MapJack – A Better & Non-Google Street Imagery Provider

Google Maps Street View is a famous service which provides high-resolution photos straight from the street, allowing users to enjoy amazing panoramas from several locations in the world. Although there are only a few similar services on the market, there's one which may represent a real alternative for Google's service. Codenamed MapJack, the street imagery service only provides photos of San Francisco, Sausalito (United States) and Chiang Mai (Thailand), but the quality of the pictures is quite outstanding. And just like Ionut Alex Chitu, the one who blogged about the service, noted, "they look so good that you almost think you're there."

As you can see in the adjacent photos, the interface of the service is divided into 2 pieces: one of them shows the street imagery, while the other one provides the map of the area with the help of Google Maps. Just like Google Maps Street View, you're able to move around using the mouse cursor, zoom in, zoom out or go forward with a single click. What's different is that MapJack the "coverage area doesn’t stop street-side, we also include walking areas such as Parks, Universities and famous walking streets," as the developers noted on the website.

I guess it's obvious that MapJack is quite an advanced and high-quality service, but I still have one curiosity: just like the Google solution, MapJack shows people's faces, license plates (although they're not too legible). Since we all know the problems encountered by Google when lots of people wanted their faces removed or censored from Street View, I wonder if the growing popularity of MapJack will bring the same requests to its owners...

And as a conclusion, a simple observation: "for Licensing, partnership, advertising opportunities, or to sponsor a new area please send us feedback," it is mentioned on the website. There's no "for buying" in there, so what if Google makes you an offer? Are you willing to sell it to the Mountain View super giant? Let's wait a little bit and see what happens...

MORE RELATED ARTICLES: More Street Views Brought to You by Google Google Earth Reveals Rare Meteorite Crater Google Looking At Balloon Wi-Fi Google Having Car Problems Be a Google Watchman!