Adventures With Street View

We all have used Street View in Google Maps. Google has just about photographed the entire built-environment. It's kind of cool or creepy depending on your point of view.

I was preparing a post last week and wished I had a picture of the spire pictured here. I planned to go take a picture or two for the post. While I was looking up the address in Google Maps, I found that Google had taken care of the picture-taking for me - and at a much nicer time of year. 

So in half the time it would have taken to drive to the site and back, I had grabbed a few screenshots, cropped and re-sized them, and placed them in the blog post.

So far this isn't too creepy, it's just a helpful marketing tool. Especially helpful when you are working against a deadline.

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The creepiness factor was just around the corner...

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While I was trying to determine just how ubiquitous Street Views were, it suddenly got funny/creepy. 

I noticed that there wasn't a Street View of our street. But that didn't seem right. That's when I discovered that you need to 'drop a pin' or search for an address to engage Street View. (I am using my iPhone and iPad.)

So I dropped a pin on our house. Tapped the Street View window and started looking around the neighborhood. As I 'walked' in front of our house and looked, there was someone standing in our yard!

​It looks like I am "poking a tree with a stick", but I can assure you that the sneaky Google Guy caught me during a brief and rare moment of gardening.

I laughed. Out loud.

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Now I have questions.

How long will my "gardening moment" be memorialized?
How often does this happen?
​Shouldn't I have signed a waiver or something?
Why didn't I notice the Google Guy?
Can I get an alert next time so I can smile and wave?

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