Question of the Day: How does VHT Studios shutting down affect you?21049
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 WGAN ForumFounder & WGAN-TV Podcast Host Atlanta, Georgia |
DanSmigrod private msg quote post Address this user | |
 WGAN Question of the Day  Question of the Day: How does VHT Studios shutting down affect you? Hi All, The WGAN Forum Question of the Day for Wednesday, 23 July 2025: ✓ Question of the Day: "How does VHT Studios shutting down affect you? Best, Dan --- During CoStar’s Q2 2025 earnings call on Tuesday, July 22, 2025, CEO Andy Florence confirmed that CoStar is “winding down operations of Matterport’s photography business, VHT [Studios],” which was acquired in June [2024] but “has not realized its strategic potential,” confirming plans to close it by late summer (timestamps: ~9:32–9:35). Partners using VHT [Studios] should prepare to download assets, update any MLS links, and switch to alternative photography services by August [2025]. |
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WGAN Forum Founder & WGAN-TV Podcast Host Atlanta, Georgia |
DanSmigrod private msg quote post Address this user | |
| Hi All, Here's how a VHT competitor covered the news: ✓ HomeJab (23 July 2025) VHT Studios Is Shutting Down — Here’s Why National Brands Are Turning to HomeJab ✓ Question of the Day: "How does VHT Studios shutting down affect you? Dan |
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 WGAN FanClub Member Suisun City, California |
ScanYourSpace private msg quote post Address this user | |
This is an easy answer... it doesn't  .sorry not much more to add here. tom |
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WGAN Forum Founder & WGAN-TV Podcast Host Atlanta, Georgia |
DanSmigrod private msg quote post Address this user | |
| @ScanYourSpace I am glad that you were not doing a ton of business with VHT Studios that would be going away. Dan |
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WGAN Forum Founder & WGAN-TV Podcast Host Atlanta, Georgia |
DanSmigrod private msg quote post Address this user | |
| Hi All, I posted the news on LinkedIn. Here is an insightful reply: From Ghislaine Lemire, formerly CEO of Urbanimmersive (and now Co-Founder of EstateFunnel That is a bit of a surprise—but when you think about it, it actually makes sense. Building a technology and then competing with your own clients (in this case, photographers) is hard to sustain long term. In my view, this strategy only works if your goal is to fully pivot into a service-based business, leveraging your tech as an exclusive advantage. It's now clear that this wasn’t Co-Star’s vision. I’m surprised they didn’t sell VHT—unless that’s the next piece of news coming… One upside of pushing 3D tours directly to agents through your own photography business is the ability to upsell more advanced features down the line. I remember chatting about if Co-Star would include a 3D for free with all photoshoot. My 2 cents, now that Co-Star is stepping back from the photography side, Matterport will need to be a lot more mindful of how much profit photographers are actually making from offering their 3D tours. Cause they have pressuring it down since the acquisition. |
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ron0987 private msg quote post Address this user | |
| Am I wrong or are we seeing a shift in Matterport, TourFactory then this? I do have to ask is something going on. Not sure to me it just does not make sense for both of these changes again am I wrong am I looking at it the wrong way or from the wrong perspective? | ||
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WGAN Forum Founder & WGAN-TV Podcast Host Atlanta, Georgia |
DanSmigrod private msg quote post Address this user | |
| @ron0987 The numbers may help explain the shutting down of TourFactory (a division of VHT Studios) and VHT Studios (a division of Matterport): Quote: Originally Posted by DanSmigrod More VHT Studios news here in the We Get Around Network Forum: ✓ CoStar to shut down VHT Studios, Matterport’s real estate photography division Best, Dan |
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WGAN Forum Founder & WGAN-TV Podcast Host Atlanta, Georgia |
DanSmigrod private msg quote post Address this user | |
| Hi All, Ghislaine added this note: I'm tempted to add this: Matterport will need to reassure photographers about its intentions regarding data acquisition and monetisation. In my view, photographers should be recognized as the rightful copyright holders of all visual content they capture using Matterport cameras. Their interests—and their voice—should be taken into account when it comes to how Co-Star/Matterport look to monetize that content, if so. Just saying. ;-) —- Your thoughts? Dan |
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ron0987 private msg quote post Address this user | |
| Matterport can give us the copyrights to the content created with their software but can’t be viewed without the viewer that they hold the copyright to and control so what good does it do? They can turn it on and off whenever they please. Once it’s turned private by them you would never know how it was used. So I don’t see that as saving the content. It goes back to being able to download and white label our tours which we can’t do. Or back to the drawing board and we open the old debate we pay to download the high quality 360 panoramic and hand load them into Realsee. Which can be white labeled. Now I will throw this out there if someone has a small Matterport model and is willing to pay for high resolution 360 panoramic photos I will put the time to build the model in Realsee. |
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 WGANStandard Member Osaka, Japan |
Meidansha private msg quote post Address this user | |
| The most interesting part from the Ghislaine Lemire quote is the potential pivot away from the services based business model for Matterport. Something I have been saying for years. It is very labour intensive organising shoots for large corporations. The old model of maintaining a list of registered photographers and letting businesses do the organising themselves was potentially so much more profitable. Hopefully Matterport Capture services will be replaced by a “trusted MSP” list again soon? |
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