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Mapping is expensive because of all the data validation. That's a lot of person hours to confirm everything. The space keeps getting smaller as the retail shops close up and only wholesale distributors of mapping data remain. 

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Mapping is expensive because of all the data validation. That's a lot of person hours to confirm everything. The space keeps getting smaller as the retail shops close up and only wholesale distributors of mapping data remain. 

All true.  Data validation never stops.  Plus for google or apple maps we are speaking of world wide, with apple adding China, where google has no presence.  The person hours volume is extraordinary.  In that first google and now apple have resorted to driving areas with their own personnel ...that speaks to both the significant expense in people hours, plus it speaks to the fact that the initial data providers couldn't economically make the hours necessary for accuracy with the payments they were getting.

Detailed data for mapping is very expensive and labor intensive.

Also consider the whole "street view" thing google did with Apple matching it with camera teams on the streets now.   Street views change.  Buildings go up, they come down.  Their are fires.  Restaurants and stores go in and out.  Cheesepowder has recorded about 600 new restaurants in this area since around March 2013.  If their are no "street views" or updates since that time period....that is 600 spots with inaccurate pictures.  Multiply that by every city/major population center in the world.  Its mind boggling....and expensive.

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Mapping is expensive because of all the data validation. That's a lot of person hours to confirm everything. The space keeps getting smaller as the retail shops close up and only wholesale distributors of mapping data remain. 

Lion:  I discovered recently from someone with reasonable knowledge that Yelp uses Google's mapping simply because it is the best source out there for point of information data that reflects businesses.  The starkness of that statement surprised me.  Afterall, from my reading and interpretation  of the Google API for maps it would appear they would have information on every single time a yelp map shows.  They would know when a google map surfaces via use of a Yelp app in mobile, when it appeared via a visit by a direct browser search for yelp, when it appeared for a yelp map surfaced by using a different search engine whether it be bing, yahoo, duckduckgo or any other source.

They would know the total number of yelp map views, and whether or not they get direct info as to the direct source of the map, by inference they know the total number of searches and by deduction can determine how many appear via  a google search to yelp, and how many appear via other sources to yelp.

Zounds.   I wouldn't want to be yelp in that case.   They are, from one probably generous description, a pugnacious website that has repeatedly contested google's control of search.   Simply google might know every time a yelp search shows, which verticals, or cities generate the most yelp searches, and could alter search results to either show yelp prominently or not.

I found it a surprising statement.  If true, then Apples efforts to drive, take pictures and fill out its data for commercial and consumer searches would provide it with the "one" effective map competitor to google for commercial point of interest data.   That all goes back to your statement above,...

Mapping is expensive 

Whether due to data validation and/or to creating initial commercial maps of point of interest its simply expensive.   That google had to supplement the data they purchased from the various mapping services via its own labor, driving, and photographing data, and that now Apple is doing the same speaks to the issue.

Apple and Google can afford to create detailed commercial point of interest data.  It appears nobody else or few can replicate that effort.   (Bing/Microsoft is dropping the effort).  Probably no other commercial entity in those areas.

I'm aware that Craigslist and Foursquare used the local mapping experts, MapBox, to create maps with point of interest data using Open Mapping Project, which you referenced above.   Possibly that is an alternative.

Now from some historical reference, around 2006 AOL mistakenly dumped some data on about 20+ or more million searches from their data base.  A large sample.   Programmers scraped, copied, and reformatted it.  It was an interesting data set.

I studied it extensively from the perspective of IYP's (internet Yellow Page) sites.   AOL used google's algo for listing results.   In my limited but pretty large effort, it was clear that the IYP's were getting about 1/2 or more of their clicks via high placement in search results rather than direct searches for them by name.  ie a search result and click for bike shops Fairfax might have a click on SuperPages results because it was ranked first in AOL's results (a proxy for Google results).

I suspect Google monopolizes commercial mapping results.  Monopolizes it.  I think Apple's efforts will be healthy in that regard to break the monopoly.

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John Gruber has two good links in his posting, one by the WSJ and another with good financial metrics analysis by Horace Dediu. 

