Lately around the Internet, people have been blogging about seety, London's very own street-level panorama website. It's no different than MapJack or EveryScape; however, it has been included in real estate website NovaLoca.
Google Street View cars have been seen in London already, and many Londoners on the Internet have been somewhat upset about that. So some bloggers have gone too far and said that seety has beat Google.
It's not a competition.
First of all, Google Maps is the website and Street View is a feature. In seety, the panoramas are the website and the map is a feature. I would prefer a map website than a panorama website.
Secondly, Google Street View has 90+ locations, while seety has...oh yeah, one.
Third, Google Street View cars have already been spotted in not just London, but all over Great Britain. When Street View is released in the UK, it will dwarf seety.
In conclusion, speed does not matter when it comes to quality.
4 comments:
Also, the Google camera used in the UK is the same one as in France. The quality will be far superior as seen here: High Res Google Street View France
I agree. The resolution in the Seety tool is pretty low, making use of the full screen feature pointless, because you get a lot of blur. Another problem with it is clicking through frames is very slow-going. This might be because it's new and the site is getting a lot of hits, I don't know. But for viewing London, I look forward to Google's offering. For one thing, only central London is included, which means Heathrow is outside the current image area. If I ever travel to London, I'd really like to be able to map out via some kind of street view a route between the airport and wherever I'm going.
Hello
There are a few aspects you have overlooked about Seetys street view that make them a valuable addition to street view resources.
1) The quality is not as good as Google for sure, but this is using off the shelf equipment with a bit of custom software and is produced for a very reasonable cost (I've asked them). I doubt Google could claim the same.
2) Seety are actually more experienced than you give them credit for. They have actually been doing this for a few years in Italy for the yellow pages there:
http://www.visual.paginegialle.it/
3) I can pay seety and within a few months I can have streetview imagery for anywhere in the world. Not something you can claim with Google and a big benefit for goverments etc who might want this.
4) I can license the seety imagery for any usage in combination with any mapping system. Again this is something not possible with Google's street views and does limit its applications
5) The range of the streetview does not extend to all of London. Again this is true but Seety are just trying to build a business model that can work for them, so we cant expect them to finance huge areas of coverage out of their own pockets, again they are not Google.
Personally I welcome any company who can provide us with more street view data and I think as a community we should encourage small companies such as seety so that we can expand the range and possibilities of streetview data, rather than unfairly comparing them to one of the biggest companies in the world.
Thank you for your comments, Bob. Here are my responses:
1) The images are the product, and if the images are poor, the product is poor also.
2) Sure, they're experienced. But they're not very good.
3) I'd like to check this out. Could you tell me where I can do this? Yes, this is something Google doesn't have, so seety wins there.
4) May I remind you that Street View is a feature on a map, and seety is a feature with a map?
5) That's why Google is doing it better.
Again, thank you for your comments. ;-) Google Street View has already beaten MapJack, StreetSide, EveryScape, etc., and seety is just another panorama site that can't compete with Peg Man! :-)
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