Hitting the Ground Running — New Online Map Features

May 30, 2007 — -- All the world's a map, and all the men and women merely — what, pixels on it?

With apologies to Shakespeare ("As You Like It"), the newest developments in the online world make conventional mapping Web sites look oh-so-2006.

Today, Google is out with Street View, a new feature built into its Google Maps section.

Type in a location you're trying to find, and you'll get a map of the area, just as you have for several years.

Now, click on the "Street View" button in the upper right, and a new window opens. You'll find yourself looking at a street-level, 360-degree wraparound image of the place you chose.

Move your cursor around in the picture, and you'll find that you can turn, or move down the street, or zoom in on details.

So, for instance, type in 630 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. (even with typos), and you'll find yourself at the entrance to St. Patrick's Cathedral.

Try Las Vegas Boulevard South., move around the picture a little bit, and you'll turn up just off the Strip, watching valets parking cars at the entrance to the Bellagio.

"We're just trying to enhance the user experience," says Stephen Chau, a product manager for Google Maps. For now, Street View works only in five cities (New York, San Francisco, Miami, Denver and Las Vegas), but it will expand as quickly as — well, as quickly as Google can take pictures of the entire world.

"We can see all sorts of uses," says Chau. "I just moved to a new apartment, and I used Street View to check out the neighborhood.

"You can preview the location to see if the real estate listing is accurate — is it close to public transportation, and so forth. There's a sightseeing aspect to it that way."

It could also be helpful, he says, if you're trying to find that great little Italian restaurant downtown whose name you forgot. If you don't know the name, you can't exactly look it up, but if you can retrace your steps, virtually, you may find it and be able to zoom in on its sign.