Google Street View just took it up a knotch. Now take your view from the street to inside stores.

Google Maps To Add “Google Store Views”

Feb 4, 2010 at 12:22pm ET by Barry Schwartz

I received a tip from a New York retailer named Oh Nuts, that Google came to their store to take pictures for a new Google Maps product named “Google Store Views.” I was told that they took pictures of the inside of the store, every 6 feet, in all directions. They also took pictures of products.

Google Store Views will allow people to essentially walk into the store, off of Google Street Views. So imagine you are looking at this store, and then you can click on the door to enter it, all on Google Maps. Then when you enter the store, you can wall through it.

Here are pictures of Google capturing the pictures from within the store:

Here is an embed of the Google Maps Street View of outside of the store:

View Larger Map

I have emailed Google for a statement on this tip and I will update this post, if and when I get one.

via searchengineland.com

They need to also partner with Microsoft's Photsynth to really take it to the next level. Photosynth takes all the pictures people post anywhere online and combines them into a seamless view of the world in which they were originally taken. For example there are thousands of photos taken of a particular block in NYC and uploaded to the web in a given day. Photosynth would piece those photos together to create one large mural if you will of that block in NYC. Google could use those photos to fill in the areas they don't have footage or photos of. So essentially every square inch of the world could be pieced together online.

Posted via web from Digital Anthropology