Google Street View puts your home on display

By Ray Wood

I would rather not get into the debate about whether Google's new 'Street View' application is a massive invasion of privacy or one of the most handy and time saving tools since the GPS.  Let's just acknowldge it's here and people are using it everyday to check out your street.

With the enormous time constraints placed on us by our brave new world, property buyers are logging on to Google Maps and Google Street View in record numbers.  If your house and street is not yet featured, it's only a matter of time. 

The application for marketing real estate is obvious and powerful.  A buyer can take a virtual drive by your house and check out everything from nearby shops to schools and train stations.   For the first time ever, buyers can go to their computer and get an accurate idea of what your street is like and if your house is for sale, chances are their virtual 'drive by' will influence their decision to view or not to view.

Street View is not live but it is effective.  With their deep pockets, Google has commissioned hundreds of cars with large special cameras fixed to the top of a 1 metre extension on the roof of the car to drive slowly up your street and collect a series of still images that when pasted together, create a continous 360 degree panoramic of hundreds of thousands of streetscapes around the world.

The task is mindboggling and the results are mindblowing. You can see everything in a 360 degree horizontal rotation.  You can zoom in.  You can drag the icon to anywhere on the map and it will put you there...virtually.  Thanks to Google your front garden can now be viewed by the world!  For more info, check out Google's cool instructional video at this link.

http://maps.google.com/help/maps/streetview/index_.html