Monday, December 01, 2014

Ferguson Street View News


Street Stories is an interesting account of Michael Brown's death in the town of Ferguson and the events that followed, told using Google Maps and Street View.

The application uses video, photos and audio reports from Ferguson embedded on the Google Maps Street Views where the events depicted took place. The embedded media is displayed on each Street View using themed map markers. To progress through the unfolding story you need to click on the date control at the top of application.

Street Stories is an interesting way to recount the events following Michael Brown's death and the Street Views do provide an interesting visual background to the media reports added to the map. However I can't help feeling that the Street Stories platform might be more effective used in a tourism website.

The platform could be used to create interactive tours of tourist destinations, in the style of Google's Night Walk. Google Night Walk is a narrated Street View tour of Marseilles at night. The Street Stories platform could be used to create similar interactive tours, using Google Street View to provide the visual context for curated guides of interesting locations.

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