The secret economics of Google Street View

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

i know this is a video for street view/geoguessr lovers...but anything else you'd like to learn the secret economics of? i talked to a ton of people for this and it was pretty fun - would like to do it again.

[@ryanortega1511]

I would say the secret economics of e-sports.

[@dirtypure2023]

Secret economics of Starbase, TX. It might surprise you how much money there is in just covering the developments at that aerospace R&D facility since it was established (photographers, videographers, youtube creators, 3D modelers, data analysts, even PILOTS are making money from doing aerial flyovers of the site). There is also the environmental angle as well. Endless things to talk about on that topic.

[@ConciseChronicles]

​@@ryanortega1511there is no. It's simply an money oven for VC firms

[@rocko44444444]

Sure!

[@InconsistentManner]

unofficial??? how is it unofficial if google allows it on street view... it is just not google sourced. and this doesn't surprise me, and shouldn't surprise anyone.

[@pohldriver]

As a truck driver, I use Street View when going places I've never been. I check the route for vehicle restrictions and truck entrance at the facility. A few minutes of planning goes a long way in a semi.

[@1gorSouz4]

Dude i do that, and i travel by motorcicle. I can't imagine how important it might be for someone driving a huge truck.

[@pohldriver]

@@1gorSouz4 unfortunately they don't have truck settings and too many just follow the car route. Then they end up in a bad situation, often damaging the truck and/or property.

[@L83467]

@@pohldriver huh, as a cyclist, im in a similar situation. google essentially just gives me the directions for pedestrians, but where i live, i cant ride on the footpath, so i often use streetview so see if theres an easy way for me to get where i wanna go that google hasnt told me about

[@JopieSchaft]

This is going to be very Dutch, but... Here in The Netherlands we have a 'cycle' option. Still annoying when you're using a scooter though, since they have to use the bike path in some places, car road in others. Can imagine it being tough for trucks and other non-standard vehicles indeed.

[@thomaschristopher8593]

maybe that would have prevented a driver of a tractor trailer from turning into the front entrance driveway a few weeks ago at an office building where I work night security. instead of turning towards the loading dock. knocking over a light post and then struggling to turn and get out.

[@matt2021_a]

i used to work at google for the team that stitched this data (official and non-official) - the NDA was 54 pages... but it was wild to see what people were using to capture the data, and what they were capturing. i spent a week stitching data from a hiker that mapped out a trail in the alps that went to a village that the trail was the only way in or out of the village.

[@fredericapanon207]

54 page NDA?! It must be as all-encompassing as the NDAs the fracking companies make farmers and their whole families sign so they can get minimal compensation for their ruined farms and ecology.

[@Raraoolala]

More stories please!

[@Kwayjaye]

@@Raraoolalapretty 🙏 please 😂 I’m a rookie developer I love nuances of the internet 🛜

[@MeppyMan]

@@RaraoolalaNDA from Google? They probably want to be careful lol

[@neonlight1214]

@matt2021_a Let me guess. Was it Zermatt in Switzerland that you were stiching the data for a week? I'd be surprised if I guessed correctly.

[@The_Sofa_King]

Google street view is one of the best things they have made. I can’t wait for them to shut it down in 3 years.

[@elektrofunkzz]

Wait what!?

[@perrypereyra6671]

Google is an ass that they always shut down their project notoriously ​@@elektrofunkzz

[@drew_echo]

@elektrofunkzz Google has a reputation for killing their own products (search "Google Graveyard") because of their product/engineering culture which incentivizes fancy feature launch, promotion, hop, repeat over long-term sustainability & maintenance plans for the business

[@davidjohnson5635]

@@elektrofunkzzit’s a joke about how Google kills every project eventually, no matter how much use or popularity it has.

[@hemantsarthak]

my only problem is the data is proprietary ... one day it will be killed and this effort and data will be lost ... sucks we need something open source for this.

[@joyfuflower]

I was in high school when they started capturing Google street view in my city and my friends and I would check basically every day to see who's house was added. Being a North American suburb, we only really saw each other at school because we all lived so far from eachother, but after a while of looking at street view, we started to "drive" between our houses in google maps and we realized that it was doable by bike if we took certain paths and used certain intersections to cross major arterials. So google street view is one of the main reasons we started hanging out at each other's places, which led to some of my fondest memories growing up. If you're not from North America, you may not be able to grasp the isolation of the suburbs for kids who can't drive and weren't tall enough to see out of the window when being driven around, but it's so bad that most kids could not navigate outside of their neighborhood. My closest friend lived a mile away in a maze of identical houses with deliberately obtuse connections that made the shortest path almost 3 miles. Very easy to get lost, and there's no business of any kind where you could call your parents. Add cars that drove at 40 down residential roads to this mix and you'll understand why even our parents didn't want us outside.

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

that's a nice story!

[@SotirOtDjebel]

The suburbs have always sounded like a nightmare dimension to me. Sorry you had to go through this...

[@RevShifty]

@@SotirOtDjebel Seriously. I've lived in rural areas and massive cities, and I can get along well enough in both of them. But the suburbs have always felt like the fourth circle of hell to me, much more of a punishment than a comfortable place to hang up your hat.

[@methe7738]

@@RevShiftyboth city and country have pros and cons. Suburbs take the worst of both and throw them together

[@Blennan]

In NA. Southern CA specifically. Wasn’t raised in the suburbs, but I can fully understand your point of view. Drove past some cookie cutter KB homes today and was just bored by them - especially at $700k+. Funny how my kids (3, 5) sort of know their way home / know the general left/right directions. God forbid I subject them to the suburbs.

[@estherabrams7274]

My favorite Google Maps discovery is underwater views made by SCUBA divers

[@chairwood]

where do i find those? i wanna explore it in Google earth vr o.o

[@azilbean]

Woah! Cool!

