While looking for an apartment in Toronto last week, I wished that there was some web service where I could see pictures of the whole street where the apartment I was looking at is located. Since I’m currently in Helsinki, I can’t go and check out the hood myself – I’m limited to online resources.

I used Flickr and Google Maps satellite images, but found only few pictures and those didn’t really give me much of an idea of what is located next to the apartment or what does the neighborhood ‘feel’ like. I wish there was Igglo or a similar service in Toronto, too – not so much because I love Igglo but because they’ve got pictures of almost the entire city (incl. non-residential buildings) here.

But I discovered that Google Maps has recently added a new feature, street views. Right now it’s only available for parts of New York, San Francisco and Miami – no Canadian cities yet. I figure it’ll take quite a while till they get other cities photographed, but once the work is done, it’ll be a great way of exploring neighborhoods. Connected to services like real estate sites, travel sites and cities’ own websites, it can have a million uses.

Karri Ojanen