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Google Maps adds new features - Street View and Mapplets

30 May 2007 | Dominic Sawyer

Available for big US cities Google map users can now view locations with street level mapping. Browse to a US city (NYC, Las Vegas and a few others) and click the “Street View” button. Blue lines indicate where street level imagery is available.

Although not the first (Amazon’s A9 and Windows Live have something similar), the interface is very tight and easy to use. Here I am driving down Park Avenue. If you are outside the US and browse to a city but cannot see the ‘Street View” button, you may need to add “&gl=us” to the URL for it to work.

CNET have a slideshow of a few more interesting views including Google’s HQ, Golden Gate bridge and San Francisco’s curvy Lombard Street. Here is a movie clip with the “Street View” function in action.

Useful to scope up prospective apartments and travel destinations but perhaps of more immediate use for developers was Google’s other announcement at the Where 2.0 conference - the launch of Mapplets, enabling 3rd party developers to create mini apps displayed inside Google Maps. See a preview or browse the Mapplets gallery to get a flavour. Plenty of possibilities for travel companies to harness Google Maps and provide useful tools for customers. There is already a mapplet created by booking.com for users to search hotels through the Google Maps interface.

The user could then switch over to “Street View” and check out the wider location as part of the decision making process. They are going to need plenty more of these modified Toyotas to finish off the mapping!