Google Street View Gets Steroid Injection

Google has recently improved its Google Maps service with a more advanced and powerful “Street View” extension for local business listings. People searching for a service or business with Google Maps now have the option “Street View” that enables them to look up a company in real 3D imagery.

After recent scandals in Switzerland and Germany, the tool comes with enhanced features like license plates masking and face blurring to ensure that privacy laws are not broken in any way.

Google also warns companies about unlawful competitors that might register their competitor's business with Google Maps and might place opponent's headquarters in a different place. Thus, Google urges any company that wants to use this service to register its business with Google Street View and have control over the placement of its headquarters or branches in the right spot. Listings can be claimed at this link.

The tool comes as a blessing from the sky (referring to the satellite) for everyone that wants to look up a company. As an example to understand how this really works, let’s say you want to go out with somebody. If a user wants to look up a restaurant in New York, they will have to access the Google Maps website, enter a search query (we used “restaurant New York”) and click on one of the results.

The right pane containing the map will automatically adjust and display a pop-up over the selected result. In the pop-up, there will be a new option called “Street View” (see attached photos). By clicking this option, the right pane goes to a 3D photo, displaying the restaurant's location in the real world.

The location marker will continue to appear in the photo, indicating in what building the restaurant resides. Users also have the possibility to rotate the view and look at the surroundings to get a better feel of the location.

An explanatory video provided by Google can be found at the end of this article.