Don’t miss checking out Photosynth, an idea in Microsoft’s Live Labs. You need to download a small app first to work with IE or Firefox.

It’s hard to describe how the technology works. I enjoyed being able to fly through Trafalgar Square,
in way that’s actually smoother, and easier than Second Life. 

But it makes me wonder: If you could zoom in to a Coca-Cola logo on a T-shirt, in a vendor’s display rack, in the vast pigeon-filled piazza of St. Mark’s in Venice (you must sign into Photosynth for this), imagine what this could do elsewhere. Not just for brands (though brand managers would sure like that!) but for organizations trying to create experiences out of the collage of images that could be filed with details.

1. Obvious one: Tourism marketing for travel agents, countries,
states and cities. Get people to submit holiday photos, and turn them
into citizen photo-journalists.

2. Art galleries: Deploy street teams with digital cameras to cover
a topic or art form and mash-up their work into composite experience.

3. Colleges: Stitch together thousands of images out there of
campuses, schools, dorms, pubs and places of interest now in the hands
of alumni. Create a multi-perspective virtual tour that belongs to
them, literally.

4. Mega-events: Political conventions, the Olympics, Street marches
and other crowd-magnets. Wouldn’t it be a great way preserve a
historical record right down to the wording on the buttons, street
signs and posters? Boggles the mind to think what Woodstock would have looked like with this kind of coverage.

This is the outer edge of social media.

There’s a similar use of 3D modeling and digital images in Google’s StreetView,
but it doesn’t involve citizens’ input. We don’t know how Microsoft
will do with Photosynth. But the concept is definitely exciting.