Yesterday we received a call from the Google Spain team, informing us of some of the novelties that this year will have more presence in the web design environment, the one that most caught our attention was Business Photos, which although it has been in use for several years United States and about a year in Spain it will be in this 2013 when they will give more representation.
Yesterday we received a call from the Google Spain team, informing us of some of the novelties that this year will have more presence in the web design environment, the one that most caught our attention was Business Photos, which although it has been in use for several years the United States and about a year in Spain it will be in this 2013 when they will give more representation.
But, what are these Business Photos? Well, it is a new functionality that will be given to Google maps, incorporating Street view in a similar way, but with virtual visits to the different businesses. that incorporate this functionality, the truth is that the possibilities if they continue to work along this line can be endless, without going any further I can think of sales by video conference in real-time, or making purchases through augmented reality in street shops, with this You can get an idea of the possibilities that this system offers us and the business that it can generate in this sense for Google.
Let’s go back to Google Business Photos and tell you about the main functions and their disadvantages, which are a few…
- Through Google Business Photos you can add virtual tours of the facilities of your premises, they will not be simple photographs since the user will be able to move inside the premises and change the different views of the premises, 3-dimensional views, similar to the Street view.
- Carrying out these virtual tours will open a new series of options in Google+ publications and will link your account with Google Places, needless to say, we are already seeing it…..if you want to improve your positioning, you already know…
- Another great functionality that it includes is the option to share, just like YouTube videos we can embed the code and publish it on any social network, be it Facebook, Google +, etc…
- It will have full integration with Google Maps, by moving the Street view icon, the person will show us all the shops available in the area, so we can go into each one of them to see the place.
The limitations as I have told you are few for now but there are, for example:
- Only photographers authorized by Google can take this type of photography, one of the requirements to access these jobs is to have a professional camera, a fisheye, and a tripod that allows panoramic views, Google must also accept you as a member of his group, which right now in Spain is practically impossible.
- The cost of the work is around €200-500 per virtual tour, depending on the agency or photographer you hire.
- The main disadvantage is that we cannot make the videos ourselves, the main reason is that Google, for now, wants to have high-quality control, and puts many requirements to publish, one of them is that it must have a professional quality and that they cannot appear people in the images.
That we would like Google to introduce, because Geolocation of Offers, just like Google Shopping allows you to search for products, it would be nice to be able to link those products to these guided tours or to be able to link offers and promotions to the store.
What is clear is that these options are a great advance and can be a good business opportunity for most businesses, whether they are shops, bars, restaurants, hotels, etc…
