Shopping on Street View

Retailers Fred Perry and Raf Simons have released a virtual reality shopping experience. Fred Perry x Raf Simons is a custom Street View scene which you can navigate around just like you can move around in Street View on Google Maps. However, unlike Google Maps, on these virtual panoramas you can click on the people and buy their clothes.

All the models that appear in Fred Perry x Raf Simons are interactive. Click on a model and you can browse the clothes that they are wearing and even click through to buy an item on the Fred Perry online store. As on Google Maps all the models have their faces blurred. Some of the items of clothing are also blurred. This means that the item is not yet available to be purchased on the online store.



Google has put a lot of effort into creating virtual Street View tours of museums around the world. On Google Arts & Culture you can take a virtual stroll around many of the world's most famous museums. These tours include paintings and other exhibits which can be clicked to view details about the exhibits.

Lots of stores can also be navigated on Google Maps Street View. Many of these have been created by Google's 'trusted photographers'. I don't think any of the stores with Street View are fully interactive yet. Product ranges update all the time so it might be too much effort to create interactive products on Google Maps Street View. However large stores could easily have interactive store department signs on Street View which when clicked on open the relevant page on the store's website.

Amazon's Lord of the Rings Map

Amazon is busy creating a Lord of the Rings Prime Video series. Little is known about the television series, as of yet, but there is a Lord of Rings on Prime official Twitter account. On Wednesday that account made it's first Tweet, which was a short Tolkien quote,

“I wisely started with a map” — J.R.R. Tolkien

— The Lord of the Rings on Prime (@LOTRonPrime)

Yesterday that Tweet was followed up with a link to an Amazon Prime interactive map of Middle Earth. The Amazon Prime map is a neat representation of Middle Earth, although it doesn't contain any place-name labels. The map does include a few fantasy map staples, such as a vintage looking compass rose, tattered edges and fold marks. There is also a download link which allows you to save the map as an image file.

This blank interactive map of Middle-Earth is an interesting marketing ploy, which is obviously little more than a teaser for the Amazon Prime television series. If you are a real fan of Tolkien's novels then you will probably have more fun exploring the interactive maps created by the LOTR Project. These include interactive maps of both Beleriand and Middle Earth.

The LOTR Project interactive maps include place-name labels and lots of optional layers which allow you to overlay time-lines, route and events from Tolkein's novels directly on top of the interactive maps.

Who's Listening to Hikaru Utadu?

#HikaruUtada #(Songs) is an interactive globe which is tracking where people are listening to and commenting on the music of Hikaru Utada around the world. Hikaru Utadu is a Japanese-American singer, who is one of Japan's all time top-selling recording artists.

The success of Hikaru Utada’s latest single 'Face My Fears' can be followed live on this interactive globe. The globe uses 3d bar charts to show how high the song Face my Fears is in the Spotify and Apple Music charts in countries across the globe. If you click on a country on the map you can see how many times the single has been streamed from that country on Spotify and its position in the Apple Music Best chart.

The map also allows you to view the number of times the song has been played on YouTube and view comments being made about the song on Instagram and Twitter. If you select a song from the drop-down menu you can change the map to show the latest news about any of the tracks on Hikura Utadu's latest 4-track CD release as well as the digital single 'Too Proud'.

Facebook Remembers Everything

One of the central themes of the Jason Bourne films is the idea that the CIA are pretty good at tracking everybody's movements (unless you are Jason Bourne). Of course most of us make it very easy for the CIA by sharing our every waking moment with the world anyway - on social media.

To prove this point the internet campaign for the new Jason Bourne film uses data from your Facebook and Instagram accounts to prove how much of your life you reveal on social media. Log-in to Remember Everything with your Facebook and Instagram accounts and you can view your life replayed on Google Street View.

Or - at least I think that's what it does. When I log-in to 'Remember Everything' I just get a message saying 'We don't have enough data on you'. Ha! I win Zuckerberg .

According to the press release you will be shown moments from your life - in the form of "a multiple choice question (example: "Which of these four people were you with on April 15th, 2015?"). All memories are further contextualized with Google Street View panoramas of the location from that specific memory."

