Category Archives: Mapping

Selling real estate is a local game. Buyers in particular want to get a feel for a place. They want to touch, to get a feel for the environment and they want to see themselves not only in a home but in an area. We know virtual tours and photographs accomplishes two of these tasks. But how  can a local environment be transported on the Internet? After all, we are referring to the WORLD wide web. How is it possible for buyers to view the surrounding neighborhood? How … Read More »

Absolutely amazing new map technology will soon be released from Microsoft. You must watch this video to understand how Street Slide could make you stop using Google Maps. Think about it – you could make a street level tour of a neighborhood for a potential buyer and incorporate it into your listing for people who aren’t familiar with the area. In the world of maps, this may be a game changer. Watch the video and consider the possibilities for selling real estate! Microsoft Street Slide

MapQuest recently released its own free voice navigation app for the iPhone and BlackBerry. From the website: “The MapQuest 4 Mobile downloadable application provides easy access to Directions, Maps, and Local Search. With MapQuest 4 Mobile you also have the ability to integrate your saved maps and directions on MapQuest.com to the MapQuest 4 Mobile mobile application. To start saving your maps and directions generated at MapQuest.com” Via Lifehacker: MapQuest 4 Mobile features voice guidance, off-route assistance (it can automatically re-route you), point-of-interest integration, and … Read More »

I saw this on Lifehacker last week, a great Google Map tool for real estate. Google Map buddy allows you to easily print out wall-sized satellite views of  a neighborhood for your listing, or make a full-page street map of the neighborhood for a buyer.  I can think of a few real estate applications for this tool. Maybe use it to keep track of your company’s listings? From the maker’s website: * Capture Google Maps images offline and store them on your hard drive * … Read More »

Does Google ever stop pumping out awesome imagery (see cities in 3d)? If their new Perspective Imagery is any indication — the answer is no. Even though this imagery is very similar to Microsoft’s Birds Eye View, it’s another possible source of imagery for real estate sites to utilize. Redfin is an early partner and you can see an example listing here — though the Bird’s Eye View imagery for this property looks much clearer. Note the imagery is currently only available in San Jose … Read More »

The Google team has done it again with their Cities in 3d program. You can now take a “virtual tour” through the streets of Los Angeles, San Diego, or Washington, DC. Here’s a preview video showcasing Los Angeles: WOW is all I have to say. Think this will change the future of how consumers search for real estate online?

Finally, Google’s Street View product comes to the streets of Canada. The other day Google added the streets of Canada to their street level photography project. You can see all of the cities/towns that have been included in their initial launch here. Interesting that Victoria BC has been left off the list. But all in all, it is a great feature with lots of potential real estate applications. Halifax

It’s no secret I’ve always been a fan of Google Street View. Today, there is exciting news for fellow street view fans — they’ve doubled their coverage in the United States. There are some cool images at Google LatLong that are in the new coverage areas. The before and after coverage maps below show the impressive growth in this release. before: after: Now that they have extremely broad coverage, I expect we’ll start to see more agent and brokerage web site integrations over the next … Read More »

Yesterday, Google announced they’ve added three more highly requested cities to their street view coverage — Seattle, Baltimore, and Washington DC. Previous Geek Estate Street View coverage: Now Available: Google Street View via API Google Street View — Too Close for Comfort? Google StreetView Expands New Cities Added to Google StreetView

This might be a little off topic and not relevant to the US market (yet), but it is “geeky” and pretty cool, so I’ll post it anyway. Google MapMaker, which is Google’s attempt at using its massive community of users to improve their Google Maps product, is live! According to Lalitesh Katragadda & Sanjay Jain from Google Maps – Google Map Maker is a significant step in our ongoing efforts to engage Google Maps users and equip them with an easy-to-use tool to build high … Read More »