[@francescamcinerney5350]

@@chairwood In the Filipines -sululu sea, there are some also search Indonou wreck btw if u put the litlle human biside the hawaii sea it turns in to a meramaid

[@foyjamez]

wow

[@ryanwilson1856]

A couple years ago I found a photo sphere placed at the peak of Mt. Everest but it was just a capture of this kid's minecraft server asking you to join.

[@ryanortega1511]

Someone should sue them for fraud.

[@dirtypure2023]

I love stuff like that. Street View is such a unique slice of human activity on this planet.

[@crafterrium8724]

@@ryanortega1511 exactly. people like that kid are the reason we cant have nice things in this world

[@FelicityUwU]

That's hilarious

[@benas_st]

@@ryanortega1511 don't worry, the kid is already behind bars for stealing crops from the villagers

[@IainMcClatchie]

Look up, too! I was the tech lead for the Street View camera group. The R5 imagery from 2007 was Jason Holt's (with my optics). The R7 is mine. The S1 they mostly use now came after me. R2: huge tearing blooming artifacts. Just a little imagery from San Francisco in 2006 ever went live from this camera. It's probably all gone. R5: crappy low resolution when you look up. Ironic when that upward facing lens was the most expensive of the bunch. R7: uniform resolution, funky boundary when you look down, some stitching artifacts S1: dunno The R5 fleet had problems with condensation inside the camera after a couple years. The R7 was very, very rugged (car goes off cliff, lands on camera upside-down in stream, camera is fine), but after many years I think thermal cycling may have knocked some of the fleet out of focus. R7 was heavy and had that big ball baffle around it. S1 is far more compact, lighter, probably cheaper. I doubt the resolution is better though, as R7 is near the quantum limit for something that moves at 30 mph. You can do way better if the camera stops. When Matt talks about sticking GoPros together, the first thing I'd want to know is: how did you synchronize the cameras? This video is basically what the bizdev guys were trying to guess 17 years ago. I remember being in a meeting in which Brian McClendon (VP Geo) told Chris Uhlik (Director Street View) that Google just couldn't handle the amount of data that we were going to produce. Later, it wasn't going to be possible to archive older imagery. The eventual business case for StreetView collect was producing the lane graph for driving directions in Android. That drives where you see the (c) Google imagery. I never did see a coherent business case for StreetView displayed directly to users. I think Larry just wanted it. The image processing, in particular the face ID for blurring (hand-tuned neural nets before neural nets were even on GPUs) took a huge amount of compute. We were scheduling in units of 100,000 CPU-months! There was also pushback against Google doing its own collection. The claim was tourists would upload imagery and that would get it done. Turns out, nope, you get a bazillion shots of the Eiffel tower and nothing of a street just five blocks away. At this point, with every major market for turn-by-turn covered, the fleet must have shrunk and they're just doing updates. I'm thrilled that they've figured out how to make it make sense for folks to send in exotic updates. We did a backpack mount, train mount, tricycle mount (this was most successful), snowmobile, and even upside-down under a canoe to shoot reefs (there should be a patent on that with beautiful diagrams, but I don't see it). Tons and tons of fun.

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

thanks for sharing!

[@ncdave4life]

Thanks for that interesting info! I waved at the car as it went by my house, with my left hand, and on Street View I'm a blurry-faced, one-armed man! Does face ID for blurring include waving-arm ID for amputation, or is that a different team? 😉

[@ncdave4life]

BTW, can you share any hints for how to prevent c-ns-rsh-p of these comments? Or at least how to permanently enable "Sort by" "Newest first"?

[@r0cketplumber]

"You can do way better if the camera stops." I think this is why pigeons walk with their heads going back and forth. It might be worthwhile to have streetview cameras on a "neck" that swings fore and aft, snapping the pic on each aft swing to eliminate motion blur.

[@IainMcClatchie]

@@r0cketplumber Yeah, I looked at something like that (would have been a linear slide on the roof). The accelerations were pretty monstrous. I didn't think we could build it to last. As it was, we had a camera and half the mount come off the roof of a vehicle on the Autobahn. The root cause was fractures in an aluminum weld from repeated vibration from driving over cobblestones in Rome for three weeks. Camera took pictures of the entire thing, of course, including being dragged along the roadway by its power and data cable! Reliable design in the automotive environment is hard. I came away really impressed at how tough cars are while still being light. R7 is very tough, but it's nearly solid aluminum. I don't know that birds hold their heads still to fight motion blur, exactly. I've seen that claimed. Birds that hunt insects in flight don't do that, although I suspect they're doing something simple and maybe similar near intercept: flying much faster than the insects and servoing their necks to get the observed angular rate down. Goshawks must be doing something complicated, though, because they appear to be able to plan routes through fairly dense foliage, mapping in 3D at speed while maneuvering.

[@watchingytkgn]

My favourite street view area to explore is Iqaluit in Nunavut, Canada; the bay freezes over in the winter and the temporary ice road across it has been documented for street view via dog sled!

[@writergrrlxox]

I love the street view of McMurdo Base in Antarctica. No clue how they photographed the roads there

[@notaspectator]

I feel ya, I live in the Yukon (not super long ) , maps here will struggle in general, I enjoy the challenges.

[@lesliehunter1823]

Watching from Iqaluit : )

[@edwardmacnab354]

@@lesliehunter1823 Starlink ?

[@whatthedeuce47d68]

How many vehicles "take a wrong turn" in summer when there's no ice...some folks don't pay attention to details when driving 😂

[@StaticPA]

I've genuinely never looked down in streetview

[@ronniefnd]

I wasn't even aware it was a option.

[@Orange01gaming]

Wrong generation then lol. There was a time before google maps really took off when my friends and I all were obsessed with Google earth

[@zarfmouse]

I just tried and on the official images if you look down it's just the road. Seems like this look down trick may only work on the unofficial imagery.