Have fun playing with Remember Everything. Then, when you are done playing, have a look at your Facebook privacy settings and think about disabling your location history.

All the World's a Stage

I'm not sure that Shakespeare can be bounded in a nutshell but Expedia's Global Shakespeare Explorer has made a good attempt at it. This interactive map plots locations important to Shakespeare's life, plays and legacy.

Using Google's antique mapping API seems an appropriate choice for the Global Shakespeare Explorer, helping to give the map a fitting dated Elizabethan feel. This antiquated look is complemented by the use of feathered quill icons for the map markers. What I like best about this map however is the furling and unfurling scroll effect when you switch between the three different map sections, exploring Shakespeare's life, plays and legacy.

In truth there isn't much analysis of the importance of the mapped locations to Shakespeare's work. There may just be enough information to tempt you to click through and explore nearby hotels on Expedia's hotel booking website.

The Clan Map of Scotland

Tartan makers Lochcarron of Scotland have hit upon a novel marketing idea for promoting their different plaid patterns. Their interactive map, the Clan Map of Scotland, divides Scotland into geographical areas associated with the historical kinship groups of the country.

The map shows the areas of Scotland where each clans has historically been based. If you select a clan region on the map you can learn more about the individual clan, including the origin of the clan and its historical ties to the area associated with it on the map.You can also discover who the current clan chief is and view its heraldic badge, motto and its distinct tartan.

The map itself seems to be completely custom designed with SVG. It uses the svg-pan-zoom library to control the panning and zooming interactions on the map.

5 Ways to Destroy Your House in Street View

The End is Nigh! You can't escape your destiny. Your road and your house are about to die. The only choice you have is whether you want your home to be destroyed by fire, flood or alien invasion.

1. Urban Jungle

Check out your house on Urban Jungle and you can see what happens when you forget to weed your garden. Urban Jungle allows you to catch a glimpse of what your post-apocalyptic house will look like, after civilization has collapsed and nature has reasserted its dominance over man.

Drop Pegman on the Urban Jungle Google Map and you can view your house in Street View - only this is Street View with a difference. Urban Jungle's Street View includes creeping vines and grass superimposed on Google's panoramic imagery.

2. World Under Water

Do you want to see what your house will look like once global warming causes the inevitable rise in sea levels? Just type in your address into World Under Water and you can catch a glimpse of your house sinking under the waves.

World Under Water is a very powerful campaign from Carbon Story which uses Google's panoramic imagery to provide a warning about rising sea levels. Once you have typed in your address into the application you can watch the rising water lap against the Street View image of your front door. Yikes!

3. Perfect Storms

To promote the last season of Perfect Storms the History Channel created this interactive that allows you to virtually destroy your house in a fire storm.

The app uses a combination of Google Maps and Street View to show the likely effects of a perfect storm on your own home and neighborhood. Just sit back and watch as your home disappears behind a wall of flames.

4. Independence Day - My Street

It is also possible to see your home being destroyed by aliens. Independence Day - My Street creates a little Street View based movie showing how your home might look after an alien invasion.

Just enter your address and you can view a little Street View scene showing the alien inflicted destruction of your home. Pan around the Street View scene and you can see fires burning, smoke rising and darkened skies. Look up and you might also spot a huge fleet of UFO's flying around overhead.

5. Brick Street View

Of course the end that we all fear the most is being turned into miniature toy versions of ourselves. In Legoland's 'Brick Street View' everything is made of bricks. That includes your home!.

Brick Street View allows you to take a little glimpse into the parallel world of Legoland and observe how your house would look if it was made of tiny colored bricks. Type your address into the Legoland Google Map and then drop the Lego Pegman onto your street. You can then view your home as it will appear when Lego finally takes over the whole world.

Aliens Attack on Street View

You can now create a little Street View based movie showing your house being destroyed by aliens. A new website, promoting the release of the Independence Day movie, allows you to view your house on Google Maps Street View, after it has been destroyed by an invading army of aliens.

