Deep Zoom and Photosynth for Marketers

There are a variety of technologies that Microsoft has that marketers and advertisers are often not aware of that can be used to create great online consumer experiences. Two of these are Deep Zoom and Photo Synth.

Deep Zoom allows the user to drill into close-up details within a very large photo. The entire photo doesn’t need to download for the user to explore it so the experience is quick and fun. See examples from Nike and Hard Rock. Build your own with the Deep Zoom Composer. Wikipedia has a variety of other Deep Zoom examples too. Developers can get more info on Deep Zoom via MSDN.

Photosynth stitches a variety location-related of photos together so the user can explore the area, but while the photos are “related” they don’t merge to create a single panoramic photo like you can make in Windows Live Photo Gallery (I use it all the time to create my own panoramic photos). Check out Obama’s inauguration for a good example.  Wikipedia has a variety of other Photosynth info too.