[@chickentoucher55]

We get it your a boomer

[@jipcoumou4935]

Then u arnt a GeoGuessr player I reckon

[@benchmarkdivine1979]

As a Ugandan living in Uganda, I would like to thank ripplenami for mapping our country in street view. Every time I use it, it really delivers, it doesn't go wrong. Let me hit the subscribe button, you just got a new subscriber.

[@HankMeyer]

The earliest google street view of my house was captured 2 months after I bought the place. There is a 20ft tall pecan tree in the front yard that didn't exist back then. I can scroll through the street view photos over the years and watch that tree sprout and grow.

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

i did this with a tree in front of my house too!

[@beanzbeanz]

I was a StreetView driver in 2011-2012. Three different contracts in western Canada but a lot of the north leading to the Yukon. There were many highlights in national parks. An unforgettable experience. AMA !!

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

animals?

[@VirtualTourPhotographer]

I'm surprised you didn't spend much time on what the largest economic reason for publishing to Street View. And that's as a virtual tour of businesses where the Street View virtual tour is part of their Google Business Profile (Google My Business). I've been doing this commercially since 2015 and the program has been around in various forms since 2011. It was good to see Frederico on there - he's part of that old crew, yet missing that element is like forgetting that the worlds 2nd largest search engine is KZbin. Happy to chat with you about this if you're interested. There's surely room for a follow up. Thanks for putting the time and effort into a great production too.

[@mostfunnestchannel]

Did you get the email from Google yesterday? They are shutting that down at the end of 2024, street view trusted is over. Apparently only people on the list from 2021 received the email.

[@VirtualTourPhotographer]

@@mostfunnestchannel I didn’t get the email. Neither did an other veterans in the program.Google has always been terrible at communicating

[@SilentStormParadox]

I passed by a street view car 3 times in under an hour the other day. Pinned my locations and waiting for the data to upload to see what I look like. 😊

[@dirtypure2023]

You waved right? Or dabbed at the car right?

[@SYH653]

Blurry would be my guess.

[@fireskorpion396]

​@@SYH653probably, but if you dont face the camera you dont get blurred out

[@cadesmandela1935]

@@dirtypure2023Dab gets recognized as German salute from ww2

[@GuacamoleyNacho]

Cool. I never have the luck to see google car past by. If i see it, i sure wave at it!😄

[@allefreethinker]

Hi Phil, I really love this video that you did. I actually used to work as a contractor for Google exactly as part of this project. My role was to coordinate photographers, motivate them to capture more images and with some of them, I even contributed in growing their business and their sales strategies. There were other teams as well, such as "special collections" where we had an entire logistics crew that war organising approvals with local governments, they would check the weather and book drivers. On the opposite side of the enthusiasts collecting more images, we were also attending complaints, where people would request to have their property blurred or removed from StreetView or from the satellite images. Back in 2015 the process was very manual, but also very fun. Thank you for publishing this video, it really reminded me of that great project.

[@TheLordOfNothing]

I upload to Street View as a contributor with my 360º camera. I love it. I usually map places I go on vacation sometimes that don't have Street View or recent Street View and I did my local sidewalks over the summer. One of the reasons I do it is also the historical aspect. A person 40 years from now might look at their grandparent's neighborhood and see what it looked like back then, or see new neighborhoods entirely.

[@dirtypure2023]

That's awesome. Thank you for your contributions

[@fatguy9]

The historical aspect is a really good point, I always enjoy seeing the differences through the years

[@brodriguez11000]

@@fatguy9 I imagine academia benefits as well. Putting the social in sociology.

[@NickiMinajNewSongs]

What do you use street map credits for

[@TheLordOfNothing]

@@NickiMinajNewSongs You can't really use them for anything. I don't do it for the credits.

[@TheAmazingfulOne]

As a disabled autistic person, street view and these 360 photo views are crucial for me to know what to expect ahead of an event and prepaid accordingly. I used them to get the lay of the land of a music festival which had no streets but many little photo bubbles from over the years. I ❤ Google Street view!

[@Axolotls677]

I am also autistic and use them for the same purpose!

[@oiytd5wugho]

@@Axolotls677 omg, same, I plan out how to walk, where to turn, where road crossings are etc.

[@SordidAshes]

Same! I rely on street view to figure out if an area is wheelchair accessible, or to try and see if there are steep hills (going up is a pain in the ass lol) since afaik there isnt elevation info there

[@oiytd5wugho]

@@SordidAshes the terrain layer on google maps has accurate elevation data, but it's in pretty big increments so idk if that's useful to you

[@mylim4020]

Shout out to a guy named Uy Hoang who uploaded tons of photos along the river and the barren seaside of southern England

[@Canadagraphs]

Great video. As a Geoguessr player, whose primary use of google maps is learning stuff for the game, I obviously loathe unofficial coverage, since it isnt featured in the official maps & often pops up occasionally on overwritten coverage, which can cause problems with the fact, as you pointed out, their camera quality is often poorer than googles. But seeing how its used to help businesses no one would ever know about, or first responders makes me loathe them a little less.

[@peterfox9302]

For myself, I mostly only upload street view where official imagery is non existant, for that very reason

[@henrymunnich1648]

This is such a genius nugget of journalism. Its clear all these people are really interested in sharing their diverse stories and motives for contributing to street view data. I bet this episode was a ton of fun to produce

[@lindacas]

In 2011-2012 I was a contractor in a [confidential] part of Google Street View, writing instructions for photographers to create 360 degree panoramas and use Google's proprietary software to stitch them together. At the time, the focus was on businesses to present interior shots If there was a chevon that pointed right or left (instead of backward or forward) it indicated something that had a 360 degree panorama. In addition to businesses, they were used for attractions as well. But this project isn't likely to be in parallel to Street View, because you can bet that you have to pay Google to put your ad there, and you'd need the Google stitcher to create the sphere and somehow upload it so it shows up on the map. I love knowing about it, through, and I'm happy to see how it's evolved in the last twelve years.

[@beanzbeanz]

I was a StreetView driver in those same years in western and northern Canada!

