Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Instagram Photos on Street View


The Beat is one of those great ideas that you just can't help wishing that you had thought of yourself. There are a lot of Google Maps based Instagram apps but I think that this is the first one I've seen which has made the inspired choice of using Street View. How better to convey the sense of where a photograph was taken than to show you what it looks like with Google's 360 degree panoramic imagery.

Using The Beat it is possible to view photographs submitted to Instagram on top of a Street View of the location where the picture was taken. If you enter a hashtag search into The Beat you can just sit back and watch as a stream of Instagram images, placed on top of Street View, plays on your monitor.

The hashtag feature is a great way to search for interesting photographs around a theme or an event. For example, if you enter 'Thanksgiving' into the search you can view a selection of Thanksgiving photographs submitted to Instagram.

The only real omission to The Beat is a pause feature. It would be nice to be able to pause interesting photographs for a closer look and to be able to explore the Street View of the location for a little longer than the app currently allows.

Hat-tip: Street View Funny

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