Lost In Olympic Translation: Bumming On Google’s Olympic Street View

Posted by Jonathan in INTERNET on 02-25-10    No Comments


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Here’s a high tech way to get in touch with an Olympic bummer. Spend some time on Google Street View up at the Vancouver Olympics.

A couple of weeks back, Google got some interesting buzz on a hilarious new riff on its Street View product: The Street View Snowmobile. The thing takes the traditional Street View technology and mounts it on the back of a snow machine. Google Snow Mobile 1, or whatever it is called, then beavers  around the Olympic venue capturing the look and feel of the mountain, the venues and the town.

And initially, what’s not to love? Heck, you’re up at Whistler, hanging at the Oly Village; getting a sense of the Sliding Center. And for sure as part of the larger Olympics package Google Maps has put together — which is pretty darn impressive — it shows what a branded sports event can be like on Google. Google Maps at the Superbowl anybody?

But there’s a problem. There’s no sports on Maps.

When I actually started using the system, Olympics or not, I got  the same Google Maps feeling. Yes, you’re seeing something, but you’re not sure what or where. And it takes a long time to crawl around all this terrain; Vancouver is big. Who has the patience to look at every virtual nook and cranny.  And forget trying to track  events as part of the larger Web or TV experience, Google Street View is just not fast enough to be part of a relevant game experience, at least on TV.

And to be honest, once the cool factor was gone, the woman’s downhill slope looked like a thousand other ski slopes. And Canada Hockey Place looked, like well, a building. And the images were from any old day. At any old time. And worse,  I wasn’t even planning on getting there. Robbed of the personal interest I might have in finding my way, all Google Street View did was remind me I was 3,000 miles from the event. That pushed me away, not drew me in.

In many ways, Google Street View has created a strange new entity. The Anti-Olympics. And who wants to spend time at something like that?

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