[@matt2021_a]

@@lindacas that Kirkland office was nice right!

[@haugheymatt4381]

Phil you had me right up to 19:00 but lost me at Ms Johnson from Ripplebami helping technocrats to target landlords. I've spent years all over Africa and seeing this kind of power handed over to the governments is not at all benign, I'm sure Ms Johnson's company made some solid bank, but she should have realized just what was gong on when the reps from Gambia got so excited, it wasn't the prospect of bettering the lives of their citizens, it wasn't even the prospect of taxing those citizens, it was the buffet of bribery and extortion she had just presented them with. The people in countries of similar situation as Uganda have hid the ownership of their homes and properties for generations for good reasons. In Rawanda and Burundi families and clans were systematically hunted down just a couple decades ago using property records. And the tradition of bleeding a family dry once it becomes common knowledge they have property is a long one in countries that don't have staple and consistent courts and laws. To see Ripplebami making money on this makes it even worse.

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

i think i stayed pretty neutral on it - i'd personally rather people know about it and form an opinion rather than not have people know about it

[@hungrymatador213]

@@PhilEdwardsInc I think you were neutral man (great channel btw) but that said editorially she was allowed to pitch the whole positive of what her firm makes money on without having to even acknowledge the dangers, and how providing that service to anyone without consideration is empowering what in many cases are corrupt if not oppressive officials or regimes. I get it if it didn't even occur to you Phil, its not like it is going to be the first thing that comes to mind. But I will offer you this, information is fantastic, especially in free societies where all can access and use it, but it is also powerful and we would all do well to remember that. Just as there is a dark side to data-mining there is an intrinsic danger to real-world information mindsets that overlook the need for privacy and safety.

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

@@hungrymatador213 Yeah that's fair, I can see the argument that I should have had somebody else on. I don't know, I thought it was pretty transparent to say how it was being used, and that seemed like enough - but I get your point, especially considering other possible uses.

[@triciac.5078]

I’m glad you both posted with an explanation of the VERY SERIOUS downsides to what that company is doing. It hasn’t occurred to me, I was thinking more of cheating on taxes. But you opened my eyes to a whole new way for people to be exploited by this technology.

[@kalash9411]

I am worried. If the Kenyan government get Ripplebami and its algorithm we are doomed, because i am certain it will be used to suppress the people.

[@AntonAtan]

10:51 the posters are in Bulgarian and it seems like a school entrance . I found out the location and for my surprise it is not in Bulgaria. It is museum and possibly a school in Ukraine of the bulgarian ehtnic group living there - Bessarabian Bulgarians on the border with Romania. The guy's name is Петър Борисович Бурлак - Вълканов (Petar Borisovich Burlak - Valkanov) He was the main poet/writter in that comunity.

[@TheCivilWarriorProj]

I thought it was Valentin Silvestrov

[@piotrb4240]

Yeah, I was kind of confused by the Ukranian-sounding village name, yet I couldn't make out the language (I'm Polish). There were no characteristic "ы" or "і" in the text, but it sounded Slavic (so not Gagauz, or say, a Central Asian language). Turns out Ostrivne is a village where almost everybody speaks Bulgarian (Ukrainian Wikipedia), and in the same "hromada" (municipality) there are also villages with heavily dominating Romanian and Gagauz langauge... And they even have their head poet...

[@MullinerLtd]

Yes. This is a portrait of Burlak, and it is in a "chitalishte" (kind of a school library) in Moldova, where a lot of Bessarabian Bulgarians live.

[@Ze_Austin]

This is such a Phil Edwards™ topic Love it

[@jerome718]

TIL Australians say bushwalking instead of hiking!

[@annekec.2592]

We use both! Might be a regional thing but where I live "hiking" is far more common.

[@ratsock]

Depends if there’s an actual hiking trail and you’re near builtup areas, or if you’re going off into the more remote bush areas. A bushwalk tends to be more remote and much much longer

[@MiG21aholic]

and it's tramping here in New Zealand

[@squidwardsbussy]

everyone i knows says hiking, must be a regional thing.

[@thomasriddle9570]

In North America, hiking is on trails, but if you’re off trail for some reason (fishing, waterfall/mushroom/hunting, etc) I’ve always heard it called bush-whacking, probably because you’re slapping thru the underbrush.

[@quincentupleyourmoney5650]

In the early 2010s I was dating a girl who lived in Saskatchewan while I lived in New Jersey. I drove up to spend two months there in the summer of 2011, and at some point the Google Street View car apparently drove by, cause my POS Camry with Jersey plates is in her driveway in Prince Albert, SK. I assume that somewhere else in the province on Street View there's *probably* another Jersey plate, maybe on a semi or something, but I wouldn't be that surprised if I were the only passenger car with Jersey plates for hundreds of miles (or kilometers, as it were).

[@premodernist_history]

You're going to make some poor GeoGuessr player really confused.

[@BaykarSepoyan]

​@@premodernist_historyLicense plates are blurred

[@Tornnnado]

You can see the yellow gradient of NJ plates really easily even when blurred ​@@BaykarSepoyan

[@DueySR]

@@BaykarSepoyan Recognizing license plates is one of the most important Geoguessr skills. The numbers are blurred but you can still see the colour and style of the plate.

[@manuelbarajas4517]

Man, I hope we never lose street view or Google Maps. I use it to give my students a virtual field trip experience to places we cover in class - middle school SS, it’s always fun and the kids get blown away when we open Google Earth on the big screen.

[@anglaismoyen]

It gives me bittersweet feelings when people contribute to Google's street view. Although it does enrich my life because it puts all of the imagery into one user-friendly platform, it's a huge opportunity cost for the free (libre) projects that you touched on. All of those wonderful volunteers who contribute map and imagery data might be helping other end-users, which is great, but they're also helping a massive multinational corporation make even more money, and the terms of use are very restrictive. If all of those people spend their energy on Mapillary, Kartaview, Panoramax and/or OSM, that would allow so much more free use and innovation. Not to dictate how anyone spends their time, but if you're going to work for free, shouldn't you at least work on a collaborative project?