Very interesting.  I found the Dediu analysis fascinating and insightful.  Google essentially reveals nothing, so to build a case out of Apple's comments is a starting point for understanding the economics of this industry on the retail side and then what will be the automotive side.   Thanks for the share.  I'm going to share those pieces into some elements of the seo world.  I hadn't seen that information.

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Very interesting.  I found the Dediu analysis fascinating and insightful.  Google essentially reveals nothing, so to build a case out of Apple's comments is a starting point for understanding the economics of this industry on the retail side and then what will be the automotive side.   Thanks for the share.  I'm going to share those pieces into some elements of the seo world.  I hadn't seen that information.  

As we discussed earlier in the thread, creating and maintaining an accurate database takes a very large number of worker hours which can not be automated yet. $1-2 billion is the current costs for a world wide level GIS database system. Very few players can afford to make these plays. As such, its a very exciting time as these major shifts occur whose impact will be felt globally by everyone within the next decade.

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<re/code> reports Nokia sells Here Mapping

The prediction in  the articles you sourced were right on target!!!!!!!!   Very impressive and insightful.  I would think they would develop this mapping differently than the main stream retail maps featuring POI.  They'll take driving directions to another dimension...at least that's what I would imagine.

Lion:  I doubt anyone is reading this thread besides you and I.  Possibly we should add movies music, dance, possibly porn...or at least some interesting maps to get some other attention....;)   Possibly maps of food...:D

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Lion:  I doubt anyone is reading this thread besides you and I.  Possibly we should add movies music, dance, possibly porn...or at least some interesting maps to get some other attention.... ;)   Possibly maps of food... :D

Let's see what happens with the automated driving in the next few years. Will restaurants pay Google to drive cars to their preferred clients when we ask for a nearby sushi restaurant?  :D

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Oh wow.   I hate that.  Its another intrusion on businesses and overall privacy, let alone google taking complete control of marketing visibility.   Now I disconnected the location connection to my android after I saw how google was auto crowd sourcing where "you are" and then showing which restaurants are busiest at which days and which times of day-->  Article   Ever since I disconnected it I get constant reminders--"google(or android) wants to know your location".

F**k them.  As a business person, I do like reviewing all the competitors and seeing when they are busy.  If they are not busy on weekends...uh oh.  If some businesses have great mid day weeks...that would be interesting.  I'd explore what they are doing.

I don't want anyone seeing what I'm doing.

As a consumer it is a "little" helpful.  But its not super duper helpful.  I view it as more intrusive and more google taking the information and using it to its benefit...not as it describes "as good for users".  I don't think they are actually doing that at all these days.

Now if google is going to amass pics of restaurants by individuals and get access to them and then load them up to google's own pages....it is ultimately an attempt to get searchers and visiitors to look at google information....and not the business's information on its own site.

That is the google trend.  Google is working to reduce traffic to the actual business websites and control the traffic and access to its own content.  The ultimate goal is to get businesses to advertise in google adwords.

Here is a desktop view for what is an extraordinarily high volume type of search phrase  (restaurant or type of restaurant/location or city)

post-9660-0-59993000-1440698676_thumb.gi

On a mobile:  That same search returns an ad, as above and the same kind of view:  a map and a google box for 3 restaurants.  No links, no phone numbers, no addresses.

If you click on one of the restaurants in mobile...the first view will give you more google controlled info...an option to link to the website, and a link for directions (if they have your current location).   Still no phone number.    You have to click for more information to get a phone number.

So google totally controls the access from customers using it to find restaurants (and other businesses) and withholds the most critical and virtually the most relevant info:   Addresses, phone numbers, and an actual look at the website.

Google is in control.

If they get direct access to photos of food they will have more control.  And the restaurants and other businesses will have less direct contact to customers.

Google is inserting itself as the ultimate "middle man".   It will ultimately "tax" in one sort or another any business that sees its access limited.

Once there were phone books, with EVERY business listed.   Every consumer had access to this.  It was regulated by the state.  It was an effort to give access to vital info to all consumers...and it created a more even playing field.

Not any longer.   Beware big brother--> its name is Google.   Ultimately it is this level of control that pushed the auto companies to purchase their own mapping system.

It is quite insidious.