Just enter your address into Independence Day - My Street and you can view a little Street View scene showing the alien inflicted destruction at your address. Pan around the Street View scene and you can see fires burning, smoke rising and darkened skies. Look up and you might also spot a fleet of UFO's flying around overhead.

This amazing Street View interactive is possible because of Google's undocumented Street View depth library, You can make use of this depth data in Street View yourself with the GSVPanoDepth library, developed by 0xef.

The Where in the World Street View Game

Where in the World is a new Street View quiz from SuperBreak. In this fun little game you are shown a succession of Google Maps Street View images of famous locations around the world. All you have to do is choose the correct location from three different answers.

The game allows you to choose from five different categories, History, Travel, Royal Attractions, Nature & Parks and Entertainment. Once you have selected your categories you are shown 10 different Street View images and your job is to guess where in the world each image is from.

The main difficulty with Where in the World is the time element. You are only given twelve seconds to answer each question, which isn't really enough time to explore the Street View scene in any detail. However, even with the time element, I found it easy to get ten out of ten each time I played. But then I spend way too much of my time exploring the world on Street View.

Hat-tip: Street View World

Beeping Cyclists

Hövding, the creators of the cycling airbag, and the London Cycling Campaign have started a campaign to improve cycling in London. The Give a Beep campaign has given 500 wireless buttons, connected to a mobile app, to cyclists in London.

Every time one of the cyclists is frustrated with cycling conditions on London roads they can press the wireless button to send an e-mail to the London Mayor. Each 'beep' is also added anonymously to the Give a Beep interactive map.

500 cyclists are probably not enough to present a real picture of cycling conditions on London roads. At the moment I suspect that all the map really reveals is the most popular routes of the chosen cyclists. However, other cyclists can download the Give Beep mobile app and connect it themselves to a flic wireless button.

Send a Street View Postcard

Say Hello from Europe is a very clever marketing idea from Swiss International Airlines. This Facebook hosted application allows you to send a virtual postcard, using Street View imagery, to any of your Facebook friends.

Visit the app on Facebook and you can view a map of all Swiss International Airlines destinations. Choose a location on the map and you can then explore the city using Google Maps Street View. If you find a view you like you can simply click on the camera icon and snap a virtual postcard. You can then write a message on your postcard and send the view to all your friends.

The application is an imaginative way for Swiss International Airlines to promote the cities they fly to and encourage people to share links to the airline while posting messages to their Facebook friends.

Supercharged Street View Speedway

Do you ever get bored with slowly clicking through Street View on Google Maps? If so then you need the Indycar Speed Simulator.

Share your location with Honda's new Street View application. The Indycar Speed Simulator will then devise a race-track on the streets around your house. You can then experience the thrill of driving at 200 mph around your neighborhood via a Street View animation of the created track.

A little note of warning - when I was previewing the Indycar Speed Simulator on my old laptop earlier it kept crashing the browser. So, if you're on an older computer, be prepared that your Indycar might crash.

The GMC Canyon - Street View Test Drive

A few years ago Hyundai released a Google Maps Street View application which allowed you to view what it would be like to have a Hyundia Elantra car parked on the street outside your house on Street View.

GMC has now created a similar application which places a GMC Canyon outside your home on Google Maps Street View. Click on the 'See in Street View' option in the Engineered for Everywhere app and enter your home address and you can preview what it would be like to have a GMC Canyon parked on your street.

The application allows you to customize the color of your virtual GMC Canyon. It also allows you to adjust the position of the car so that your Canyon appears on the street outside your house and isn't blocking your neighbor's drive.

Hat-tip: Google Street View World.

The Madrid Street View Game

On March 5th Dainese D-Store is opening a new shop in Madrid. Before the store opens you can earn yourself some neat prizes by finding some hidden objects hidden on the map of Madrid.

To win the prizes you need to explore the streets of Madrid in Google Maps Street View. In La Invasion Roja a number of prize coupons have been placed around the city. All you need to do is find them by exploring Street View on your trusted moped.

