GOOGLE MAPS, GOOGLE EARTH AND NOW STREET VIEW

Google never ceases to impress me. Of course there's their world-class search engine that usually finds exactly what I'm looking for within the first results page and more typically falls within the first five choices.  It's spooky how accurate the results can be. Then there was Google Maps with the ability to locate almost any place on the planet. Google Earth appeared and I still find myself spending hours just exploring the planet.  I thought the latter was going to be hard to top but it seems like Google may be on its way to doing just that.

During the Computer America radio show, my Co-Host told me to go to Google Maps and type in a location in Miami. I picked an address I knew and saw the familiar Google Maps bird's eye view of the area. Then he suggested I click on a new button at the upper right portion of the browser window which I hadn't seen before. It was titled "Street View" with the word "New!" in bright red next to it. I clicked on it and once again, I rekindled the same feelings I had when I first saw Google Earth.

When you click on Street View, each street on the map has a thin blue outline. This indicates the streets on the map that support the new feature. A little avatar of a person standing also appears in the middle of the browser window. Instructions say to drag the little person to any location on the map. When you release the mouse button, a large rectangular window with the street address in the upper left corner will appear and float above the street map. And within the window will be a photographic image of the street itself. Give it a try for yourself. It's really cool. And there's more.

Superimposed within the Street View photograph is a translucent stripe that pans along with the photo whenever you move it. The stripe loosely correlates to the line of the street you see on the bird's eye map view.  Arrows pointing toward each end of the stripe connote the direction each end of the street is heading. Dragging the mouse within the Street View window causes the photograph to pan a full 360 degrees. As you pan, the stripe moves along with its directions to help keep your frame of reference.  Street View works with the drawn map image underneath the Street View window as well as the Satellite, and the Hybrid option that combines both of them as an overlay. So as you move the little avatar, a corresponding photo of the location will appear.

Additional features let you expand the Street View window to full screen and zoom controls that let you magnify as well as rotate. The mouse scroll wheel also lets you magnify the images.

As I understand it, Google has a number of vans with cameras mounted on top.  As they drive, they take the pictures. Given the enormity of such a task, the Street View feature currently works in a limited number of major metropolitan areas. These include New York City, Miami, San Francisco, Las Vegas and Denver. Plans are in the works to expand the coverage but my guess is that it's going to take a while before we see expanded coverage.  And even as coverage expands, how long before the current images become stale and have to be taken over again? Even satellite photographs can take a year or more before new images replace the older ones. So imagine how long it may take with people driving around in vans. They will have to increase the number of vehicles in the fleet by a pretty big number if they plan to get more coverage with greater frequency.

Obviously Street View is a work in progress but Google seems to be off with a good start. Hopefully they can keep the momentum going. But in the meantime, check out the limited coverage so far. I've heard that some notable people have been caught in the images without their knowledge.  Evidently Street View observers are checking out the pedestrians in the photographs as well as the streets.

http://maps.google.com

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