Company.

• Author: Peterson, Eric
• Position: [small biz] TECH STARTUP - Company overview

SLOPEVIEWS CORP.

INITIAL LIGHT BULB: Working together on another business venture, James Hay of Telluride and James Lee of Breckenridge were having lunch in the latter ski town when the topic of Google Street View arose. As they discussed the much-hyped virtual counterpart to the real world, the conversation soon veered to the question, "Is anybody taking Google Street View to the ski slopes?"

Hay and Lee saw an opportunity to take interactive Street View-like media to the next level with 360-degree video. They launched SlopeViews and bought a softball-sized dodecahedron (a 12-sided instrument) with 11 high-definition cameras mounted on it a few months later. "We've skied with it; we've climbed with it," Hay says. "You can mount it on a backpack or car or a helicopter. It's a very versatile system."

Just after the Vancouver Winter Olympics, the company launched a Whistler demo--the world's first immersive ski map," touts Hay--on its website to show the power of 360-degree video targeting the ski industry.

IN A NUTSHELL: While Google released a product called Slope View during the Winter Olympics, it doesn't feature video or much in the way of interactivity. "What's missing is something that's fun to experience," Lee says.

SlopeViews' OnSnow portal, currently in beta mode, can showcase both a resort's slopes and the streets in the ski town below with 360-degree video. Users click and drag on the video to change the perspective. "You can have some fun with it," Lee says. "On the slopes, there are people in the shot and you're moving, and there are people skiing around you."

Noting that the recent push has been video-mapping the streets in various Colorado ski towns, Lee says he envisions building a comprehensive library of 360-degree video content to create "a...