JobSiteVisitor.com has teamed up with Habitat for Humanity of Colorado to provide an online photo hosting service to help showcase the many Habitat for Humanity homes being built across the state of Colorado. JobSiteVisitor is a unique photo management service specifically designed for the construction industry. The service makes it simple and easy for groups like Habitat to provide regular weekly progress updates and time-lapse slide shows to their project team. JobSiteVisitor also makes it easy to integrate and post progress into existing websites and social networks like Twitter and Facebook.

Habitat for Humanity affiliates will have the opportunity to integrate JobSiteVisitor’s photo hosting platform into their individual websites.  They will also be able to take advantage of custom branding feature that will allow them to change their JobSiteVisitor pages and insert their own logos, colors, and links. This will be great way to share progress photos throughout their websites and other social media networks. Here’s an example of what users will see, just click on the screen shot to the left.

Many current JobSiteVisitor customers comment on how much time the service is saving them. Recently, Habitat for Humanity of Metro Denver’s Marketing and Communications Manager, Robyn Burns, reviewed the application and said that “JobSiteVisitor.com is a sophisticated photo organization program that’s going to save us time in formatting, uploading and distributing photos.  It will also be a great resource for the volunteers, staff and donors who help us build these homes.”

Habitat for Humanity of Metro Denver will be using JobSiteVisitor on 4 new homes that will break ground later this summer.  More projects across the state will be on the way and we’ll keep everyone posted.  The entire Habitat for Humanity organization has been great to work with and they provide a wonderful service to families in need. We’re very excited about this partnership.  If you have a non-profit group and would like to learn more about subscription discounts or how to use JobSiteVisitor.com on your next construction project let us know.

On June 3, 2010 the Colorado Urban Land Institute hosted an Explorer Series that focused on recent hotel and hospitality trends. They had a great panel discussion and it was interesting to listen to everyone’s thoughts on the current trends and what they’re seeing in the market today. Following the discussion we took a walking tour of the recently completed Sheraton, the ongoing Four Seasons, and the upcoming Colorado National Bank project. Here are some photos I took during the tour:

The Panel Discussion was made up of 2 developers, a builder, and a hotel analytics expert:

- Navin Dimon with Stonebridge Companies talked about their exciting new hotel development taking place at the old Colorado National Bank builidng at 918 17th Street in Denver. It was great to hear that they’ve protected this building and have pushed to get this building added to the National Register.

- Ken Geist from Sage Hospitality also provided some uplifting news when he reported that their Colorado hotels had better than expected numbers last month. I also thought it was interesting to hear him discuss the benefits of being aligned with larger hotel brands in this economic down turn.

- Christopher Day with Swinerton Builders talked about their recent hotel work in Denver, specifically the Four Seasons which will be wrapping up sometime near the end of October 2010. He also discussed LEED Certified buildings and getting builders on-board early to reduce and eliminate the green building premium, he also mentioned how their hotel clients have been leveraging “Green Buildings” in their marketing material.

- Greg Hartman with STR Analytics also put together some great charts showing different trends in the hotel industry here in Colorado over the past 20 years. It was eye-opening to see how the hotel industry has reacted to the economic highs and lows over the past few years.

Overall it was a great event, lots of good information, good networking, and I know we all enjoyed the reception at Tamayo.

If you’re interested in the idea of a webcam but don’t have the budget or technical background to install one on your construction project you might want to consider using a motion activated camera and JobSiteVisitor.com. The motion camera takes a bunch of photos and JSV keeps them organized online for your project team to access.

These motion activated cameras are typically used for hunting but are a great way to document construction progress. They’re waterproof, take good pictures, have a long lasting power supply, easy to use, affordable, and have a variety of accessories to meet your project needs.

What to buy – Budget $500:

For the best prices on StealthCam products check out Amazon. All of these items can be purchased for under $500. Depending on your site conditions and project needs you may need additional accessories or a different subscription package. For more information about JobSiteVisitor.com please visit:  About the Service and Example Projects

Camera Set up:

Cautions:

- Make sure you get the correct auxiliary power supply 12V or 6V depending on your camera.
- Mount camera with in 30-feet of where there is going to be lots of motion.
- Turn the flash off unless you specifically need it. This will save on the battery.
- Be sure to set your date correctly.
- Set photo interval between 30-60min depending on motion, schedule, and how many photos you want.
- Put 6-C batteries into the camera. This allows you to unplug the auxiliary power & keep your camera settings.
- Check up on your camera at least twice a month. Check photo count and low battery light.
- Lock it up, hide it, and disguise it if you’re concerned about theft.
- You can always contact us if you have any questions.

We just wanted to give everyone a sneak preview of our new Deep Zoom feature we’ve added to our service. This thing is just too cool not to share. This new feature will make it easy to drill down into your construction photos. This feature is scheduled to be rolled out with our new Administration Section at the end of May.

Deep Zoom Demo

Not only is this feature really cool it’s also going to save you a bunch of time when it comes to taking a closer look at something while reviewing your progress photos. Don’t forget to check out the FULL SCREEN button (it’s the square button on the right).

Let us know what you think of this new feature.

Note:  This feature is currently only activated for Project Administrators. The Photo URL feature allows users to get the URL address of any photo that has been uploaded. With the address users can insert these images into websites and or blogs without having to locate the original photo.

Step #1 – Find the photo you’re interested in using the Weekly Viewer

Step #2 – Click on the button that reads “Photo URL”

Step #3 – Copy the URL you’re interested in:
FYI, the Large Photo is approximately 1080×1620 and the Medium is (367×550)

The service is pretty straight forward, as always if you have any questions or concerns just contact us.

Below is an example of an inserted Medium Photo that is linked to the Large Photo.