Prompted by my post on Vutool, Gary Price at ResourceShelf reminded me about Page Jaunes in France. This is, to my knowledge, the first and oldest of the efforts to create a visual directory of storefronts and buildings. It was an effort of paid professionals who went out and made photographs of all these buildings “manually.”
Clearly this type of visual information about locations is highly desirable (and offers a competitive advantage) but expensive to do if not by users or some automated process.
Screenwerk 
April 3, 2007 at 12:05 am
Just the other day, I wanted to see a photograph of an auto repair shop located in a very dubious part of San Francisco. I thought I’d go to A9.com for the street level maps.
A9 has disappeared, apparently without much comment, a few months ago. Why?
Maybe I’m paranoid, but I think it’s got something to with “homeland security”. And if so, for once I agree with them. Is it really in the nation’s best interests to allow a bunch of terrorists holed up in a cave somewhere to have access to detailed pictures of every block in the USA?