Oops…Photosynth. You like it! You really like it!

Was it a case of bad planning, low expectations or just a complete oversight? Did anyone think about how popular Microsoft’s Photosynth application from Microsoft Live Labs was actually going to be?

When I talked about Photosynth back in May I barely gave it any thought at all.

Perhaps the most famous of them is the Photosynth application. This takes a collection of images from the same place and stitches them together into a sort of 3D virtual image of the location.

I thought the technology itself sounded like it would be interesting, but I didn’t really think it would gain much traction with users. Which brings us back to the original question, what was the deal with Microsoft being prepared for the launch.

The Photosynth examples on the website sure make the technology look pretty good. I can imagine this becoming really popular in an organized fashion. I’m thinking of realtors that would use it for virtual house tours and tourist destinations and buildings.

Jason Kincaid covered the failure of Microsoft to be prepared for the popularity of the Photosynth site on TechCrunch.

We see similar optimistic responses to server failure all the time from startups. Except they’re startups. Imagine if Apple had responded to the iPhone’s server registration outage by proclaiming that it was overjoyed by the overwhelming response. It’s understandable that Microsoft is happy to have made a product people like, but let’s save the celebrations until the program actually works.

This comment just refreshes my perception that it doesn’t matter what Microsoft does, people are just going to be haters. They over prepare and someone calls them cocky for thinking their product is awesome and might compete in the market. Or, they just throw something out there and see what happens then they get berated for not having everything polished and presentable. They’re this behemoth of a software company and evil and who knows what lurks behind the walls of the corporation. Or, they show some transparency from their development teams on their blogs and again get persecuted for it in the tech community.

I say keep up the good work and continue doing what you’re doing. Be prepared and be ready to respond when something you have takes off.