If you’re not familiar with Google Maps Street View, you really need to be. It fills in the gap left by maps and photos taken from satellites. Sure you can plan your route and even see what the areas look like when you zoom in, but that’s only from up above. What about the FRONT of a building? Enter the Street View, another map view setting that actually allows you to see what the buildings look like from the street. You can even zoom in and out and move up and down the streets. Now THAT’S helpful!

What Google did was had cameras mounted on vehicles which drove up and down each street taking pictures. Then they’re all assembled in Google Maps. This is quite cool and I’ve already found it very helpful in planning trips to places I’ve never been before. When you can see what the buildings actually will look like as you drive up to them, you’re more confident.

Here’s where it gets REALLY interesting. An entire subculture has grown up around these Street View pictures. It’s only logical that with so many millions of pictures you’re bound to get a few that are unusual, rather than simple pretty shots of nice buildings on sunny days. For the most part, it’s probably people with too much time on their hands, but what has developed is a community of “online sleuths” who look for and collect these bizarre pictures. Some of those mentioned the most are a car on fire, a man running down the street in a scuba outfit, and a boy falling off his bike in his driveway (one picture shows him on it, the next shows him on the ground).

The Google Street View Gallery has quite a few really interesting or entertaining shots taken by the Google cameras. News.com.au also has a gallery of some favorite images. And it’s not like you have to go someplace special to see them–THEY’RE RIGHT THERE IN GOOGLE MAPS!

If you find some of your own, go to http://streetviewgallery.corank.com/ and set up a free account. Then you can add your own finds and comment on others’.

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