Notes

Hi, I’m Andrew Bavers . I’m doing the advance scheduling for the Google-Certified Photographers who will be coming to Pleasantville on Monday, June 10th as a part of the Google Street View Trusted Program. Are you familiar with Google Street View?

Starting several years ago, Google outfitted a fleet of cars with specialized camera equipment to map and photograph all of the business storefronts and residential addresses on nearly every single street in the whole country. Using those images, they’ve created a 360 degree virtual tour of most of the communities in the United States, including Pleasantville.

The main benefit of Google Street View for you and I as consumers is that we can Google any business and see what it looks like from the street, scroll up or down the street to see where it’s at, and see what the front of the business looks like.

The version I am showing you today is what Google calls their Street View Trusted “See Inside” virtual tour. Instead of a virtual tour that just shows the exterior of businesses, it brings Google’s outside virtual tour capability inside — through your door and into your business, allowing you to show off your business and invite customers in to experience your space from wherever they are searching, whether they’re using a computer or looking you up on their mobile phone.

The best part of this is that Google automatically attaches your interior virtual tour to your official business listings at both Google and at Google Maps. Google and Google Maps are the two most influential search sites in the world, and whenever your business listing is returned in their search results, your beautiful interior tour will be displayed alongside it.

I’ll tell you how the photoshoots work: Today, I’ll get you scheduled for a specific photoshoot appointment on Monday the 10th and at that scheduled time a Google Certified Photographer will arrive with specialized equipment. Starting about 25 feet outside the front door, they will begin taking pictures with a specialized tripod-mounted camera, and then they’ll move that inside to take a series of staged panoramic images of your business interior, one every 12-15 feet. The imagery is then uploaded to Google’s servers, where the virtual tour becomes a permanent part of your official business listing with Google.

What I’ll do is pace out your space to determine the number of required panoramic images — would you like to walk with me?

Great, that’ about what I expected. Your business requires 16 panoramic images, which fits the $795 package. While they are onsite with high quality equipment, the Google Certified Photographer will also take 5-15 high quality still photos as well, and you’re provided those professional still photos of your business at no additional charge.

The photographers will be here on Monday, June 10th and I have the 9:00 and the 1:30 times both available. Which one of those works best for you?