[@namm0x326]

You own the images. Contribute them to both is my view

[@Ayla_3.3]

Surveillance in the making to create a open air jail is my concern. Look at all the people that blogged and created websites back in the day. Now what have they got? AI put them all out of business

[@feuerherz007]

thiss.

[@Enkinanna]

Yeah this topic is ripe for somebody with enough courage to actually discuss the political implications of

[@nicholasharvey1232]

Mapillary, Kartaview, Panoramax, OSM... what even are those?

[@jaspinko]

In the GeoGuessr community, unofficial Street View coverage is often referred to as "Ari" coverage, named after the infamous third party imager Ari Immonen who covered much of rural Finland with a camera whose quality was worse than the camera used in Google's existing coverage on those roads. Unfortunately, Google prioritizes recency over quality when deciding which imagery to display by default. So, while the intent of publishing this "Ari" coverage might be altruistic-providing newer imagery than what Google themselves have taken-its implementation leads to a frustrating user experience because it is so low resolution that you can't use it to read signs, whereas the older official coverage is at a high enough resolution to read signs.

[@cabbelos]

You're just having "fun" with it, imagine living in Finland and trying to use streetview to navigate around :D I clicked on this video specifically to know the reason why all the street view here looks like absolute ass. Thanks Ari and Autori

[@rauhatonta]

They mention his company

[@seen-bc9eq]

That's good leveling up the guessing game!. Written information ruins competitive spirit and makes it kinda boring in long turn.

[@clopec]

The purpose of the Autori imagery is to assess the condition of the roads and is likely paid for by the road administration. There are even some Finnish railways on Google maps, despite there being a separate (closed) "railway StreetView" for Government use.

[@ztl2505]

The people crave a Phil GeoGuessr stream

[@user-dd5eh5lu3o]

My brain automatically defaulted this to "Filip". If you're a GeoGuessr you will know what that means.

[@gatosospechosop3]

we say philly tbh

[@fortunatefruit]

2:40 I feel like I remember hearing Rainbolt say google could have uploaded higher quality in 2007 but didn't because there wasnt enough software/human capacity to blur all the sensitive information

[@ErikNilsen1337]

I love “emergent order” kinds of stories. It’s fascinating to watch how all kinds of parties and incentives intersect to build something so complex.

[@MichaelJosephSonger]

Google street view might actually be one of those few things the the Internet has that actually does bring people together.

[@glennaa11]

It's a shame that Google killed off photospheres in their camera app

[@Joshpods]

Apk

[@patriciareyes9701]

They didn't. I can still make photospheres.

[@XaneMyers]

@@patriciareyes9701 It seems like older Pixels can still take photospheres; I think my Pixel 4a (5G)'s camera app still has the mode. If this is true, that's one more reason to never upgrade to a newer Pixel. Not only would I lose the ability to take photospheres, but I would also lose the unlimited (lower-resolution) Google Photos storage. I really liked photospheres; When they were first added to Google's Camera, I installed it onto my Samsung phone at the time, just to take some of them. I think they're better for capturing images of locations than basic photos.

[@tango_doggy]

11:00 Peter Borisovich Burlak-Vylkanov, author of Across Fraternal Bulgaria, known as the Patriarch of Bessarabian Bulgarian poetry... An excerpt from a russian blog: In the poetry of Moldova, such a poet is Peter Burlak-Vilkanov, he was the first to write and publish his poems in his native Bulgarian language in the post-war Soviet period. The poet’s work is included in many anthologies, collections, textbooks published in Moldova, it demonstrates trembling love and devotion to his family, historical roots, the homeland of his ancestors, but also vividly shows sincere and deep feelings for the region where he was born and raised, where he lived and created, where he took place and was happy. His poetic inspiration, the author drew from deep tribal roots, filled with life-giving moisture of Bulgarian folk legends and legends. Until the end of his life, the poet remained faithful to the memory of his ancestors with dignity and with full dedication and as a lyric created new, completely unique forms of poetic creativity.

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

bravo!!

[@prophotocharlotte5232]

@@PhilEdwardsInc His name is literally under the photo at 11:10 😁

[@developingtank]

Honestly, I have no idea how you come up with original ideas for videos when it seems like everything ever has already been covered on KZbin. So much respect for that.

[@kuebby]

The Bushwalk guy is really amazing. You can hear it in his voice how passionate he is about this. Wonderful

[@criticaloptimist]

I relate to the first responders part. I was down on a private drive and our fire department would make signs for the house numbers that you put on the main road for free. I recommend asking if yours does that if you’re in that situation.

[@heidi5942]

I've certainly used Google street view to look up details when on the way to a job. Our GPS navigation finds the closest point between the centre of the property and the nearest road, sometimes taking us to the back of the property. One time, we found a cliff been us and our destination. So street view can really help.

[@criticaloptimist]

@@heidi5942 man when there was a change made to our private drive and a new street put in for new construction, i had to submit so many times to google to get them to update the maps. It’s such a mess when google doesn’t know. I was submitting comments like please view your own satellite images to see how it changed! lol

[@FloridaWaterAdventures]

I've added hundreds of photospheres and blue track lines. I even have some underwater photospheres. I've added blue track lines from my Segway, bike, jet ski and paddleboard and even my dog.

[@mat.frazer]

That's awesome. I've been thinking of doing this for local trails and how to safely access waterfalls. Do you have any tips, such as what cameras to use, and reputable resources? Thanks.

[@shurley96]

Interesting video - one of the 'metas' for playing geoguesser is to learn the vehicle that the google street view image is from, based on the roof (e.g. roof racks) - because of the various vehicles used. Also, a street view car passed me by when I lived in Cork - it's a nice little fact I use for 'two truths and a lie' that I can be seen on street view!

