Here’s a great article about the history of Streetview, with photos of the early equipment used.  They pursued it because it was “interesting.”

Google Driver Responsibilities: 1. Driving and collecting images the entire workday (Master the equipment) 2. Route pre-planning for maximizing driving coverage of target area 3. The driver is responsible of the quality of the images 4. Low level troubleshooting of instrumentation 5. Mailing Hard drive Packages and Retrieving New Deliveries from local UPS/FedEx/DHL/Post Office 6. Load/Exchange Hard Drives 7. Perform Vehicle Inspection (tire...

Yesterday, Google announced that the Google Street View Trusted program has been used by over 100,000 businesses around the world. What does this mean?  Well, other than the obvious huge adoption rate in only one year demonstrating the value of the program, it means that there are that many neat places around the world to explore from your computer or mobile device. And Google is celebrating this milestone with a new video.  I really encourage...

The new multi-level feature allows your Google Trusted Photographer to create larger tours that are logically divided into separate sections, such as different floors of a single business. Look Inside Tulsa is fully certified and ready to go with this new feature. With the multi-level feature: The maximum tour size is increased for tours using this feature. Business areas that are separated physically far from one another can be included in the...

Google announced on Monday that they are releasing a new app on the latest Android operating system that will allow anyone to photograph spherical panoramas, which Google will process and include in Google Maps (with some restrictions).  The service lets you shoot a spherical panorama, upload it to your Picasa account, share it, and see it on Google Maps.  The intended effect is to have as many people as possible digitizing places and sharing...

Another exciting example of Google Streetview bringing awesome places online: Soon you will be able to traverse the Grand Canyon from your own computer.  But it’s not an excuse not to go!  I’ve only ever flown over the Grand Canyon, and I really want to go.  Now I can plan a trip a little better. Immersive photography lets people virtually go to places that used to require a visit.  But instead of fully satisfying the desire to...