The other day, I was testing a reported bug in the Google Maps forum about the Google trusted photographer request button wasn't working. It wasn't, or at least, it showed an error. Then the next day or so, I received an email from a local trusted photographer. He was asked if I wanted to schedule a photoshoot. I said, not really but then he told me it was only a few hundred bucks and I decided, heck, it would be a nice experience to see the process.
So he came by December 30, 2015, a day seven of my employees were on vacation, and did the shoot. He used two different cameras and the truth is, it was really quick and painless. The company I hired was a company named Review Balance and he came on time, said hello and then did all the shots without needing me. He started from the front door and then walked into my office and did a tour of many but not all of the rooms in my office. He even took a 360 panorama of the people who were in the office.
It was a fun and cool experience and the inside street view photos were up within a few days on Google Maps.
Here are some screen shots, which I posted on my RustyBrick web site:
When you search for my company in Google Web search or Google Maps you will see options to view inside our office or the street view of the building's front door and walk up to our business suite.
Here are screen shots of the web search method, just click on "See inside":
Here are screen shots of the Google Maps search method, just click on "See inside" for inside our office or "street view" to start the process of walking into the building:
Once you click see inside, you will be greeted with our brick wall:
You can then walk through the various areas of the main office. Such as the main development and design pit:
The gaming area:
The conference room:
He didn't go into the lunch/break room or some of the internal offices, he said it wouldn't add to the experience.
You can also walk through the Street View area which takes you from outside the building and steps you into our office. Which is pretty neat. Finally, the street view guy also took a cool photosphere of some of our team in the office standing around the camera in a circle. We were missing (it was the holiday week, so many were off) about seven people from the team, so we printed out the faces of three of the seven faces and held them up. You can see the full photosphere in Google Maps over here and spin it around with your finger or mouse.
Here is a static version which shows only some of the team:
You can find your own trusted photographer to hire over here but it was something fun and cool to do before the new year.
Forum discussion at Google+.