[@user-dd5eh5lu3o]

Also the duct tape on the Ghana vehicle. Or the rifts in the sky. So many.

[@ELcozyboii]

Well done! very fun to watch !

[@rkan2]

5:20 like 10 years ago you could earn free Google storage when contributing to Google Maps.

[@osireah]

i wish that was still a thing

[@scoobertmcruppert2915]

20:24 “Benefit” everyone by soullessly assigning rental prices? and I’m sure it doesn’t lower them…

[@cailinanne]

There is already a company here in the US getting sued for artificially inflating rates via algorithms. Soooo seriously eff her and her company.

[@iambicpentakill971]

Yeah, that part didn't seem nearly as happy as it was made out to be

[@-_-----]

Stuff starts getting creepy around ~17:00. Love the cutesy music which people explain how they use centralized surveillance to extract more money from people.

[@wileysneak]

yeah that feels very wrong to me

[@totally_not_a_bot]

Another comment mentioned that people in various African nations have been hiding their property for generations specifically to avoid government extortion.

[@TheGrimStoic]

all enterprise is about extracting something from people, one way or another

[@tyrgoossens]

That's consistent with the history of cartography. Maps were always used as tools to figure out military strategy or where and who to tax.

[@Parakeet-pk6dl]

I really wonder how you even come up with such topics 😁

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

i seriously cannot recall how this happened.

[@zukacs]

geogueseer world cup was in news all past month

[@matt45540]

1:26 you just have to know which direction to look @PhilEdwardsInc

[@matthewkasper2202]

Geoguesser has grown a lot in popularity since rainbolt when viral over the lockdown pandemic. World cup was a few weeks ago and almost all "topic youtubers" have been talking about it in 1 way or another.

[@matpk]

​@@PhilEdwardsInc what about the New Huawei 3fold3?

[@AuthenTech]

Great production quality! I wanted to make a video like this a while back. The world of gmaps contributors is secret and awesome

[@_ao101]

We need more high quality content on the matter. For example also tutorials on how to collect quality data and where to share it for the benefit of everyone. Like the part at 17:50 , i would love to add hi res imaages of the remote islands i travel to with my drone.

[@maisonavery]

I use google maps every day, it’s my number one tool when I go exploring out here in the Mojave desert. I’m so grateful for the people that have taken the time to street view hiking paths, or remote areas and dirt roads in the desert so I know if my car will make it or not. it makes adventures a lot safer for me, and also helps me check out places I would’ve never known were there! Thanks for this video! Very interesting.

[@chasinglessandlessrainbows4402]

I don’t care what Phil has to say, I just watch his videos because I think he’s dreamy looking

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

flattery will get you everywhere

[@tHebUm18]

As a lover of Streetview (and Google Earth) as a tool that documents the world, I love a short documentary on it as well. It is somewhat saddening that the data doesn't go back further--another 10, 20, 50 years from now having this data will be truly remarkable to see the world as it was at a point in time in such a rich/full way compared to mere individual photographs or videos of the century that preceded it.

[@rogerpicklum1871]

First responder maps, yes! My partner and I once responded to a call at an address in foothills CA, we went in the house calling out and walked around looking for anyone, then when we left we realized it was the wrong house. Could have gotten shot!

[@Penultimeat]

I wonder what Rainbolt, that one guy who’s really good at Geoguessr, thinks of this

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

my guess is he knew it all!

[@sypherlynx]

I use google maps and google earth all of the time, it’s basically an addiction, spending hours perusing the world is genuinely one of the most fun and interesting things to do and without it I wouldn’t nearly have my, albeit small in comparison to everything I could know, knowledge of geography. And throughout my many hops down into street view I have absolutely come across this and wondered why, why would google have a lower quality version of their street view, and who is making these weird street view rip offs? So as always, thanks for the video :))

[@brodriguez11000]

Interesting seeing how a location has changed over time, sometimes dramatically.

[@chelseajordan5752]

I love this!! I've always enjoyed documenting places, too. Partially because I love history (I'm a history teacher), and partially because I always want to be able to mentally prepare myself to go into a new place. lol I have a super high rating as a reviewer on Google Maps and have definitely thought about buying a 360 purely for uploading to Google Maps to share with other people, both now and in the future when they're looking back at how things used to be and look.

[@ShowMeMo]

People who live in rural places want to keep them rural. They don't necessarily want to bring attention to their quiet beautiful backroads. And that first responder who said he's mapping for up to date street info, that smells fishy. People who live in small rural communities know all about who lives where and what is new or changed.

[@Thoughtspresso]

The Secret Economics of Pokemon Go, and deep dive into why the Pokemon Company is tracking your steps, why it asks you to scan locations, and now your sleep

[@allefreethinker]

oh that would be an amazing follow-up subject

[@exexalien]

Props to Peter Fox for doing something that helps his community and he happens to enjoy.

[@nexusyang4832]

5:17 - I used to make these 360 panoramas all the time and no cap those things get A TON of views. 360 photos typically show up as the first or second images for any locations so if you want to earn a lot of "points" on Google Maps, just take a 360 photo of a place and you'll get crazy views. To this day, one of my most viewed images is a random Chick-Fil-A and currently it has 5.986M views.

[@John-ke2jm]

19:56 - I'm sure there is no room for their stupid algorithm to get this wrong and them start charging someone that had no rental property taxes. No, we shouldn't be calculating taxes with some stupid computer program guessing that you have a rental and what it's being used for.

[@hrford]

I have a bad feeling when Landlords use street view imagery to determine rental prices. Being a landlord seems mainly about making money, increasing rent and doing as little "actual" work as possible, and this plays into that. I wish landlords would actually visit their tennants and have actual conversations about their tennants HOME/living arrangements. After all, I beleive that a tennant's right to a livable home is more important than a landlord's profit. These are just my thoughts.

[@LukeThomas00000]

Exactly what I was looking for on Sunday morning 😁 Thanks Phil!!

