Google Street View Cars Return to New Zealand

The power of 360-degree footage is coming back to New Zealand streets this year, with Google Street View cars touring both the North and South Island to update their footage for Street View. This may seem like inconsequential news to the average Kiwi (or super exciting – depending on who you ask really), but it’s actually a great chance for businesses in Aotearoa to increase their reach online.

What is Street View, and Why Does it Need Updating?

The 360-degree cameras strapped to the top enable the Google Street View cars to capture a full view of the surrounding streets.

If you are unsure what Google Street View is, we would like to kindly inquire as to what the under-rock real-estate market currently looks like.

In all seriousness though, Google Street View is a feature on Google Maps that allows the user to drop a “Pegman” onto a street almost anywhere in the world so that they can see what it would look like if they were actually standing there.

Screenshot of Google Street View outside of the Pure SEO Auckland Office

The way that Google acquires an accurate depiction of these street views is to send out various vehicles (usually cars) with 360-degree cameras strapped to their roofs, and drive around the regions in every country possible. But why does the footage need an update?

Well, first of all, technology has taken a massive Philippines Photo Editor step forward in nine years. Just like your average smartphone camera, the camera quality Google now uses is much improved when compared to 2009, so they’re doing a sweep to bring everything up to the digital standard we expect from the tech giant.

Additionally, the streets of New Zealand are constantly changing and growing. Buildings have grown in place of old ones, development in rural areas has increased, and entirely new streets have cropped up.

The vintage of the footage in your area may vary when compared to others around New Zealand, and that’s because the updates have been sporadic, and centred around more populated areas. So, this year, Google is doing a sweep of as much of the country as they can to bring it all to the Street View screen.

And lastly, new businesses need their storefronts on Google Street View, which can massively help them to draw online customers in.