Now this shouldn’t come as a shock, considering the whole point of Google Street View is to give users a street level view of their local area, and the van is on the street, however seeing your house (or battered van) as a part of a permanent map does create an almost child-like wonderment (and I’m pretty sure it’s not just us at Block that feel this way).
All of this does make you wonder (again) at the endless revenue-generating power of Google. The new chief exec of Google UK, Matt Brittin, has confirmed that all privacy issues have now been sorted out, so the focus will surely soon turn to the implementation of location-specific advertising.
There is no doubt that if Google do go ahead with this a new industry will appear to help clients maximise the impact of Street View advertising in much the same way that Pay Per Click & AdWords ‘experts’ have done, meaning that yet more businesses will rely on Google Search for their livelihoods.
Now I’m not a conspiracy-theory believing type, but the prospect of having Google control everything does give me the fear.
Mind you, whatever, check out the van!
