Mon, June 4, 2007
Google Street View—5:06 PM
The history of Google Maps has been rich with fun add-ons. Lagging behind Yahoo! Maps, they caught up fast, integrating their cartoony streets and multiple-destination driving directions, then adding innovations like satellite photos, building outlines, etc. Now you can take a street level view, and know your landmarks before you drive.
As with anything else, there are immediately dozens of lists of things people have found looking around the service. Like the giant desert Maxim cover or the flying missile in Satellite Maps, but much more in-your-face. My favorite list so far is this listing, but there are many. A reflection of the Google van in a storefront; a guy seeming to pee beside the road; a throng of abortion clinic protesters. You can Google around and find them all. The topless (?) sunbathers have made pretty much every list.
Tremendous fun to look at, but my question is, how the hell do people find this stuff? Are they literally clicking through, block by block, on every single street in the major cities that are online? That's commitment. If only we could leverage all that energy and defeat global warming/the Chinese/Trump.
Now it's just a matter of time before someone takes a low-level job with Immersive Media, sneaks a look at the vans' daily route, and stages some kind of wacky scene, performance, or crazed nude bacchanalia for the cameras. I can't wait!
