Google Street View Feature to Improve tourism in Macedonia

Montag, September 22, 2014

Google announced that it started recording locations in Macedonia in order to improve the quality of the feature "Street View" in Google Maps application.

As of September 29 in Skopje and Bitola, and in other major cities in the country, three-dimensional images will be recorded. The project is planned to cover as much as possible from the road network, as well as the most interesting places in the country.

Ministry of Information Society and Administration had active cooperation and held several meetings with Google representatives, aimed to introduce this service in Macedonia.

According to Ivanovski, thanks to Google Street View, Macedonia be seen in a new "dimension" via computer or a smart phone.

"This is especially important for tourism and will contribute to a better positioning of Macedonia at the attractive tourist destinations, where the beauty of our country can be seen from any device connected to the Internet", said the minister.

Street View is a Google Maps feature launched in May 2007 and is already available in 59 countries. Also, it is available on Google Earth and Google Maps for mobile phones. The feature allows users easily navigate through a virtual panoramic search of the streets

"We hear from many of our users in Macedonia that it would be really excited to have Street View available in Macedonia. So, today we are especially pleased to announce the start of the ride and to make the beautiful streets and beautiful cities of Macedonia open to users worldwide. American businesses and consumers will also enjoy the many benefits of the service", said Amita Katri, program manager for Street View in Google.

Google says it has addressed the Directorate for Personal Data Protection about the implementation of the project. They elaborate that the images designed for Street View before being published, will show blurred faces and license plates. When the images are available, people will be able to apply for additional blurring of the images by clicking on "Report a problem" option on the bottom left of the photo, then fill in a short form, indicating precisely which picture should be blurred.