Friday, July 11, 2008

Brandeis grads bet on virtual campus tours

By Brendan Lynch

It’s the stuff dreams are made of: A trio of Brandeis University alumni have launched a website, YourCampus360.com, offering virtual tours of college campuses — a business model overlapping that of well-funded Waltham company EveryScape Inc.

YourCampus360’s software uses the Google Maps API and Javascript to simulate a walk around a college campus. The company’s offerings also include an animated tour guide, content management system, blogging tools, video and research material. YourCampus360 would host the content on its servers, while allowing colleges to brand the pages to blend in with their own sites.

The Marlborough-based startup was founded about a year ago, after co-founder Abi Mondelbaum had a dream about applying to a college he’d never seen. He remembered his friend, Taher Baderkhan, had created a website offering virtual tours of New York, and he mashed the two ideas together.

“We thought he was kidding, but then we had some serious discussions about it,” fellow co-founder Baderkhan said.

Along with third co-founder Endri Tolka, Baderkhan and Mondelbaum have completed the virtual tour of Brandeis — where they took 1,000 photos — and are in talks with the school for it to become the first customer. The company is also in talks with other local colleges, which would pay a subscription fee.

Tolka and Baderkhan said that with the rising price of gasoline, the timing was primed for a service that let prospective students see college campuses without actually visiting.
“It’s a lot of money spent going from one college to another,” Baderkhan said. 

A native of Jordan, Baderkhan spoke from experience when he said YourCampus360 could be particularly useful for international students.
“I came here, and I said, ‘Oh great, I’m going to Brandeis. I have no idea what it looks like,’” he said.

YourCampus360, self-funded thus far, is looking for investors and plans to hire between five and 10 salespeople. 

About 20 miles away, in Waltham, EveryScape has snatched up one of YourCampus360’s potential clients. Simmons College has signed on for EveryScape’s paid interior-view service, and the company is talking to other local colleges, according to its CEO, Jim Schoonmaker. While YourCampus360 is focused on the academic niche, EveryScape, founded in 2002 as Mok3 Inc., has the loftier goal of putting the whole world online, Schoonmaker said.

“We’re just scaling up at this point,” Schoonmaker said.

The company unveiled its interior-view service last fall, and Schoonmaker said the breadth of interested companies — not just restaurants and hotels — surprised him.
“We’ve been doing nail salons, dentist’s offices, bookstores,” he said.  

Schoonmaker hadn’t noticed a change in business as gas prices increase, but he said EveryScape is meant to convince users a destination is worth the price of gas to visit, not to be a cheaper substitute.
“We’re trying to convert an online experience to a real-world one,” he said.