Watch out VCs, Kickstarter is picking up steam.

Thanks to the digital crowd-funding platform, in mere months, an iPhone accessory went from being a garage prototype to spawning $169,200+ of liquid capital and 2,600 pre-orders. The above 3-minute video was all it took to convince thousands to offer up a chunk of their paychecks to an eager entrepreneur. But enough about the power of Kickstarter. You can read articles and articles about the revolutionary platform on TechCrunch.

What I am more excited about is this recently-funded technology project. As the long-tail gets longer, it seems that we’re starting to see a trend in rapid technology consumerization. Hardware and software that was initially developed for the enterprise is now being compacted, manufactured and distributed to the consumer audience. The B2B and B2C markets are converging!

The GoPano Micro is a sub-$100 alternative to a ~$50,000 technology that I’ve been focusing a whole lot of my time on for the past two years — 360° Video Capture. A simple camera adaptor for the iPhone 4 allows anyone to create full-motion interactive panoramic videos. Can you imagine the future of UGC with this technology? Realtors will create virtual video tours; families will re-live vacations like never before; crimes will be increasingly solved by forensic video evidence; filmmakers will release audience-controllable feature films. Hell, I predict that YouTube will support interactive 360° video by 2013.

We’re living in the age of the paradigm shift. Entrepreneurs are in control. Immersive storytelling is no longer an artform. A simple video can spawn thousands of micro-investments.

There’s no better a time to be a part of the action.

One of my favorite consumer-grade immersion technologies of today is the stitched photo panorama. With higher resolution cameras, gyroscopes and internet connectivity built into a growing number of mobile handsets, I predict a whole lot of movement in this arena.

When I first got my hands on Occipital’s 360 Panorama app for iOS, I knew it was revolutionary (albeit a bit of a toy for the early-adopter set). Last week’s launch of Microsoft’s Photosynth app proved the value the auto-stitching technology could bring to the masses — hinting to me that this space is just about to blow up.

Unfortunately, there are still many issues with both platforms (image fidelity, color correction, brightness/contrast, blurriness), but that’s to be expected with revolutionary technology.

As a test, here are panoramas created with each of the apps (taken with my iPhone 4 at different times), both at Tocquigny’s weekly All-Hands-On-Deck meeting:

Photosynth

360 Panorama