14 DAY TRIAL // The Bing Home Sweet Homepage photo contest is not the only challenge from Microsoft designed to inspire users to share their imagery with the world. The Photosynth team is holding its own season thematic contest, under the moniker "Holiday Lights." Specifically, the Redmond company is looking for people to share their Christmas-related images in the unique perspective offered by Photosynth. Users can leverage the technology in order to transform multiple 2D images for a certain location or object into a navigable 3D space compiled by stitching the photos together. The software giant is referring to the process as synthing and to the results as synths.
“Make sure that your synth is in and tagged "holidaylights" by 9:00pm Pacific US time on Sunday December 20th. On Monday morning 21st the Photosynth team will pick the winners. Judging will be based on: 1. Great photography (good composition, exposure, color balance); 2. Good synthyness (100% not required, but needs to be at least somewhat synthy). 3. Creative -- surprise us,” revealed David Gedye, the Photosynth Group program manager.
The truth of the matter is that the Photosynth "Holiday Lights" challenge will not bring the winner anything much beyond fame and glory. Just as the winning photo of the Bing Home Sweet Homepage contest will be used as the background for Microsoft’s search/decision engine for an entire day, so will the winning synth be displayed on the Photosynth homepage for an entire week.
“During the week of December 21st to December 27th we will devote our entire front page to your best synths of holiday lights. The winner of this challenge will get his or her synth displayed in the top spot on the front page all week, and 6 runners up will get their synth thumbnails down below,” Gedye added. “You might decide to shoot a Christmas tree, a decorated house, the most festive street in your neighborhood, or whatever. Frankly, the wierder the better. Just as long as it features lots of little lights!. To enter, all you need to do is create a synth and tag it "holidaylights".”