[@thihal123]

There are uses for street view. But there’s also a major downside. We don’t need to discover something ahead of time before getting to the real thing. Our references to the world are overly mediated

[@Saguache]

Like a lot of the people you've interviewed I've been contributing to SV for a while. I've mapped a bunch of difficult to otherwise inaccessible places using a variety of methods including a variety of 360 cameras. Most often I've walked these routes to capture those views, sometimes I've ridden a bike. All of this adds to the technical complexity of gathering this data, which is a challenge I really enjoy. However, Google has made it much more difficult to do this as anything other than an expensive hobby. They seem hell bent on cutting contributors out of that portion of the pie. The Trusted Street View Photographer program keeps changing and usually not for the benefit of UGCs.

[@NatureShy]

When I was in high school and college, I was really into uploading photo spheres and editing/adding trails onto Google Maps. Here in the Pacific Northwest, I have uploaded a few hundred photo spheres, some with a few million views each, and most of them out on remote trails in the wilderness. I get the reason being proud of your home and wanting the world to see, because that was the very same motivation I had.

[@AeroModule]

Great video. Google Maps is my hobby! Can't tell you the number of cool restaurants I've checked out on street view!

[@bbartky]

👆My No. 1 reason to use Google Street View is to explore a neighborhood that I’ve never been to. As you said, it’s a great way to find interesting places, particularly places to eat.

[@patricksamuel6594]

Years ago I realized my parents home country of Malta did not exist on street view so on a trip there using just a 360 camera and my phone took thousands of photo spheres around the island and uploaded them. After that google started doing it themselves so I guess they got the hint.

[@michaelwisniewski6047]

The story about helping government track undeclared rental income scared me shitless…

[@wileysneak]

yeah agreed that was dystopian as fuck

[@TheBayru]

​@@wileysneak Isn't it more dystopian that in a lot of countries alien mega corporations gather and use such data to target you and lobby your government against your best interests, but the public services have to send out a public servant in person to catch criminals (drug labs, slum lords, slavers/human trafficers, people building in nature reserves, ...) and cannot combine that data in a database for privacy reasons, and police officers need a warrant to look at the recorded footage of their own cctv? And governments have areal photographs but aren't allowed to scan them systematically for illegally cut forests, illegal dumping, or drug plantations. Especially when, while you can't see the blurred faces of all those people on street view, google probably has access to the unblurred images for their algorithms, can tie it to the ip address, user id, first and last name and phone number of the smartphone active at that location with call history, google fit history, purchase history on the attached credit card, youtube history and contact list. So we can trust a profit driven international organisation to track every second of our lives but not a government to surveil the public domain?

[@HELLO7657]

Why does stopping tax evasion scare you?

[@enormouslittlethings6893]

I haven’t seen this movie since I was a kid, but now I feel compelled to watch it again. Great video. Subbed and looking forward to more videos like this one.

[@Dragoblade811]

We use google street view quite offensive for preliminary survey work to get a general sense of the land before I layout a drainage area

[@yoochem]

@Phil this is the first time I see one of your videos, but wow, I was immediately hooked! And a small detail I noticed; I love your setup. The wall, the globe, the light... Great job!

[@robstein1313]

I discovered this subculture (google maps and street view) going into the pandemic and it is really fun when I’m outside (💭where’s the disabled parking? Is there gluten free food? Is there a fire hydrant in the parking lot? Is the bathroom accessible to seniors or people with a stroller? Is the bus stop safe at night?)

[@bestbetta]

As a daily user of Google Maps, I love hearing the backstory about the middle men and unsung heroes bringing all this info to the world! I’ll always be amazed this technology exists.

[@GrantCX]

They make 11 billion a year of it and give the contributors "badges"... nice.

[@AMPProf]

OMG GIVE ME A BADGEIs it worth moneyrude question

[@beaumitchell]

11 billion a quarter

[@XaneMyers]

Badges, levels (stars with differing numbers of points), and a physical *pin,* actually. Google sent me a t-shirt pin a few years ago, and I have worn it a couple times. It isn't _big_ but it's cooler than the digital "awards".

[@TweenkPL]

I don't think they actually make $11 billion from Street View

[@aaronandannelogan]

Dang, I was hoping for Schrute Bucks or Stanley Nickels

[@caesar7734]

I really hate it when I try to put Peg-Man onto a street in a touristy spot and it puts me into a photosphere instead of street view.

[@TerrinX]

I live like 2 minute walk from the W&OD trail, I should capture one of the abandoned houses along the trail, even has a mailbox facing the trail (which used to be a railroad)

[@RussellNelson]

Washington & Old Dominion. My wife and I have bicycled the whole thing on a Saturday, and back on a Sunday.

[@Bokoyo]

The same people will moan if their parcels aren’t delivered if google decide to shut this street view feature down!

[@yxcvmk]

19:15 Buerocrats at it's best. Gauging those who make a honest income from those who need a timeout. At the end everything is becoming (artificially) more expensive. Bad!

[@XxXenosxX]

Yay, a Phil video!

[@kylealan187]

It’s super fascinating when, due to glitch or bad uploads or something, Streetview sometimes jumps back in time to an older version. Roads near my house have 2023, 2019, and 2009 versions. I learned that a large housing complex had initially began construction prior to 2009, 2019 was fenced off and overgrown unfinished, present day completed and lived in.

[@Ra1d_danois]

5:57 Don't forget about the street view of the ISS

[@sparky_murph]

I really enjoy your videos, the topics, the in depth information, just all of it. Thank you, I hope you never stop.

[@Josh-yr7gd]

5:57 I'm shocked that the North Korean authorities allow street images of their country to be online. I hope whoever is posting those photos stays safe.

[@olof-palme]

What makes you think they allow it?

[@Josh-yr7gd]

@@olof-palme The fact that it’s still up, means they haven’t forcibly taken it down yet or are somehow unaware of it.

