

Show HN: Random Google Street View - kirchhoff

I just redesigned an old (1 year) project and would appreciate any feedback.<p>The site has no real purpose other than allowing you to explore the large amount of imagery gathered by Google.<p>You can make it less random by choosing a country, or indeed any geographical area (cities etc.)<p>http://www.mapcrunch.com<p>Thanks
======
joshklein
I saw the tiger and immediately wanted to send it to a friend. Assuming the
front page changes, here's a UI recommendation: give me a permalink so I can
save/share interesting ones.

Fun site!

~~~
badclient
Haha, after a few minutes of digging around I managed to find the link to the
google maps.

Feature Idea: If you are able to take a screenshot of a specific view, I would
put it as a jpg so when I share the url, it shows up as preview pic in the
facebook story. I was totally sharing this story and linking to your site
until I found there is no preview pic.

~~~
kirchhoff
I generate screenshots of every featured view, to be used as a backup in case
Google update their imagery.

Facebook should pickup the preview image if you use the permalink - first
button in the 'share this view' panel.

~~~
rabidsnail
Add an og:url meta tag that references the permalink, and people will be able
to share the original page.

------
lubutu
How about putting two random Street Views side by side and letting people pick
the best view?

------
robflynn
Good job on the site. I love it. I started noticing a feeling of wanderlust
rising within me as I clicked around.

Is it just me or is Norway ridiculously beautiful?

~~~
georgefox
It's not just you. I've spent a lot more time than I care to admit looking at
the street view in Norway, especially around the fjords and way up north.

------
ctdonath
Is this somehow keyed off interesting views? The first one that showed up for
me showed a tiger walking thru a parking lot.

ETA: I ask because darn near every view that shows up is "interesting"
somehow.

~~~
kirchhoff
The first view you see is fixed. It changes every day and is chosen from the
views people submit (using the 'submit to gallery' button)

------
delta1
clickable :)

<http://www.mapcrunch.com>

------
epoxyhockey
Really nice design on the website! Very polished and fun to use.

Related question: Are you going to be negatively affected by the Google maps
usage fees next year? ( Reference:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3162352> )

~~~
kirchhoff
Thanks. The design took almost forever, as one of those programmers-who-suck-
at-design types.

Using Street View in this way doesn't seem to be on their fee list, so
hopefully I will avoid that. Otherwise I will have a problem, serving about
20,000 panoramas per day!

~~~
epoxyhockey
You should be good, even at 22K per day. I didn't dig into your js, but there
is a 25K per day threshold for using the Street View Image API.

<http://code.google.com/apis/maps/faq.html#usagelimits> (scroll down a bit
further to the table)

Your project is one great example of why I think Google needs to reexamine the
pricing of their maps API. With the threat of being charged more than adsense
would payout, great sites like yours might not be created in the future.

------
sonnyz
Cool, I found the end of the earth. It's in Finland.
[http://www.mapcrunch.com/p/54.877919_-7.675938_202.36_20.83_...](http://www.mapcrunch.com/p/54.877919_-7.675938_202.36_20.83_0)

------
snampall
Nice. May be provide some clues and make it a 'Guess the place' game..

~~~
wgrover
Making this into a game was the first thing I thought. It could be as simple
as having a game mode that puts a small country map in the corner; you click
where you think the view is and receive a score based on how close you are.
This could be surprisingly fun and addictive.

~~~
waterlesscloud
Yeah, I immediately checked the "hide location" box and tried to start
guessing countries. Vegetation helps get it down to very wide bands, but I bet
with some experience you could get it pretty specific.

------
martinkallstrom
Wow, just wow! This triggered the most severe case of Wanderlust I felt in
quite a while. I'm happy that I'm headed for Amsterdam and the Quantified Self
conference by the end of the month!

------
mmahemoff
"Guess the country". Would make a cool game.

------
wgx
Really like this. Just checked the 'urban' and 'auto' boxes and took in a nice
gallery of random places.

------
mgunes
James Bridle's "Robot Flâneur" is technically similar:
<http://robotflaneur.com> , <http://booktwo.org/notebook/robot-flaneur>

------
chedar
Nice! RSS feeds with the view of the day / gallery images would be great

~~~
kirchhoff
Gallery now has an RSS feed.

------
wmobit
Comments on saved ones might be nice. For example, on the one I started on,
there appears to be a tiger in Colorado. I have an urge to comment and ask if
that is in fact a tiger.

~~~
kirchhoff
I did add comments to the gallery. The first view in the gallery is always the
previous day's view of the day, so tomorrow you'll see the tiger in there.

Adding comments to the front page does makes sense, I just couldn't figure out
a tidy way of doing it (no space).

------
hws
Fantastic - makes me want to book a vacation to an exotic destination. Maybe
you should add links to travel agencies that service these type of trips :-)

------
mjhitchins
As a seasoned armchair holiday-maker, I love this. Maybe a 'you may also
like...' function to widen horizons?

------
kai-zer
This is a really great idea, the gallery has some interesting stuff. Thanks
for sharing!

------
joelackner
awesome. i'm going to have some fun with this and my hmd-z1 (right click > 3d
mode on) when it comes in!

it's really staggering the amount of work and data google is offering up here.

------
kin
This is awesome. Suddenly I feel like traveling the world.

------
jurciks66
Would be nice to see where exactly is that place

~~~
kirchhoff
Click the Google logo at the bottom left, it is a link to Google Maps at the
location you see.

------
tedsbardella
This is really cool - thanks for making this.

------
kichuku88
hey is there a way to make a screensaver and changing wallpaper for windows7
with these views? :) It will be fun

------
alfbolide
Love it! Great job!

