Monday, March 29, 2010

Boston & London Marathons in Street View

Adidas: Boston Marathon in Street View

Adidas have produced a Google Maps app that lets you follow the whole Boston Marathon route in Street View.

When I first saw the Boston Marathon Street View app my jaw dropped three times in succession. Once because it was a brilliant idea. Twice because it was an idea that I had been working on myself (see the London Marathon in Street View below) and the third time because the similarities with my own Street View app are uncanny.

Both the Boston Marathon app and my own London app let you follow the route of the marathons using Google Maps Street View. Both apps let you navigate to points of interest on the marathon route and both apps use an overlay on top of the Street View to enable you to jump forward to the next point of interest or go back to the previous POI.

In fairness the Boston Marathon app is better than my London app. The Boston app includes a Google Map of the route and a terrain chart, both of which are missing from my map. Another similarity that both apps have is that they don't seem to work too well in the Chrome browser, which has problems showing overlays on top of Street View.

Hat-tip: StreetViewFunny.com

London Marathon in Street View

The London Marathon Street View map let's you follow the route of the London Marathon. The map shows the Street Views for all the mile markers along the route and also lets you view points of interest along the route, like Buckingham Palace and the Tower of London.

Virgin London Marathon

If you want a Google Map of the London Marathon check out the official marathon website. The map includes markers for each of the mile markers and also shows points of interest along the route.

Interestingly the map also omits the Google Logo, which Virgin just might find violates Google's Terms of Service.

______________

No comments: