Cool isn't it?

Cheers @wonkyleigh

Via Adverblog

18.15 - interesting opinion on how crowd sourcing is becoming a pointless system of recommendation due to the sheer scale of reviews now, e.g. TripAdvisor.

One of many great points Jamer Hunt makes in this talk. Check it out.

via Swiss Miss's blog.

Google announced it's extending its Street View service to cover the interiors of businesses.

So, Street View inside, this is revolutionary right? Erm....... No. (But what it could lead to is.)

Last year, Bing partnered with a company called EveryScape as part of its Streetside product? Using EveryScape technology Bing was able to allow users to step inside shopping centres, markets and stores to explore their interiors. À la Google's announcement over the weekend.

Around the same time as EveryScape was developing its software, some clever bods at Berkeley were creating a real time 3D mapping scanner that you strap to your back like a Ghostbusters Proton Pack. It was able to build virtual representations of the space it occupied instantly.

All pretty cool stuff and by no means was Google not exploring the possibilities of internal mapping. Back in February, the Google Art Project allowed us to view masterpieces displayed in 14 of the world's finest art galleries and museums. Give this article from the Telegraph a read if you're interested in knowing more about the project.

So the race to scan every surface of the globe has obviously been on the minds of Google and Microsoft execs for years. Google Street View already covers ~95% of the UK and it's now capturing inlets of the Amazon (that's handy). Microsoft partnered with an innovative start up who had the capability to deliver their Streetside interior spaces.

The race to own the virtual environments of manmade interior spaces is on but you can't see Google failing to win the race. Capturing these internal spaces is one thing, offering a worthy and compelling consumer experience that monetises these spaces is another. And that's the exciting bit for me.

Let's take online clothes shopping as an example. From my limited experience with Asos - you see something on a website, like the look of it, buy it, wait for it to turn up, try it on, looks nothing like it did on the model, send it back, wait for refund, start the process again. This seems to be acceptable but it's such an inefficient and unrewarding shopping experience.

The time is coming when online shopping will literally be that. A fully immersed online shopping experience where shoppers are able to travel down Oxford St and into Selfridges. You'll go up the escalator, have a wander around and check out the clothes at a few stores. You'll visit the space your favourite brand occupies where you'll pick a selection of clothes you want to try on and head to the Augmented Reality changing rooms. You'll try on your chosen items, select what you want and head to the till to pay for them. The next day your goodies will turn up on your doorstep and they'll fit and you'll know that they look good on you.

It's coming and for me, that's the exciting bit.