Browse local businesses in Street View
April 26th, 2010 | Published in Google Earth
It probably comes as no surprise that I spend a lot of time using Street View - it’s my job, after all. But sometimes I get so immersed in my exploration that I take all sorts of detours and side trips and find myself in completely unfamiliar areas that I want to learn more about. I have a feeling many of you are also interested in having a better way to find out more about what you’re seeing in Street View, so I’ve been working with my teammates to help improve the discoverability of content in Street View.
Our new release of local businesses annotations in Street View is the first step down this path. Browse around in your neighborhood for nearby restaurants and shops, or use it to see what else is nearby your dinner spot (you can usually catch me looking around for tasty dessert options). When you’re touring in Street View and see a business that piques your itnerest, now you can find a clickable icon that will take you to the business listing where you can find out the name, hours, read reviews, and more.
For now, browsing a location in Street View will show the top listings for that immediate area. We will be extending this coverage soon to include more businesses and also transit locations.
Don’t forget, if you see a business annotation which is not quite aligned with its location in Street View, you can easily move the marker and place it in its correct location.
The weather in San Francisco is supposed to be great tonight, so I think I’m going to start searching for a dessert spot with nice outdoor seating.