprise that Harvard has an extensive virtual tour available for all those that are looking to check out their dorms, academic buildings, and the campus itself, complete with all the essential information you could need.

Temple University – Philadelphia, PA

Temple University is Philadelphia’s public university. With a campus spanning 390 acres and a student body of almost 40,000 students, Temple has also hopped aboard the 3D tour train with an interactive and guided tour of research facilities, green areas, academic buildings, and residence halls to let prospective students see what life would be like learning and living in the heart of North Philadelphia.

University of Southern California – Los Angeles, CA

The University of Southern California, commonly referred to as USC, is an elite university located in beautiful Los Angeles, California. USC has a diverse population and has many ties culturally and historically to the City of Angels. Their virtual tour takes viewers through their picturesque campus, offering information about campus and the university itself. There is even an option to take a tour specifically about the art and architecture on campus.

There are thousands and thousands of these kinds of virtual tours set up for colleges all across the country. Here at Momentum 360, we couldn’t be happier with this push to incorporate virtual tours into all aspects of life, and we want to see it go further! We have said from the beginning that virtual tours are an essential aspect of any kind of business, and college campuses are no different.