Google's new Street View service is an example of where the web is going. First we had Google Maps which gave geographical information, then Google Earth which added satellite maps to the mix. Then the maps were mashed-up to include everything from holiday photos to Wal-Mart outlets. Now Google takes us to street level and confronts us with the reality we've only seen before from a bird's eye view.
It's all about adding more detail, more clarity, going deeper into the data, re-using the same underlying technology to layer on yet more useful services. That's the new internet.
But how much information is too much information? That's the debate raging over Street View at the moment, touching on important issues such as privacy, copyright and human rights. But first the technology - Street View is very impressive. It's only available for a handful of US cities at the moment but the potential is obvious. It gives you the ability to stand at a busy intersection in New York and pan around 360 degrees to see the lie of the land in full colour.
It's great to be able to get a street-level feel for a place rather than depending on blurry web cameras or the photo-shopped images the tourism industry wants you to see.
Once the maps are fleshed out with more Street View locations from around the world, it will be really useful.
How is it put together? Google uses images from a company called Immersive Media which for the past couple of years has sent people driving around the US and Canada in grey Volkswagen Beetles with multi-lens cameras attached to them. The special cameras capture images as they go and those images are then plotted on streets on Google Maps, matched up using GPS co-ordinates. What is impressive is that you can get down to street level and then follow an arrow to travel along at street level.
Using Street View reminded me of the overlooked New Zealand service Roadworks Street Scroll (
http://www.roadworks.co.nz
) which features photographs of the main streets of Auckland from street level, giving you a big panorama of the likes of Queen Street, Ponsonby Road and the Viaduct Basin.
Street Scroll was ahead of its time when its creator Matthew Hart started putting it together in 2000.
"It was a New Zealand first. Now we see everyone else trying to bite at our ankles," says Hart, who was in the process of negotiating a deal to license
the street-scrolling technology to a US company when the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center occurred.
"We were going to get $25,000 per state," says Hart. "We spent a year on the deal and it was almost ready to happen." Post 9-11 jitters killed the deal, though Roadworks had started photography in the US - you can see both sides of the Las Vegas strip on its website.
Hart has a New Zealand patent for the street-scrolling imaging technology and is going through the patent application process in the US. He realises that even if he secured it, enforcing the patent would be difficult given the size of rivals such as Google and Microsoft, which is developing its own service, Street-Side.
"I don't know if I'd be in a position to fight them," says Hart.
Roadworks has photographed a few overseas locations and version three will include Flash video and the ability for shopkeepers to update their shop fronts to keep things fresh. Hart also wants to photograph the entire New Zealand coast - one giant scroll around the Queen's Chain. Good luck to him, it's a fantastic idea.
I think the privacy concerns about Street View are being overplayed. A newspaper photographer can stand in the middle of a public place and take photos and have them published to be viewed by a massive audience. Why shouldn't a company or a member of the public be allowed to?
Street View needs to steer clear of all the things the mainstream media has to avoid - such as nudity, violence, photos of school playgrounds, that sort of stuff. There also needs to be scope for take-down requests so people who are offended at appearing in random shots can have themselves removed.
Street View may run into trouble in places like the European Union, which has strong laws around publishing photos of people without their consent. It's one thing to take a photo of someone in public, it's another to publish that photo without consent, especially if it could cause distress. But where should the line be drawn?
I'm comfortable with Street View as it is. Anything I do in public I do assuming that everyone can see me. I hope the service flourishes, but what's the next step? Web cameras covering every street and constantly updating as feeds in Google Maps? High magnification zoom cameras that let people peek between your blinds?
That's a little voyeuristic for me. Being photographed at a point in time at a reasonably low resolution is one thing, being digitally stalked via web camera is another.
There needs to be provisions preventing someone on the other side of the world from watching me without my knowledge when I'm at home.
