Now this is just creepy. I'm lucky enough to live in San Francisco, on one of the streets where this service is already available. I just looked up my address and all I can say is that I'm glad my blinds were closed when the Google truck drove by.
I also find it funny that Google managed to come out with this before anyone else even came out with a viable competitor for Google maps. Damn.
Another thing I found interesting about that article is that Mapquest, Google, and Yahoo are all running off data from the same company, Navteq. You've gotta figure that many of the nav systems in cars probably run off their data as well. The implication here is that if all these services have the same map data, the accuracy of directions is determined by the algorithm used in each of these systems, so Mapquest apparently has the best one.
Personally, there's been a few times that the directions I got from Google were incorrect. Once it told me to turn down a street that wasn't there. I like to goof around with Google Maps, but if I need directions to a place I haven't been before then I use MapQuest. Maybe others have had the same experience.
Whoever said you can't teach an old dog new tricks? Looks like grandaddy google still has a few tricks up his sleeve. Will Zucks and his merry band of 20-something API'ers be able to counter 30-something Serge and Larry's 3-D maps? Only time will tell.
I had this exact idea for a startup about a year and a half ago! I really gave it a lot of thought and tried to recruit my friends, but then I heard that Microsoft was doing it, and I (rightly) assumed Google would be too.
Even if I had time, I probably wouldn't have done it either way due to the hundreds of thousands of dollars required to execute it well (360 degree cameras, trucks, drivers, fuel, etc). I didn't know much about startups or investors back then.
But still, it's nice to think that I was able to look into the future back then! I'm sure others shared this vision too - anyone know of startups that attempted to take this on?
B.S. Google Maps doesnt work. Dont need fancy - just basic stuff that is correct - like MapQuest!
I got miserably lost when driving from Olathe KS to Lawrence, KS a few months ago. I used Google Maps which spat out wrong directions. I had blind faith in Google.
In fact I was doing a presentation for Matt, at LRTC in hopes of getting angel investment for juwo.
He told me an interesting story. The lead developer at Google Maps studied at Kansas Univ. and chose his apartment in Lawrence, KS as the zero point coordinates!
It would be amusing (and annoying, of course) if Google started adding virtual billboards to these street-level views and selling ad space on them. Say with an algorithm that would pick out large enough pieces of blue sky from the images, and paste in realistic-looking billboards that would obscure only the sky so as to not render the views totally useless...
