Google Street View Comes to Portland

You know that creepy/cool feature Google introduced awhile ago, “Street View” – where you can see the streets of certain cities as if you were standing right there? Well, Portland has been added to the list of the cities which have Street View, so you can now get an on-the-ground feel for what this city looks like.

To use the Street View feature, all you do is type in a Portland address into Google Maps and then click “Street View” on the right of the map. You’ll see a little orange person-like icon which you can click and drag around on the street map and drop him (her?) in the spot you want to see. Then you can click on the right and left arrows on the pop-up picture to turn around and see different angles of the street. Here, as an example, is a view of BootsnAll headquarters. And this is the front door of Powell’s Books main location on Burnside. Okay, this is far too much fun. Don’t mind me, I’m just going to spend the next half-hour playing with this new Google toy. Nevermind that I live here and can go look at this stuff in person – c’mon, where’s the techno-geeky fun in that?