Canpages Continues to Build Its ‘Street View’

Canpages is continuing to build out its street-level photography offering for the Canadian market. Last week the site acquired social directory publisher GigPark.

According to the release issued the next city for Canpages’ “Street Scene” photography will be Montreal:

Street Scene provides 360-degree street-level views of the city for people searching for local business Canpages.ca. The technology enables users to pinpoint their search results on a map as well as see high resolution images of the results in the context of the local environment. For example, users can take a virtual “drive” down a city street to find out whether a restaurant offers parking or to see what a particular storefront looks like. Street Scene views are currently available for local businesses searches conducted in Vancouver and Whistler, BC. Canpages recently wrapped up shooting in Toronto. These images, along with images collected of Montreal streets, are expected to become available on Street Scene in the fall of 2009.

I think there’s no question, notwithstanding some of the privacy issues, that users like this imagery. The question for incumbent YP publisher Yellow Pages Group is how to respond here:

• Build a similar product
• Use Google’s Street View on its site
• Use crowdscourcing (a la Everyscape) to offer street-level imagery

What would you do if you were at YPG:

• Compete head on?
• Dismiss this as as a costly novelty?
• Integrate the Google imagery?

Update: Courtesy of AhmedF, here’s an image from Canpages “Street Scene” (using MapJack):