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Thanks for the update Lion.  I was aware that Google MapMaker (MM) was back up in the US, and was back up in other nations to date, but hadn't read any of the pieces till the one you sourced.

I wonder if others are reading this thread???   Businesses should be aware that the EASIEST and FASTEST way to get correct information about your business should any of the data showing be wrong, had been through Google MM.  Before it was closed for several months...corrections via Google MM were faster than any other way, (subject to possibly via control of a google my business account,).

I had used it frequently to make corrections.  It would update data VERY FAST.  Of course it was also subject to enormous spam.  The reference in the article you sourced, Lion, was certainly the most outrageous example.

Now I've used Google MM for years--as a crowdsourcing updater.  Years ago EVERY single edit and correction I made was REJECTED.  Every one.  They were accurate.  I guess the reviewers didn't trust me.   ;)

Then later EVERY ONE OF MY UPDATES was accepted.  And changes filtered into google search VERY FAST.

I noticed the other day that Google Maps had the wrong location for an entity.  I'll get around to Google MM and see if it gets updated quickly or not.  I'll report back.

They have had it shut down for months.  They had plenty of time to review their systems, tighten them, and hopefully improve them.  We'll see how it works.

OTOH, the other day I printed out google driving directions for someone.  BOY WERE THEY ON TARGET AND GREAT.   The following day the person thanked me several times for preparing them and physically showing her how to get started for the first of some twists and turns to get to where she wanted to go in the car.

So...on an anecdotal basis, I can say, some things work, some things don't work.   Just don't implicitly trust it as the "word of god".  Google maps and any map system needs an enormous volume of corrections.

BTW:  I liked the reference to the spam attack with the google android "soiling" a competitor.  I know who did it and have communicated with him.

Per the article they killed that "gadget" and opportunity.   I guess nobody else will be able to use google's own tools to make them look so foolish.

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Thanks Lion:   I see that this small company evolved and/or was developed by someone who used to work at the big data company Palantir.  It appears to have large corporate or government applications.  I'd bet its interesting.

Meanwhile on the more mundane elements of mapping for finding local smb's or restaurants, and/or driving directions I was looking at a couple of things:

With relevance to Dediu's article wherein Apple revealed some data about its volume of map downloads on Mobile vs those of the 2nd most used mapping app (google)   I was looking at clicks to our smb's via AMaps  (apple maps)  

If one searches on A maps for an smb and you find it, ultimately you can call or click on the smb website.  If one clicks on the website it shows up in your analytics as a DIRECT visit...and you can trace it to a device  (an IOS browser)  you can find the browser version the IP location etc etc.   But it shows as a direct source....not Apple Maps.

So I looked at traffic from IOS sources and from other sources for direct traffic.  Far far far more direct traffic from androids....           So ultimately its virtually impossible to determine how many visits might be coming to an smb via apple maps.   Too bad.

Here is another find on humdrum every day maps usage...especially for people searching for local businesses or restaurants in google search, the primary way this is done world wide.

As of early August this year Google converted data moved from its maps dot google dot com index from what was a Pack of up to 7 local businesses to a  smaller Pack of 3 businesses.  Here is a review story on it with a ton of commentary (mostly unhappy).

Anyway I happen to have an older version safari browser on one of the PC's I use.  I evidently downloaded it in 2012.  Never liked it.  Hardly ever used it.   It evidently wasn't well received by the public and simply wasn't that usable.   Apple stopped supporting it shortly after I downloaded it.  Google doesn't support it.

So while the big Search Engines warn against using it, because its not updated with protections.....there are other interesting elements connected with this unsupported browser.

One big one for searching for local businesses is that it doesn't take "upgrades to Google presentations" since 2012.   One HUGE difference is that it doesn't show Google KNOWLEDGE BOXES.

Anyways I have screen shots of searching for a local business now, using the unsupported browser and Google's current presentation.   Below are two versions:post-9660-0-31448600-1442586823_thumb.gi

This is the current view on most browsers.   There are 3 highlighted businesses.   They show review totals.  They don't show phone numbers.

Here is the older view:

post-9660-0-43577600-1442586911_thumb.gi

7 highlighted businesses in the area and the information includes phone numbers but does not include google reviews.

