Google Street View Hits Canada

Google introduced Street View to 11 Canadian cities on Wednesday, October 7th 2009. This is the a major expansion to the previous index locations and allows curious users to see their neighbourhood, identify locations and explore their communities.

`According to Google, more than 28 million Street View images of various locations within Canadian cities were viewed on Wednesday alone.`

This technology was demanded by the Canadian public as `so far this year, Canadians have looked up 150 million images from other countries`. This supports the growing acceptance and usage of virtual tours as an addition to traditional still photography.

`Canada isn't the only country to go gaga over Google's Street View service. When the same offering went live in the United Kingdom on March 19, one of every 250 Internet visits was a Briton checking out a neighbourhood.`

With our own business we are finding users are more familar with this technology and prefer to include virtual tours when showcasing a property. I feel the acceptance of mainstream media and large companies such as Google has lead to the growing demand for VT services.

Are other tour providers noticing the same increase in business and acceptance,

Are Realtors finding a pull from their clients to utilize this technology , I would be interested to hear if this is the case,

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving,

Steve Clark

Inner Circle Imaging Inc.

Reference: http://www.timescolonist.com/Google+Street+View+instant+after+launched+Canadian+cities/2087940/story.html