14 DAY TRIAL // Google has been expanding Street View around the world, though it hasn't been received with open arms in plenty of cases, and its Street View cars have been scouring cities on several continents. But the cars can only go so far and where the road stops so do they. Not the Street View trike, though, the crazy contraption has been used to cover plenty of remote locations and it may be headed your way if you live around any of the top voted locations in the latest Google Street View contest.
"Last October, we gave Street View fans the opportunity to vote for the special attractions around the United States that they most want to see featured on Google Maps. In the first round, we received more than 25,000 suggestions, which we narrowed down to the 24 finalists that were put up to a public vote. All in all, nearly a quarter million votes were cast," Dan Ratner, senior mechanical engineer at Google, the creator of the Street View trike, wrote.
There were five categories in total, University Campuses, Parks & Trails, Pedestrian Malls, National Landmarks and Theme Parks & Zoos, and they all now have a winner. In the University Campuses category, which was the most popular one with over 70,000 people casting their votes, the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York won in the end and the trike will be heading that way soon.
It looks like a lot of cyclists were interested in the Parks and Trails category, with the Boulder Creek Path, in Boulder Colorado, getting the most votes. The Faneuil Hall Marketplace in Boston won in the Pedestrian Malls category and the National Mall in Washington, housing the Smithsonian Institution museums, the Washington Monument and the Capitol Building, won in the National Landmarks one. Finally, Detroit Zoo will be visited by Google's Street View trike, as it won in the Theme Parks & Zoos category.
Google got an overwhelming result, 238,000 people voted to have their favorite locations added in Street View, so it will be going to plenty of other places too after it's done with those five. Clearly, Street View is a very interesting product, but, even so, the response has been great showing that, at least at home, the feature isn't looked at with distrust, but rather enthusiasm.