Which do you prefer?    Anyone besides Lion and I looking at this?   Any other comments???

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Curtailed information is unfortunately the way of things seem to be going. I'll be curious to see if any governmental actions are taken as effectively google does ~70% of internet searches.

iOS atomizes all search results. Part of the issue their issue getting Siri to work well depends on building a data identity and that is much more challenging with the privacy restraints.

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Curtailed information is unfortunately the way of things seem to be going. I'll be curious to see if any governmental actions are taken as effectively google does ~70% of internet searches.

iOS atomizes all search results. Part of the issue their issue getting Siri to work well depends on building a data identity and that is much more challenging with the privacy restraints.

Lion:  of the two presentations which do you prefer:   the one with 3 choices and reviews or the one with 7 choices and phone numbers?   Or do you search above and beyond those results from the maps index?  Or consider all choices including ads, universal results from the G maps index and organic.   Would you do this kind of search outside of google?   What other alternatives would you choose?    Anyone else??

As to "atomizing" search results...well if I was on the website liontalks dot com and/or the liontalks directory and there was direct link to the smb analytics would tell me the visit came from the "lion" web site.   On the AMaps thing...I need to test a lot on some obscure visits during strange hours to see how different efforts to reach a site wherein I can access analytics tells me how the visits are recorded.

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Lion:  of the two presentations which do you prefer:   the one with 3 choices and reviews or the one with 7 choices and phone numbers?   Or do you search above and beyond those results from the maps index?  Or consider all choices including ads, universal results from the G maps index and organic.   Would you do this kind of search outside of google?   What other alternatives would you choose?    Anyone else??

As to "atomizing" search results...well if I was on the website liontalks dot com and/or the liontalks directory and there was direct link to the smb analytics would tell me the visit came from the "lion" web site.   On the AMaps thing...I need to test a lot on some obscure visits during strange hours to see how different efforts to reach a site wherein I can access analytics tells me how the visits are recorded.

I search above and beyond when purchasing items or visiting restaurants which is the main benefit of this forum. Getting the anecdotal stories from forum for restaurants or food is more valuable than sometimes plain data. I'll read websites like The Wirecutter and The Sweethome to get an ideal of what's current and I like how they update their reviews year to year.

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Lion:  (and anyone else).  I have to show you something having to do with "mapping".   Of note when this conversation started my perspective was and has been about how local results show via mapping for consumers searching for local businesses, (or in this forum, primarily restaurants).   Regardless of all the technology there are certain websites (google) that get the vast vast majority of searches for local businesses.   If I'm looking for a local butcher, baker, candlestick maker, or a restaurant, or a Vietnamese restaurant, or a restaurant in Vienna, Va, or any such type of search, I do presumably want some kind of reasonable list of different businesses.

Maybe others don't think this way, but I'm not inclined to immediately trust the list that pays the carrier of the information.  That doesn't tell me they are good.  It tells me they paid the carrier (website/search engine, directory, review site, etc.).   All I know is they forked up money to be seen.  Are they good or not????

Well here are google's results for a search.  I took this screen shot off of a large desktop screen.  In this case its for plumbers and its in (either Emerald City, Ca, or Redwood City, Ca (two very close towns).    Can you see any result that didn't pay Google????    Do you trust these results?   Are these the kinds of mapping results you want to see for any search of any type?   What is your opinion???

post-9660-0-51381400-1443112015_thumb.gi

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Remember with the yellow pages how businesses would take a quarter page ad touting their services? It's basically the same thing now just thru Google. It takes time to research something to get around the paid advertisements but again cross referencing search results via different sources always leads to better information. 

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Remember with the yellow pages how businesses would take a quarter page ad touting their services? It's basically the same thing now just thru Google. It takes time to research something to get around the paid advertisements but again cross referencing search results via different sources always leads to better information. 

You are right.  I've been posing the same question in different places, and I'd say with "thinking people".   Folks have responded similarly to you Lion.

Frankly its the webmasters and the smb operators who feel most aggrieved by the evolution of google results.  I'm one of them (and opinionated).   Additionally in the US historically there were laws concerning the phone books.  It was required that every home gets one.  Additionally everyone and every business got their phone numbers in them.

