Panoramio Photos Can Now Be Viewed on Google Maps

Google has decided to use Panoramio to serve up images of locations from around the world. Anywhere 'Street View' is available, you can now see user submitted photos of locations, when you click the 'Explore this area' link on Google Maps.

Philadelphia, Wilmington, NYC are just a few of the areas where Street View is available, but after doing some checking around in some non-street view areas, I've found you can upload a photo anywhere.

What does this mean for you? Well before now you could only upload a company logo to the little red dot or pinpoint on Google Maps. Now you have the opportunity to add photos of your company's store front, interior, even yourself, if you're so inclined. This is a nice feature, especially considering it's currently very under used. Doing a search in my neighborhood of 10,000 people and at least 500 businesses I only found three photos, and that's in the heart of Philadelphia. Jumping out there now can get you exposure by being ahead of the curve on technology.

www.panoramio.com

There are of course some restrictions, here is the Photo policy for Panoramio:

Photo acceptance policy

Logos, mini-images, not real photos, scanned documents, text documents, screenshots, collages and copyrighted images from someone else are not acceptable in Panoramio because of legal issues.
You can't upload photos from someone else to Panoramio even if you credit the original author of the photo because you need explicit permission from the author to do so. We are aware that some people just want to contribute to Panoramio and illustrate a place with photos taken from the Internet, but that's not possible according to the law. Because of legal issues uploading photo from another author can lead to user deletion without notice.

Photos of businesses and descriptive texts are allowed in Panoramio, but advertisting printed over the photo or in the title is not acceptable. For example the title "Pepito's Bar" is Ok, however "Pepito's bar; snack and beer" or "Order prints and t-shirts, call 394845" is not OK. Panoramio is a site for exploring places and sometimes business are a part of the place, but Panoramio is not a place for advertising, so please, flag those photos as inapropriate in those cases.
Sexual explicit pictures are not allowed until we can develop a filter for this kind of content. Discriminative, xenophobic or racist photos will be deleted. Picture of children are especially sensitive, if we have the shadow of a doubt about the intention of the photo it will be immediately deleted. Nudity is a little bit more complicated to judge, but if the nude is suitable for a museum, then is suitable for Panoramio. Nudity is also ok for naturist locations.

Photos that are not illustrative about the place (people posing, pets, cars, planes...) are not suitable for Google Earth / Google Maps, but still are accepted in Panoramio because some people asked us to keep them. However those photos are only visible if you click in the "all" tab in Panoramio's map or if you go directly to the personal page of the user, you don't see them by default, so it is your choice to watch them or not.
If you want to report a photo that is violating this policy, please, click on the "inappropriate or offensive" link on the right sidebar of the photo. If the photo is not violating this policy, but you still don't like it, I would suggest you to take further action and upload your own photos to Panoramio. Each photo in Panoramio.com has a popularity level, so if your photo gets more popular, it would be more visible than the ones you don't like ;)

Google Maps – New Update for Business Listings

It used to be that if you did a business search on Google Maps you would only pull up 10 businesses at a time. Recently Google has improved on this highly annoying and barely relevant feature by adding dots to the map for ALL listings. Now you get 10 listings on the left hand side BUT all the listings they have are represented on the map with a single dot.

So why is this a big deal?

Well now you can immediately see the density of listed businesses on the map. In the past the search feature had been so incredibly poor that if you did a search for a web designer in Philadelphia you would pull up ten listings, randomly placed throughout the city. Now all you have to do is do a business search and then zoom into the are you intended to originally. Ignoring the 'top ten' results, which are vaguely ranked at best, you can click on any dot you like to get more information.

So you can now find all the businesses listed in a particular area.

You can see IF you're listed at all and you can sign-up if you are not.

I've been playing around with this feature and it's very cool. I can now find the density of coffee shops in my are with great accuracy as well as places to cut my hair. I can located 'dead spots' where no businesses are listed for a particular category, not just in my city, but at the state and national level as well.

Looking for a part of Pennsylvania that is devoid of insurance companies? Type in 'insurance' at google.maps.com and zoom in on PA. The dots will multiply as you zoom in closer and closer and so reveal an area of the state you may want to pitch your services to.

Google Maps – New Update for Business Listings

It used to be that if you did a business search on Google Maps you would only pull up 10 businesses at a time. Recently Google has improved on this highly annoying and barely relevant feature by adding dots to the map for ALL listings. Now you get 10 listings on the left hand side BUT all the listings they have are represented on the map with a single dot.

So why is this a big deal?

Well now you can immediately see the density of listed businesses on the map. In the past the search feature had been so incredibly poor that if you did a search for a web designer in Philadelphia you would pull up ten listings, randomly placed throughout the city. Now all you have to do is do a business search and then zoom into the are you intended to originally. Ignoring the 'top ten' results, which are vaguely ranked at best, you can click on any dot you like to get more information.

So you can now find all the businesses listed in a particular area.

You can see IF you're listed at all and you can sign-up if you are not.

I've been playing around with this feature and it's very cool. I can now find the density of coffee shops in my are with great accuracy as well as places to cut my hair. I can located 'dead spots' where no businesses are listed for a particular category, not just in my city, but at the state and national level as well.

Looking for a part of Pennsylvania that is devoid of insurance companies? Type in 'insurance' at google.maps.com and zoom in on PA. The dots will multiply as you zoom in closer and closer and so reveal an area of the state you may want to pitch your services to.