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The last time we heard from EveryScape, the startup that’s out to create video tours of various cities, was lookingfor Scape Artists, individuals that would be willing to contributetheir photography skills to EveryScape’s efforts. It was also lookingto the community for feedback, letting them know which cities on which they should be focusing their next efforts.
So here we are, a couple of months later, with EveryScape’s new Real World Online,having added several features to its initial service, further developedits video tours, and added Boston and New York to its list, with Miamiand Aspen having been moved into the second stages of development,which includes more details and virtual exploration options for endusers. We’ll get to these later.
I spent the good part of my weekend using EveryScape, and I reallylike the direction in which it’s going. It’s built a great deal ofcontent on its original offering, and is beginning to have a healthycollection of street tours around various cities. You can set the toursto auto-guide, or control where the tour goes for yourself. Similar to Google Street Views,EveryScape is recorded in a similar manner, with sets of photographsbeing taken from atop a moving vehicle driving through the city. UnlikeGoogle Street Views, however, EveryScape offers a more comprehensivelook at what city you’re touring, with a natural flow that works betterwith people’s existing intuitions.
Beside the video tour is a map of the current city, which showsicons of what areas are available for detailed touring. As part of thesecond phase, EveryScape has worked with a few local businesses inorder to provide internal tours for places like museums, restaurants,and other tourist spots. These internal tours are broken down intoareas, like upstairs, downstairs, lobby, pool area, etc., based on thetype of location that’s being explored. The places available forinternal touring are marked with orange icons on the associated map.
I’m also seeing EveryScape moving in the direction of a local searchengine, which is so far pretty well done. You can select an exactlocation based on address, category or business name. When viewing anindividual location, you can get some basic info for certain spaces,like the rating and price range for restaurants and hotels. From there,you can continue your visual exploration by checking out nearby placesbased on the type of activity you’re looking for, such as shopping,nightlife, etc.
There’s also a few one-click search options that will give youadditional information from third-party resources, such as a location’sofficial website, Yelp, Flickr, YouTube, Wikipedia, Expedia and TripAdvisor.This is a helpful resource because it lets you easily open up a morecomplete circle of information based on your initial local search, andtaps in nicely to different types of users, including those seeking outtravel information.
Another thing I noticed is the presence of “mini-billboards†forcertain locations that offer up advertising opportunities for localbusinesses. This seems like a sensible form of monetization that caneasily be expanded upon for multimedia advertisements. EveryScapehasn’t let on as to what it’s third phase will bring, but I hope itincludes more community features. Currently, there doesn’t seem to beany types of accounts you can create in order to save tours to yourfavorites list, or other social sharing options. There’s also no usercontribution features for the inclusion of user ratings, reviews andcomments.
But there are no limits on how EveryScape can be used as a service, from mobile use (as Do Me London and Whrrl have done), to the building of a larger social network, such as Chockti has begun to do. What I’d love to see is the use of EveryScape content for mashups and other uses, such as narrated tours.
There is another startup called MapJack.com which technology is quite similar to Everyscape. It's a good thing that newbies are coming up with the ideas of advance mapping technology that competes with Google.