So long as your number was showing there was a "more equal sense of being seen" in my mind than is the case now.  Google's ads push regular listings out of sight.  Less than 5% percent clicks  probably hit the 2nd page of google results or beyond.

The "ultimate" data on the impact of rankings and visibility in search engines occurred in 2006, when AOL inadvertently dumped the results of about 9 million searches and 5 million clicks by users.   Link   Here is a bit of description about it   And here is a reference to the difference and impact in rankings on the first page:

From the webmaster perspective everyone strives for first;  from the perspective of position in the rankings, when google puts its own results at the top it impacts every other site on a significant level.   Google's results get clicked.  All other websites lose clicks.

BTW:  Back in the day our smb's were in dozens of YP books in this region and others.  We had regular listings and various kinds of ads of different sizes and styles.  We spent through the kazoo.

Mapping is generally used publicly in search engines and directories two ways.  Its used for directions.  That is probably its greatest direct use.   Its used in "directory type" listings for finding local businesses.  BTW:  Before google moved its maps onto the front page of google dot com wherein it listed local businesses....direct usage of the maps.google dot com was about 1-2% of usage of google dot com.  People were not flocking to the mapping index.

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When did Google start presenting archived versions of street maps? It's extremely useful for me, albeit often of low resolution.

What do you mean by archived versions of street maps?   Are they street maps from many years ago, or a few years ago?   As far as I know google attempts to show the most recent versions of street maps on a retail (general public) basis to the extent it has updated information.   One thing you might run into, though, are street map views of blocks or intersections wherein a google street map was made years ago and has never been updated.  To update street map views they need to keep sending drivers through endless roads and do so on a very regular basis.  I doubt they do that as it would be tremendously expensive.

How are you searching?

For instance here is a street view taken from July 2014 which shows low rise retail buildings on the North side of the 2300 block Wilson Blvd.  They have since all been demolished and a new hotel is under construction on half the view:

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I assume that is an antiquated "street view".   The "street views" are a result of google drivers going through streets and taking photographs.  I don't think any of us know what their time frame is for updating these views.  I referenced one above wherein the picture is dated from July 2014, but its dramatically out of date now, with 1/2 the site being torn down and the other half housing what might be a 100 foot high building under construction.

I'd assume they update more urban views more frequently and update views on streets where there is significant change more frequently.

 Lion updated this thread above with commentary from a well respected expert who made a cost estimate of $1-2 billion/yr to maintain accurate street maps.   Nobody else had pinned a number before.  He described how only Google and more recently Apple might be able to afford that and make it pay by virtue of ads for google and selling phones for apple.  Evidently a third party can't sell that data for enough to pay for that kind of expense.    The analyst correctly predicted that a consortium of auto manufacturers purchased a large mapping service...and they will create their own independent updated road maps for installation in vehicles and independence from either google or apple.

Parenthetically back in prehistoric days (for leasing retail/restaurant space) under advisement I created small data bases of suburban retail corridors with pictures and data on every building and every store front.  It was before desktops let alone the web.

Boy it worked great.  I walked around and presented to property owners and tenants and buyers about the "state of the market".  Nobody else had info like that.  They were freaking huge books with data pages and panoramic photographs!!!  I looked like a "market expert" when what got me there was being a photographer and a nosy PITA.  But it worked.

Creating it took for ever.  It was a huge endeavor.  And it ALWAYS CHANGED!!!!!!!!   Tenants opened and closed, properties sold or got subdivided or new construction occurred.  Trying to be current is a crazy effort.  I can see you try and do the same with restaurants.   Its extremely difficult to stay current.   Good luck.  Don't expect the street views to always be up to date, but if older data is helpful to you...well then you are in luck.  I suspect you will find that the updatedness seems random.

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I certainly don't know the rhyme or reason behind updating street views, but I checked:

Staunton Va, near the Stonewall Jackson Hotel,

Greenbelt, Md near the old Jaspers,

A random residential corridor in Falls Church

The commercial corridor in my home town in NJ

Two upstate NY locations including a "major town" in this area and a rural area.