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

yeah i think it's not really in their control- but i imagine it did have to be snuck out

[@olof-palme]

@@Josh-yr7gd Wrong. Even if they are aware, what are they supposed to do about it? Google is strictly blocked in North Korea and as far as I’m aware they don’t do any business there. For a government to make demands I assume there must be at least some diplomatic relationships established, and without any business at all they don’t have any leverage either besides non-peaceful threats.

[@СлободанМилошевич-ь5у]

It is all above board and allowed by the government. One of the main Google Street View contributors for North Korea, Aram Pan, is a well-reputated photographer of North Korea who is allowed into many areas tourists cannot see, with his contacts in North Korea - there is even one shot of a dilapidated looking port, but it is still online and was authorised by the government.

[@Bobiobg]

As a Bulgarian (and a passionate geoguessr player) the Bessarabian Bulgarian cameo was unexpected! You did a good job on researching it and nice video overall!

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

bravo!!!

[@Danger-sp6mk]

That one dude really risking his life in North Korea for street view

[@jonnieinbangkok]

It is probably the Fat Man himself 😂 😂 😂

[@tyrgoossens]

They do official tours there and you are allowed to take pictures in designated areas. In this case it looks like a monument dedicated to the regime, so it'll be fine.

[@anush_agrawal]

Other thing is google street view art. Some artist post arts as photos for places where there is no data form

[@stevenboykin116]

Peter needs to come to southwest Mississippi. Google Maps has my street address wrong, and everyone goes to the wrong place.

[@peterfox9302]

I appreciate your vote of confidence! But I’m doubtful my gsv uploads change google maps. I've got suggested changes rejected where mu uploaded street view supported my edit. All I can offer is- edit your address on open street map

[@daaver09]

If you search for your own address on Google Maps, you can actually suggest changes and edit the pin location yourself. Doesn't always get accepted, but if it's not updated after a few weeks you could maybe ask some friends to do the same until Google approves it.

[@stevenboykin116]

@daaver09 OK, thanks for the suggestion. I'm going to tell my whole family that we live on one street that's paved, and according Google Maps, our neighbors' unpaved driveway is our street with all our addresses on it. Even though when you zoom in both my street and our neighbors driveway, I have my street name on the map, so they kinda have it wrong twice. But again, thanks for the tips. I'm gonna get to work on that.

[@stevenboykin116]

@peterfox9302 Ha! Yessir, someone told me how I could work with it to get my address corrected, so I'm going to try and do that until it works, so I thank you. I also really like what you do up there. My sister is a volunteer firefighter in both our tiny town and our grandmother's rural community. She said she has to deal with some of the same things you mentioned in the video. So thank you for what you do.

[@Tarkusine]

One of my favorite things to do is look around the middle east, India and Africa where a lot of places don't have any mapping but people will take pictures of their businesses like the one you showed. There are pictures of all kinds of public places like mosques, schools, halls and businesses. People post pictures of themselves or sometimes post parties or weddings or just random singing. It's a real neat adventure sometimes.

[@throttleblip1]

Great topic i have never heard of! This great content phil!, when i am interested it will be viral!

[@hadrianopolis1968]

Thanks

[@sir5574]

At 17:50 how do you add the higer res aerial imagery? Would love to add some like this for my neighborhood.

[@_ao101]

I wonder how to do that for a while now. At least I now know for sure that it is indeed possible for a company.

[@sir5574]

@@_ao101 any idea how? lol

[@sebascarra]

Drones probably?😊

[@sir5574]

@@sebascarra yeah I have a drone thats not the prob, the question is how do you submit this kinda footage?

[@MethosOhio]

One of the coolest uses of streetview is to fuel Google Earth VR and Wander on Meta Quest VR headsets. Traveling the world and being able to just look around in virtual reality is amazing. Even moreso because of all the photo spheres inside major attractions. With Wander you can even tour the world with distant friends together.

[@its_shugh]

8:07 Peter Fox

[@DingLiren-nw2vj]

Feeter pox

[@HANIBALL41]

Ich sah den Namen und musste direkt die Kommentare Checken, ich wurde nicht enttäuscht 😅

[@Come_On_Scents]

High quality journalism, subscribed.

[@sorrow_Sam]

10:50 The man is Louis Farrakhan

[@SketchbookSessions]

Since I discovered Google Earth VR with Street view with my Meta Quest 3, my mind is blown. You fly around places in full control while holding an orb in one hand that shows the current sphere option where you're currently at. You bring the sphere to your face and you enter into it to look around in 360. Since it's hooked on to the PC and I'm using 2.1 sound system with good subwoofer, the sound effects and the flying around in any speed makes you feel like you are in an alien spaceship, exploring Earth, but also when you fly close to streets it feels like you are a superhero. Love it. Highly recommend

[@esgee3829]

20:00 stolen from an edo period ukioye piece obvi

[@watermonke4599]

This is such a good thing because in my city Tirana, the only street view footage was from 2016 and since then the city has DRASTICALLY changed, now there's updated unofficial street view available from just 9 months ago

[@Petch85]

Should we use google maps for this? I mean maybe open street maps was a better place to crowdsource street view data? (open street maps, does not have street view, I am thinking hypothetical) Everyone benefits from good maps so maybe it should not be google that owns it all?

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

yeah it does feel like a missed opportunity. i think mapillary was the best hope...

[@ShankarSivarajan]

Google _did_ map a lot of it themselves, and its competitors were famously far worse for a long while (they're probably still worse, but no longer abysmally so). The problem with trying to create an open rival now is that you'd need to replicate a lot of Google's mapping. Which is currently free, and extremely popular. This is not likely to work out.

[@JamEngulfer]

One of the problems with OSM is that it looks terrible and it’s little wonder it’s at a fraction of the popularity of Google Maps.

[@emc4069]

To the guy in rural VA. Gee, thanks. I don't want my rural property on Google Maps.

[@teenageengineer]

3:27 Syktyvkar fans/dwellers here? Recognised instantly