Google Street View coverage has been increasing at a steady pace for the last few years, with new countries being added every few months. There are, however, still many places that do not have Street View and feel left out. One such place is the Faroe Islands, which are situated north of Scotland about halfway between Norway and Iceland. A group of Faroe Islanders decided to start a campaign #WeWantGoogleStreetView but rather than simply wait for Street View they started capturing their own Street View with the help of other residents of the Faroe Islands – the sheep. Read more about it here. Also see their website SheepView360 and the YouTube video below:
On the SheepView360 website there are some 360° YouTube videos where you can look around while watching the video or pause it and look around as if it is Street View. This makes us wonder whether such features will one day make it into Street View. Would 360° videos improve the Street View experience or not work that well?
We only managed to find one Sheep View image in Street View, but it is a new project, so we expect many more will follow.
In some places, the reason Google has not collected Street View has to do with governments not allowing it for various reasons. Germany put a halt to Street View collection over privacy concerns (some parts of Germany do have Street View) and India has also so far refused to allow it on a large scale (some Street View exists) over security concerns. Submissions by individuals however do not face the same legal obstacles so there is nothing stopping you from adding to Street View in those countries.
Currently, user submitted photos do not work in Google Earth’s Street View so there is no way to see Sheep View in Google Earth. Hopefully Google is working on a fix for this.