Starting from today, Google will be adding 210,000 miles of UK roads to its mapping service – Google Street View. This would give Google Street View 96 per cent coverage of the entire UK. Prior to today, only about 28,000 miles of UK roads were shown via Google Street View. Google Street View’s ^[1] introduction was a bit of a controversy initially, with a streams of privacy invasion complaints but Google ‘fixed’ these issues by blurring out faces and car number plates.

It has to be said that Google’s Street View service has been somewhat of a success since its inception around a year ago – 1 in 5 people use is to find their next home! 3 in 5 people use it to find their way and others use it to check out prospective holiday destinations. Google Maps (Street View’s parent service), has seen a 30% increase in usage since the Street View service was introduced.

^[2]

Google Street View Car

Photo credits: Daniel Bowen ^[3] via Flickr