Once you connect to the game with a Facebook account your task is to explore the city of Madrid on your moped using Google Maps Street View. The area which you need to explore is outlined on an inset Google Map. As you ride the city streets you need to look out for the red arrow markers which indicate the presence of the hidden prizes.

If you manage to find a hidden prize coupon you need to get yourself down to the new Dainese D-Store on March 5th in order to redeem your prize.

The Google Maps Virtual Post Office

The French national mail service, La Poste, is using Google Maps and Street View in its latest online marketing campaign. La Poste - Ca Envoie is a fun little postal delivery simulator which allows you to virtually post a number of silly objects to any address.

Using Ca Envoie you can virtually drop a Sumo wrestler, a mermaid, a unicorn, a lumberjack, or some goose pâté onto any address in the world which has Street View imagery. Just enter an address and pick one of the five objects and you can watch a short animation of your object falling onto your address using Google Maps satellite imagery.


Your chosen object will then be shown landing at your selected address using the Street View imagery from that location. If you are vegetarian you might want to skip the pâté animation. This little movie features a goose crashing into your street before being transformed into the goose pâté.

If you sign into Ca Envoie with your Facebook account you can post your created Google Maps postal animation to your Facebook wall.

The Google Maps Guide to MotoGP

MotoGP is the premier championship of motorcycle road racing. Hertz, this year's sponsors of MotoGP, has released a Google Maps based guide to some of the tracks on the 2014 MotoGP tour.

Beyond MotoGP is obviously meant to highlight Hertz' role in sponsoring MotoGP and to help market the Hertz brand. To be successful in these goals however the map needs to attract users and to do that it must provide some kind of useful service to its visitors.

Ostensibly then the map is a guide to five of the top race tracks on the MotorGP tour and to their surrounding areas. In this role the map is reasonably successful. If you select a marker on the map you can not only learn about a track's history but also discover useful information about how to visit the selected circuit location.

The map also provides useful information about the tourist attractions around each of the featured MotorGP tracks. Beyond MotoGP therefore provides a great service for any MotorGP fans who are planning a vacation around attending a MotoGP event at any of the five mapped tracks.

However MotoGP is an 18-race competition. So you would have thought to be a truly effective guide for MotoGP fans then the map should cover more than the five selected tracks. As a marketing tool it would surely be more effective if it provided a comprehensive guide to all the tracks on the MotoGP world championship tour.

The Street View Driving Test

The invention of Google Maps Street View has proved a huge boon to car manufacturers. Now every time a car company has a new car to promote all they have to do is to create a Street View based marketing campaign.

For example Hyundai have dropped a few Sonata cars on Google Maps for their latest campaign. Your job is to try and guess the location of the car by exploring the location on Street View. Sonata Spotted is basically GeoGuessr with a Sonata superimposed on top of the Street View. But its no less fun for that.

After you have had a good look around on Street View you can make your guess of the location by dropping a pin on a Google Map. The closer you are to the location then the higher your score. After you have found three Sonata cars you can compare your total score to the average scores of all other players.


Nissan's clever internet advertising campaign uses Google Maps satellite view and Street View to promote the Nissan Rogue.

The Nissan Rogue - Detour allows you to create a route using Google Maps or select from a number of predefined routes. Once you have created a route you can sit back and watch a short animation of your route on Street View with a number of Nissan Rogue inspired twists and turns along your drive.


BMW i Born Electric allows you to take a virtual test drive in the BMW i8 Concept or the BMW i3 Concept with Google Maps and Street View.

After you select which car you want to drive and the route you wish to take you are placed in the driving seat of your car. Through the windshield you have a great view of your route, thanks to Street View. A small map shows your current location and how much power you have in your electric battery.

If you select the 'Interior 360' option you can pan around inside the car and get a 360 degree interior view of the car and a 360 exterior view of your location in Street View.


Skoda has used the popular Hyperlapse Street View animation tool to create a cool promotional website for the Rapid Spaceback.

The Rapid Spaceback website lets you view a number of animated journeys on Google Maps Street View. To spice up the action the site has added a number of filters that you can apply to the animated route, including a kaleidoscope or mirror view. You can also choose from a number of different soundtracks to accompany your drive.

