A Modest Prediction: “What’s Next After Google Street View?”

Last week it was reported that Google is now working on something called Store View.

…they took pictures of the inside of the store, every 6 feet, in all directions. They also took pictures of products. Google Store View will allow people to … click on the door to enter it, all on Google Maps. Then when you enter the store, you can walk through it.

This would be an obvious extension of Google’s Street View, but obvious only in the sense that things which were inconceivable several years we now take for granted.

You probably know about Street View which allows you to (virtually) walk down most streets in the USA and many overseas. Jaw-dropping.

Here’s an example.

A few weeks ago I was reading a news article that contained a picture of a house in New York City. The particular subject isn’t important, but because my interest was tweaked, I decided to see to see if I could find the same house in Google’s Street View.

Here’s the original picture, which I’m sure required a photographer at some point to suit up and drive to the actual location of the townhouse.

Original Newspaper Picture of Townhouse

After only about 10 minutes of fiddling around with Street View and virtually walking up and down streets in the neighborhood I found what I believe is the same house. Keep in mind that I do this while sitting in my study in California, sipping a cup of coffee.

The Same Townhouse Found In Street View

So, two points: [1] the technology is absolutely amazing, [2] if the article was written today no photographer would have to actually go out to the scene.

And then I have to ask myself, ‘What View is Google going to introduce next?’ Keep in mind that Google has not given a very high priority to privacy lately, as evidenced by their botched introduction of Google Buzz.

So with this much technology, and no particular concerns about privacy, is it too much of a stretch for us to imagine Google solving part of our Health Care crisis by doing some Free Health Care Screening?

And that service would be called … Google Colonoscopy View.

Much More Photogenic Than A Colonoscopy