Street View from Google

Thanks to the newest development from Google Maps and, one assumes, countless hours of people effort spent taking photographs across several of the biggest cities in the US, you can now stand outside of Macy's and look around Union Square, San Francisco from the comfort of your PC.

Take a look at the introductory video:


I couldn't agree more with Valleywag who points out that, in the battle for mapping supremacy between Microsoft and Google,

In most cases, Google's implementation is cleaner and more thoughtful (compare Street View's slick in-map photo views with Microsoft's silly car-based metaphor)...

Simply look at Google's Street View and Microsoft's Windows Live Local to see the difference.

However, this still feels very much like early days and there's plenty of distance yet to run in the location based, web mapping application/information journey.


Further details from The Map Room and Valleywag.