The site includes a number of prepared routes from famous locations around the world. You can also create your own route by selecting a starting point and a destination on a Google Map.

What Your Zip Code Says About You

Esri's Zip Lookup map knows all about you - and that's just from your zip-code. This map also reveals a lot about how businesses go about profiling you based purely on your postal address.

Type your zip-code into the map and see what Esri predicts about you and your lifestyle. The map uses Esri's Tapestry Segmentation methodology to classify zip-code areas into 67 unique market segments. When you type in your zip-code the map will reveal the three prevailing types of Tapestry market segments living in your area.

You can also view other demographic detail about your zip-code area, including median household income, median age and the population density.


The Seattle Times has created a similar interactive map based on Nielsen demographic groups in Seattle.

The Nielsen Company categorizes people into 66 different demographic groups in order to help businesses target their marketing more effectively. By looking at the dominant groups in different neighborhoods the market-research company can than infer generalized characteristics of the local residents.

The Seattle Times' What Your Census Tract Says About You is an interactive map revealing the two most dominant Nielsen categories in each Seattle neighborhood. Click on a Seattle neighborhood and you can find out what Nielsen thinks about the people who live there.

Watch that Map

Over the last few years a lot of car manufacturers have made great use of Google Maps and Street View to help market their cars. Swiss watch manufacturer Tissot has now caught the map marketing bug.

Tissot are using the Google Maps API to showcase some of the features on their range of watches. For example, you can experiment with the Tissot watch compass by rotating Street View imagery of the Grand Canyon, or you can play with the stop-watch feature by racing cars around the streets of New York. You can even explore the height of the Grand Canyon on Google Maps by using the Tissot altimeter.

If you want to see more examples of how maps have been used in marketing check out the Top Five Street View Car Ads.

The Top 5 Street View Car Ads

The unwritten rule of online marketing of automobiles is that you have to use Google Maps Street View. Nissan are the latest car manufactures to create a clever internet advertising campaign that uses Google Maps satellite views and Street View.

The Nissan Rogue - Detour allows you to create a route using Google Maps or select from a number of predefined routes. Once you have created a route you can sit back and watch a short animation of your route on Street View with a number of Nissan Rogue inspired twists and turns along your drive.

Hat-tip: Google Street View World


BMW i Born Electric allows you to take a virtual test drive in the BMW i8 Concept or the BMW i3 Concept with Google Maps and Street View.

After you select which car you want to drive and the route you wish to take you are placed in the driving seat of your car. Through the windshield you have a great view of your route, thanks to Street View. A small map shows your current location and how much power you have in your electric battery.

If you select the 'Interior 360' option you can pan around inside the car and get a 360 degree interior view of the car and a 360 exterior view of your location in Street View.


The problem with taking a car for a test drive is that you don't get to drive your chosen car on the Laguna Raceway or through the hairpin bends of Lombard Street in San Francisco. Hyundai has released a Google Maps Street View application that allows you to virtually test drive an Elantra on the streets of your choice.

The Driveway Decision Maker allows you to enter any address and watch a Hyundi car drive the streets of your neighborhood and park outside your house using Google Maps Street View.


Peugot has also created an impressive Street View application to promote the Peugot RCZ. RCZ View is an application that allows you to create any route in Google Maps and then watch a Street View stop motion animation of your created route.

It takes a little while for the application to grab the Street Views for a route but it is worth the wait. If you want to save a little time you can just watch the one of the preprogrammed routes.


Skoda has used the popular Hyperlapse Street View animation tool to create a cool promotional website for the Rapid Spaceback.

The Rapid Spaceback website lets you view a number of animated journeys on Google Maps Street View. To spice up the action the site has added a number of filters that you can apply to the animated route, including a kaleidoscope or mirror view. You can also choose from a number of different soundtracks to accompany your drive.

The site includes a number of prepared routes from famous locations around the world. You can also create your own route by selecting a starting point and a destination on a Google Map.