Web Search--a9 Search and SEE the Yellow Pages with a9
If you haven't checked out the "just released" new yellow pages from Amazon.com's a9 you really should. It's very cool. In a nutshell, a9 have already taken more than 20 million street-level photos (what a9 calls block views) of each and every establishment in yellow page directories for 10 U.S. metro area and associated these images with each entry. You can even virtually walk entire blocks. It will be a real attention getter for a9 and perhaps, even useful! It's a must see for everyone but it's far from complete at this point. You can also browse/search the yellow page directory via this url. Btw, if you're not in one of the 10 metro areas that already has images online (see the list here), stay tuned. Again, as of today, not every address in the 10 metro area have images online. More details in this SearchDay article.
How About Some European Cities?
The concept of associating street-level images with locations listed in yellow page directories is not new. In fact, Pagesjaunes.fr has made something very similar available for several years. The service is still online and allows you to access pictures for locations in 27 cities in France and Spain including Paris, Bordeaux, Madrid, and Barcelona.
Finally, on a somewhat related note...
We've mentioned TerraFly from the Florida International University many times. This free service (a fee-based version is also available) allows you to "virtually" fly over the U.S. and view aerial and satellite images of just about any location. If that's not enough, the service also provides data (street names, census info, local hotels, schools, etc.) about any location visible in the aerial images. To access the textual data, SIMPLY CLICK on any location when viewing an aerial image. A window will open with the statistical and local data. Very cool and useful. Make sure to give it a try.
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