Google Street View: Initial Thoughts

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Posted by: Adam Rubin, at 11:56 am on October 8, 2009

Tags: advertising, Google, privacy, street view

Don’t freak out, privacy doesn’t really exist anyways.

When Google began its operations to archive and organize the web, it used the assumption that if you put something online, then you want it indexed. Opting out is your burden. This policy extends across most of its services; if there’s an image online, Google wants to know all about it and then make it accessible to you (and then deliver related ads of course). Same goes for blog posts and books. This policy is interesting. It’s like saying “we’re doing this for you and while it’s weird and appears to cross some conceptual line, you’ll derive lots of benefits from it and be happy in the end, so just trust us and let us do our thing”. And usually, Google is right.

Google applies this policy to our physical world as well. As you must know by now, Google has archived and organized images from the real world and mapped it to its much-loved Maps service, calling it Street View. The results of Street View are nothing short of fantastic, enabling strolls in the US, Canada, several European countries, including the Czech Republic, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, and the UK, Japan, Taiwan, Australia, and New Zealand. Google used small cars and special vehicles (see below) to capture images from a row of positions along the street, one every approximately 10 or 20 meters, from a height of about 2.5 meters.

Some people are a bit uncomfortable with this. A friend of mine expressed that she wanted to have the images of her home taken down, and there are plenty of accounts of people frustrated at the fact that they were “caught” somewhere that they shouldn’t have been. Some towns have opted-out entirely. Last February, a lawsuit was filed last year by a couple who argued that Google violated their privacy when a Street View camera car drove past a “private road” sign in their driveway in order to take pictures of their house. The Pennsylvania district court concluded that Google’s Street View mapping service is not an invasion of privacy, dismissing the lawsuit and denied a request for injunctive relief that aimed to block Google from publishing Street View imagery. Google argued that complete privacy does not exist and pointed out that photos of the home and floor plans are already available to the public on the several sites. It also argued that it already provides adequate measures to protect privacy by making it possible for individuals to ask to have pictures of their property removed from Street View. To go the extra mile, in a seemingly magical way, Google has blurred out people’s faces and the license plates of cars, along with some other personal details.

I know it seems a bit creepy. There’s the vague aroma of WTF! in this service. But once you play with it, you’ll love it. After all, real privacy is indeed somewhat of a myth in today’s world. So jump in and have fun, or opt-out.

Why it feels so good.

If Google can keep the personal details hidden and provide prompt responses to opt-out requests, then the benefits truly outweigh the drawbacks. If you haven’t played with Street View yet, you’re missing out. I recently spent a mildly emotional fifteen minutes wondering around the neighborhood where I grew up. When compared to searching for related images on Google Image Search, Flickr, Picasa and traditional Maps, the virtue of this experience really stands out.

Think about the house or setting where grew you up; you’re probably not just thinking about a picture of your home, but rather many contextual details related to the house. Maybe it’s a cranky neighbor, or a tree down the block, or a park, or a classic car that used to sit across the street. One picture alone is decent; place it in context and magic erupts. It’s that much more real, and it makes a big experiential difference.

Today, the Street View experience is impressive, if not unbelievable. As bandwidth and processing improves it’ll get even smoother and more seamless. The ultimate manifestation of this is a graceful virtual exploration of every corner of our planet.

Maintenance & upkeep.

Now that Google has laid the groundwork, how will it keep the content current? How will it sustain relevancy and accuracy? Undoubtedly, it will crowdsource the upkeep for most of Street View. Now that it has placed your brick and mortar storefront online for all to see, that sign displaying an outdated promotion won’t serve you well. So, you’ll hop outside, grab a pic of the new display in your window (ideally on a phone or camera running Android), and shoot it into Picasa which will integrate beautifully with Maps. You’ve just updated Street View.

How we’ll use it going forward.

The potential for innovation is immense. Here are some ideas, just my first few thoughts.

Let’s start with the obvious: advertising and promotion. This will benefit both Google and managers of physical locations. As users scan neighborhoods for a particular set of needs, they will make their spots stand out and use Google’s tools to effectively promote their establishments.

Trip planning: is that hotel really in a good location? Have a peek and find out. Sorry misleading PR people, there’s nowhere to hide anymore.

Photo essays: assemble photos along a linear path and convey your journey with more meaning and context.

Gaming: skin and map your favorite role-playing game in a city of your choice. Yes, this will require intense integration and lots of work, but the concept is inevitable. Also, consider scavenger hunts – I’m sure there are some apps that already exist for this.

Virtual worlding: turn on Google Latitude and allow others to see where you are, in context of Street View, not just as a pinpoint on a map. Or, broadcast where you’re looking, enabling other’s to see where you are, virtually.

Real-timing special events: now that the foundation is laid out in Street View, Google can build upon it in interesting ways. What if Google set up thousands of cameras all around the Olympic village, and merged real-time feeds into street view? Imagine walking around and experiencing sights and sounds with full control over navigation and exploration.

I could go on, but that would take all day. The potential is gigantic.

How do you envision it being used?

Are you sensitive to the privacy concerns?

If you find some good Street View captures, feel free to post them in the comments!

-AMR