Amazon Roams The Streets

Have you seen a red SUV trolling the streets, with someone taking pictures of your street? It's not a photoblogger with a driver's license, and it's not a terrorist (we think) either - it's Amazon.com's street team! Only, their street team is working for A9.com, Amazon's effort to bring the "Yellow Pages to life by adding 20 million images":

The most powerful technology A9.com invented for Yellow Pages is “Block View,” which brings the Yellow Pages to life by showing a street view of millions of businesses and their surroundings. Using trucks equipped with digital cameras, global positioning system (GPS) receivers, and proprietary software and hardware, A9.com drove tens of thousands of miles capturing images and matching them with businesses and the way they look from the street.

It's official: Amazon wants to give you new ways to stalk people. A9 is available for New York and other large cities (including LA, Chicago, and San Francisco), and they want to roll it out to, well, everywhere. Also interesting is that when you search, Google images for the search word will also come up.

Now, if only Amazon will develop some sort of ESP-technology that lets us search from vertical positions, they would own our souls.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Jen Chung in Arts & Entertainment on January 27, 2005 12:35 PM

Comments [rss]

anon

France has a picture of every address, no? We don't need anything more high-tech than that. I know A9 is beta right now, but it sucks shit. I can't find anything, though I'm sure I'm smarter than the average bear.

toyochin

Didn't Mapquest used to have aerial photographs of every address? I can't find it any more though.

Kevin Walsh

>>>it's Amazon.com's street team! Only, their street team is working for A9.com, Amazon's effort to bring the "Yellow Pages to life by adding 20 million images":

Are they hiring?...this sounds like a job for...

www.forgotten-ny.com

rb

Search vertically? This might help: New York: The Photo Atlas

S.D.

I'm Not Crazy! I'm Not Crazy! I'm Not Crazy!

(ahem)

Well, I imagine that the French have less of a propensity to sue than we do. Besides, we have ~210 million people in the US. Let's say 1/2% have Stalking tendencies, so 1,050,000 possible problems...

Admitedly, http://photos.pagesjaunes.fr/ is an interesting site.

LF

It's been done in France. Very cool. Lawsuits, stalking?!? Calm down.

http://www.pagesjaunes.fr/

S.D.

Is it me or does this has lawsuit written all over it? Granted, "Yellow Pages" have only Buisness listed in it, but this would indeed take stalking to a new level...