Photosynth meets Google Street View

I was speaking earlier this week at the Online Marketing Show in London doing a slot on how we see more rich media integrating to search.

but for me one of the interesting little tech developments that we have coming later this year is something called EveryScape.

I have always been a big fan of Microsoft Photosynth and always will be and when a bout a month back Google launched Street Views in Beta on the maps in the US.

But what Everyscape does it to combined the two and give you the directional ability of Maps but then takes the like of the views from Google Street Views to the next level by giving you the ability to navigate in a virtual world of cities and step off the street in to shops and cafes and view the interior as well. The possibilities are endless and the marketing opportunities great.

Watch out for the launch later this year.

Where will this lead? Interesting eye project.

KDDI Corporation is a Japanese technology company and the have set up a form of imaged based viral marketing site. it is well worth a look as there is nothing around quite like it.

The project that assembles photos, Web images and movies into a constantly morphing display which will show thousand of individual images making up one consolidated picture you can then choose to zoom in and out on the individual panels

Will be interesting to see what the plans are for it, i recommend giving it a go at the Eye-Project site will send you crazy hunting round all the images but it is very addictive!

The Power of the YouTube

I have to say when you think about it after seeing some of Britain has Got Talent last week you could never have imagined a phone salesman called Paul Potts from Carphone Warehouse would let alone be able to sing Opera but actually win the whole thing.

But that's enough about that as it has nothing to do with search. What I am keen to watch is how many views it gets on YouTube. I have found 2 instances of it uploaded on there and already 3.2 Million people have looked at it and with YouTube growing a gathering pace a a rapid rate how high will it go and who will seize the chance to use the space as a marketing opportunity?

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=1k08yxu57NA

I have seen the future and the future is 'Surface'

I was having a play with this concept the other week and for me it it a sign of things to come. www.surface.com is another one of those rare things that you look at and it genuinely makes you take a sharp prolonged intake of breath and go 'wow!'

Check out the video on the right hand side and imagine being able to pay for bills, pass directions and images between devices without cables. Fantastic! Very cool website too!

Steve Balmer as you have never seen before

Here is a blast from the past!

Photosynth.....Oh Yes!

Now I was talking to my mate Mel at Microsoft today and he pointed out that the Photosynth technology is now live on the the BBC website for buildings in the UK.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/britain/photocollection/index.shtml

This is one cool product, I first saw the video for this at the back end of last year giving the vision of how a wire frame was created of St Peters Square in Rome and how you could potentially upload images to the wire frame. It was one of the few products as you say made me sound like the dog from the Churchill ad when I first saw it and i let out the usual advert line of 'Oh Yes'.

Go and check out the product as Mel can always be heard saying at........ http://labs.live.com/photosynth/bbc/default.htm

It really is worth the time to check it out! Cheers Mel.

Natural Mapping....a good thing??

I was looking at Google the other day and playing a bit with trying to get map data at the top of the natural listings. This seems to be generally the case now in some sectors if you do a location specific search such as 'Gym Manchester' on the main SERPS page.

You will then get a Google Maps listing at the top which links you through to the Maps functions from there.

But I did see another I have not seen before which is a expand function within the Natural Listings.

This seems to be a Google Base upload which integrates through into the Google Maps technology. It shows Google pushing more product to the natural listings offering more control as well. Is this a good thing?? Only time will tell......

What a week of Talking!

Last week was one of those weeks but of Great value. On Tuesday Latitude participated in one of the first ever live video Webinars in the UK. myself, Richard Firminger (Yahoo), Mel Carson (Microsoft) and Phil Buxton (Revolution) all sat down in front of the cameras for an hour of chat with questions about the Search Landscape.

It all went well and you can watch the event back at:

http://revolution.webseminars.co.uk/index.php?c=406

Wednesday was another full day and spent it with a good friend of mine Mike Grehan.

We were doing the NMA Search Training day which was a good event and a chance to impart search knowledge to people looking to run camapigns in the industry. u would highly reccommend anyone attending courses like this (not just because i was one of the trainers!).

Great day and a great chance to catch up with Mike as even though we are both Geordies it is not often we are in the same place at the same time!

the final of the trio was on Thursday where i got the chance to be the Chair of the Marketing Weekly Killer Search Conference this was another great day with some great speakers and the event always seems to go down well.

Onto the next ones in the coming months with the likes of the Online Marketing Show at the end of June