Google Maps Goes Streetside

Google launched a street view mapping feature for several cities this morning at the Where 2.0 conference, and GigaTeam is pretty excited about checking out the views around our own San Francisco digs. We just chatted with John Hanke, Google’s Director of Google Earth and Google Maps, after his presentation at the conference and he had some interesting details to add.

He said while Google is using a partnership with Immersive Media to create the street level mapping service, Google has also been driving its own cars around the Bay Area and collecting the street level views here. Hanke wouldn’t go into too many details around the vehicles themselves, but if anyone sees any Google-mobiles with high tech photo gear around the Bay, snap a pic and send us the photo.

Google’s Street Views is part of the company’s broader attempts to create a richer experience for its geoweb services, and follows the launch of its My Maps map mashup tool in April. One part of that richer experience could be video, Hanke tells us, though he says the company has nothing yet to announce for google maps and video. Hanke points out that right now My Maps users can embed YouTube clips.


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rg12345 - 5/30/2007 12:54:53 PM

+1 Boost

Kinda late ... just check the msn maps, with the Aerial/Bird Eye view. No need for what google does here, besides they will need tons of cars to develop something for real with this system.

maps.live.com
Click on the Aerial View (where the N,S,W,E buttons are on the top/left side of the map).