By Tom Murdock:
We’ve all seen our favorite buildings on Google Street View and toured neighborhoods – and even cities – we’ve never been to. The next generation of Google Street View takes viewers inside buildings, and the technology is just getting rolled out in Buffalo.
Local businesses now have a direct connection with this exciting new Google program through the Buffalo Niagara Partnership. Businesses can show off their facilities through virtual tours that are hosted online and easily accessible through all things Google. Users are able to navigate through hotels, retail shops, restaurants, and offices once they search for a business or find it on Google Maps.
Interested businesses can register online and a Google-certified photographer will contact them to quote and schedule a photo shoot. Photographers start outside of a business and begin capturing a series of 360 degree high-resolution image viewpoints, working their way inside and throughout a business. Once live, images appear via Google search on all connected devices, including smart phones and tablets. Web visitors are easily transported inside establishments where they can walk about, look around, and zoom in and out.
Published Street View Indoors virtual tours remain live on Google servers permanently free of charge. A one-time photography fee is dependent upon the extent of the photo shoot. Each location is provided with the HTML code to embed the tour on additional web sites, and the entire process from the photo shoot to going live on Google takes about five business days.
Several Buffalo spots, including the Partnership, Babeville, the Burchfield-Penney, and several suburban locations, have already signed on and are visible through the registration link.
BRO side note: See Uncle Sam’s Uncle Navy for example.
Thomas Murdock is Senior Director Buffalo Niagara Partnership