The fastest way to create and view Rich Media on the Internet.

By Melissa Campanelli

Now that most of your customers have broadband, your site should offer rich media features such as zoom, virtual e-catalogs and dynamic color-swatching. It--s basically a must have for many retailers, especially those where touch and feel are critical to product conversion, says Sucharita Malpuru, a senior analyst at Forrester Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts. --Anyone in this space who doesn--t have features such as zoom and alternative view is seen as being really behind--.

A host of companies offer low-cost tools that make it easy to add rich media to your site. Virtual Iris (www.virtualiris.com) for one, sells software for enhancing pictures, e-mails, and websites with next-generation rich media elements. Prices range from free (for basic use of www.Irisize.com, it--s consumer community site, to monthly licensing fees of several thousand dollars for downloadable enterprise desktop products.

The article continues on, and can be read in its entirety in the November, 2006 issue of Entrepreneur magazine.