Last week, I was collecting a set of links from Google Street View for the blog – but today, I bow to StreetViewGallery where over 100 different, entertaining “StreetViews” have been collected thus far.  

I’m assuming that 692 Escondido Road, Stanford, California, remains a favorite.   (Use the zoom function for the area behind the guy walking on the sidewalk, you’ll see why.)

What’s GoogleStreetView?  Google has sent out a couple of guys in a van (here’s a pix of the van) to roam the country, taking 360 degree shots of the streets they’re driving – starting with the bigger (and maybe, cooler) cities and then expanding out. 

The goal?  Maps with real-life views, which is great for people who give directions like, “turn left at the McDonald’s and then go down a couple of lights, and then take a right at the high school.  If you past the KFC, you’ve gone too far.”  PaperStreet points out how Google StreetView will be very helpful for a lot of people, finding law offices and the like. 

The problem is: that van is really, really doing its job.  When the site launched last week, a woman named Mary Kalin-Casey checked out her home address in Oakland and discovered you could see her cat in the window.  Mary complained on BoingBoing, and others soon followed.   Like the ones complaining about the StreetView of a guy relieving himself by the side of the road, for example. 

Continue Reading »