Awesome May 3, 2012 posted by Nigel

Google Business Photos brings street view inside your store or restaurant

googlebusinessphotos small1 Google Business Photos brings street view inside your store or restaurant

One day when we look back, I think we’ll recognize several points in time as being seminal in our use of the Internet. The launch of YouTube, proving that video clips could provide an alternative entertainment medium to rival TV, HTML5 for the means to replace the desktop computer with a web browser based device and finally Google Maps with Street View, as proof of the fact that digitizing across a global network can introduce a completely new paradigm for our living habits.

The fact is that Street View is delivering more and more value every day, as people use it to navigate uncertain areas and grab views of the world they could never see before. Now the clever folk at Google are introducing a version of street view for inside shops and stores which could have the same effect.

googlebusinessphotos3 small Google Business Photos brings street view inside your store or restaurant

Google Business Photos is a new project to allow any shop owner to digitize the interior of their store and give prospective customers a 360 degree panoramic tour of their products and services. The clever thing is not just that this should lead to more engagement between customers and store owners, at a time when online shopping threatens the livelihood of many stores on the high street, but also that it is being done in conjunction with an army of freelance ‘trusted’ photographers, who will be doing the actual photography.

The self-service model means that any store owner can request a photo shoot from a photographer in their area, after which the panorama will be uploaded to Google’s servers, tweaked and adjusted and embedded on the relevant portion of Google Maps for everyone to see. The store owner also owns their own photos, and can order re-shoots, or have changes made if they’re unhappy with the look. It’s a brilliant idea and one that should really help encourage consumers to return to their local stores.

About the Author:

Nigel is the managing editor of the Red Ferret, as well as a freelance columnist for the Sunday Times newspaper in London. Loves tech and fancies himself as a bit of a futurist, but then don't we all?

Nigel – who has written 5154 posts on The Red Ferret Journal.

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http://www.itswordpress.com/ Geoffrey

Surprising little from Google on HOW this process works and if/how someone could do their own photography. What's up with that?
- http://www.redferret.net Nigel Powell
  
  Geoffrey, the idea is that only qualified freelance photographers can do the photos and panoramas (presumably to keep quality up to scratch). It's very early days with the programme as yet, we can expect to hear more details as time goes on I suspect.
Anthony

Apparently you haven’t done much research. EveryScape has been doing this for years. But then again Google took the idea of Street View from them as well…years and years ago…does Google have any original ideas or do they steal good ones and then throw tons of money at them until they convince the world that it was theirs to begin with?
- http://www.redferret.net Nigel Powell
  
  With respect, most great ideas are built on the backs of the work of others, whether in scientific research, the arts or technology in general. Google's contribution to the global mapping paradigm has been simply outstanding. To commit to deploying a global fleet of mapping vehicles, as well as off-road units, is the kind of brave – and yes expensive – decision that other companies (e.g. Microsoft or Yahoo!) could also have done, except they didn't have the vision or courage. By your analogy the SpaceX program is completely invalid because it is built on the back of NASA's work. Or indeed the moon landing, which was based on the work of Werner Von Braun during WWII.