Like most people I’ve chatted about street view with, I just didn’t get it. It seemed like a curious novelty. Maybe useful to scout out somewhere you might be going and get a lay of the land, but even that seems specious.

But today I got a chance to use it fill a niche in the mapping world that I haven’t been able to fill before. One thing missing (or maybe I just haven’t found it) is the ability to find a building and say “What building is that?”. Or put another way, I know where something is, I just don’t know what it’s called. I’ve had relative success with zooming in on the area and searching for things until it rings a bell. But using street view (whose avatar is a witch on a broom today) I was able to clearly view the front of the store and see the name. Woohoo!