How news sites could use Google Earth street view

Posted by Caroline Huber on April 1, 2009 at 5:10 PM

In a Poynter article, contributor Amy Gahran examines the possibilities of Google Earth as an online news tool. The New York Times and National Geographic have already employed Google Earth to provide geographically based news, allowing the user to see the latest news and features of a region by clicking the area on the map, and Google News took it a step further with its Google News layers, which organizes its aggregated stories from over 4,500 news sources onto Google Earth.

Google Earth has hundreds of applications, including a Google Earth street view that allows the user to zoom in and create a panorama of a particular area. "What if a news organization offered this kind of experience and related it to a news story or ongoing topic?" asks Gahran. She suggests that news sites could employ the street view as an interesting visual feature to show the effects of disasters or community projects, provide insight into the local environment, or show changes by overlaying current imagery with past imagery.

Gahran believes that "Google Earth is a field ripe with engaging journalistic opportunity -- especially considering there's a Google Earth iPhone application." Could an application like Google Earth street view be the next step in online reporting? Instead of sending cameramen out to cover a story, news agencies simply click on a Google Earth button to see what is going on and then share it with readers. Perhaps there would not even be need for reporting: simply watch news stories occur live on Google Earth.

That is a long way from happening, but already some news sites are employing Google applications. Serra Media's Newsgarden application helps publications go hyperlocal by using Google Maps to permits users to access geographically targeted local stories. An application such as Google Earth street view could be the next technological leap in delivering hyperlocal news.

Source: Poynter