See how adidas and Google Maps adopted Immersive Media's technology to give audiences director-like control over their online experience.

Most photo-editing software comes standard with some form of panoramic stitching tool. Immersive Media uses the same basic concept with its new technology. The company developed a camera that consists of a sphere-like device with lenses pointing in all directions and some software that stitches the clips together.

Last May, Google launched its Google Maps Street View, assisted by Immersive Media's camera technology. The service grants users searching for a destination the ability to zoom in so close that they can see what the area looks like before they get there. It's the world stitched together with .jpegs.

The image above shows 3600 Watt Way, smack in the center of my alma mater, USC. Had you searched for directions to this location via Google Maps, you could have zoomed in this close, ensuring that you know what to look for once you arrive.

When a user zooms in on a location like this, the mouse can be used to control which direction the user will look, since Immersive's camera technology filmed every direction. It is a subtly unnerving attempt at ultimate user-convenience -- and as such it's right up Google's alley.

However, there are less eerie applications for a camera that can see everywhere at once, and with the flexibility of Immersive's technology, some brands have already caught on.

Wanna be a baller?
I can't comprehend exactly why anybody would want to hang out in the New Jersey Nets' locker room (I'm a Lakers fan), but thanks to adidas, you can. Video clips take the user into the locker room with the 360x300 degree camera view when using Shockwave (Flash limits to a 360 degree view). With a click and a drag, the angle changes direction to whichever view the user wishes to see. One moment he may be zooming in on Richard Jefferson, the next, Vince Carter. The user is the director.

The adidas "Basketball is a brotherhood" campaign was assembled by a collaboration between adidas' agency, TAOW Productions, LLC, and of course, Immersive Media.

Immersive has tended to regard its technology through a more scientific/practical lens, undertaking geo-mapping and situational awareness applications. Taow has taken on a marketing approach to connect the "immersive" experience with brands following its larger non-traditional approach to media. I called Taow to speak a bit about the platform and was connected to, true to non-traditional media form, a guy named Butch.

Butch Bannon, Taow's director of business development and special projects, said the company is working closely with Immersive to offer solutions for "branded content, broadcast strategy, and gaming."

For now, the adidas campaign offers a rare chance for "millions of people across the world to watch to see the same three-minute clip and for everyone to have a different experience," Bannon said. "From an advertising standpoint, people are looking for different ways to connect, less cluttered advertisements, more compelling content and better ad integration."

That "more compelling content" could mean users who are more willing to sit through a pre-roll or interstitial. For now, however, the technology seems to best fit with branded content.

What are you trying to prove?
adidas is proving that experimentation can pay off. Immersive Media may not offer the highest resolution user experience currently, but it will get better. adidas will get the credibility of being the first brand to use the technology, giving it an apparent, although somewhat deceptive, proprietary claim to it. In other words, when Immersive sells its technology to Nike, consumers will be less inclined to react as positively. Nike will appear to have "ripped adidas off."

And to this type of brand, credibility on the streets is hard won.

Adam Shahbaz is assistant editor, iMedia Communications, Inc. Read full bio.