We’ve discussed the idea of “indoor StreetView” a few times in the past, with concepts from companies like Peekspy and Urbanimmersive, and I recently had a nice conversation with Mok Oh from Everyscape. These companies are all working to make StreetView-like experiences indoors, but now it appears that Google may be bringing their own solution to the party.
As part of their new “Google Places“, you’ll be able to request a photo shoot of the inside of your business. While the photos are only promised to be going on the Place Page for that company, it’s not much of a stretch to imagine them being seamlessly integrated into StreetView and I imagine it’d be somewhat similar to the indoor Bing Maps (see the 4:00 mark of this video).
It’s inevitable that StreetView-like technology will be available inside of major retailers at some point. It’s unclear if that will come from Google directly or from a third party like Everyscape, but this certainly seems like it could be a step in that direction.
About Mickey Mellen
Mickey has been using Google Earth since it was released in 2005, and has created a variety of geo-related sites including Google Earth Hacks. He runs a web design firm in Marietta, GA, where he lives with his wife and two kids.
A good idea! We could go inside office blocks, hospitals, museums and all sorts!
I cannot remember what it was right now. But I’m 90% sure I’ve heard this talked about directly from Google before. It was even branded. It was called something like Midori, and it talked about assisting in navigation to conference hall rooms and stuff. Sadly, I can’t find the original post now with all the noise from posts like this one but I’m 90% sure they’ve already said this publicly. I imagine this might be the first step in rolling that out though. It makes sense.
The google streetview initially was a privacy breach due to some residences finding their houses on the scene. But indoors? Some businesses will welcome it and some will not.
Google streetView would take this integration a step further, showing panoramic photos at the location of a programmed destination.
Google StreetView is great for the hotel business because you can see the hotel’s amenities in a touch of a button.
In Google Art Project, which took Street View technology inside 17 acclaimed museums, this project is another creative implementation of Street View technology.