Just randomly went through various sites so this isn't inclusive:

Street views from Staunton were last updated from 2012.   Annandale Road in Falls Church had street views updated this summer, Of commercial properties near the old Jaspers in Greenbelt I found most recent pics from 2012 and 2013 respectively.  The most recent pics from the "commercial street" from my little home town...2013.   Upstate NY "major city"   updates on street views from 2013.

When I hit a random rural area in upstate NY I found rural pictures from 2014 which were cited to a photographer who had submitted them to Panoramio, Google's photo sharing subsidiary.   I wonder if google street maps takes them or asks for them??  (either way at least they cited them)

My random meanderings suggest to me, If I wanted to use Google Street View for currency or accuracy I'd check the dates on the photos.  But older photos have value also.

Never looked at this before.  I bet spies might find value.  ;)

On a more utilitarian perspective having seen this if I were a commercial entity of some sort and google street views were outdated I'd take current pictures, submit them to various high volume websites,local and other news sources, vehicles such as panoramio or similar entities to get the best current pictures available for wider distribution; sort of like what real estate agents do when they "stage a home" for resale.

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I view it as "archived" more than "antiquated," but I find it quite useful for spotting businesses that no longer exist - the problem is that when you look at a 2007 street view, the resolution is not even close to what you get in the current version.

I found the question intriguing as there are many applications.  Interacted with some people with more experience and knowledge on this topic and learned that street view pictures "might be updatable" in more than one way.  I'm "supposed to be up to date on topics like that and I had no idea.  I saw one set of photos that was tremendously inviting and creative...not what one would find in a typical picture of this ilk.

Took a view of some street view pics of some properties with which I'm familiar in "bumf'k rural, USA".  Probably the original street view pictures from 2008.  Never been updated.   The quality is not as good as the one's they are getting more recently as you noted above.

If you have noticed in searching in google by name for entities like restaurants, car dealers, supermarkets, etc.  there is a box on the right and more often or not they will show you how relatively the place is during its working hours, Sunday -Saturday.  Google gets that data by users approving "location id" on one's mobile.  They coordinate that data with precise location points on maps and thus can create the graphs they show for businesses.     Well, I think they can possibly look at that aggregated mobile data and figure out which roads are busiest, and where people traffic the most.  If they have that kind of data then they can figure which street views need to be updated the most.   Just guessing but it seems like it might be logical to me.

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I view it as "archived" more than "antiquated," but I find it quite useful for spotting businesses that no longer exist - the problem is that when you look at a 2007 street view, the resolution is not even close to what you get in the current version.

Interesting the view is not in a high resolution. Are you sure it's not a photograph instead of a street view?

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attachicon.gifScreenshot 2015-11-03 at 12.00.02.png

If you click on your map, where it says "2014," you'll get options dating all the way back to 2007.

Okay.  I see what you did.  Click on the clock icon, in the box in the upper left hand corner and you can see "street views" going back in time.  I never realized that was an option.

Interesting the view is not in a high resolution. Are you sure it's not a photograph instead of a street view?

I glanced through a variety of properties, restaurants etc.  All the one's I saw from years past say "street view".  Does that guarantee that they were done by a google photographer in a google vehicle in each and every case?   I wouldn't know.

When it comes to photos it appears if you use Panoramio (google's photo sharing web site) these terms and services apply:

Your Content in our Services

Some of our Services allow you to upload, submit, store, send or receive content. You retain ownership of any intellectual property rights that you hold in that content. In short, what belongs to you stays yours.

When you upload, submit, store, send or receive content to or through our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content. The rights you grant in this license are for the limited purpose of operating, promoting, and improving our Services, and to develop new ones. This license continues even if you stop using our Services (for example, for a business listing you have added to Google Maps). Some Services may offer you ways to access and remove content that has been provided to that Service. Also, in some of our Services, there are terms or settings that narrow the scope of our use of the content submitted in those Services. Make sure you have the necessary rights to grant us this license for any content that you submit to our Services.

Our automated systems analyze your content (including emails) to provide you personally relevant product features, such as customized search results, tailored advertising, and spam and malware detection. This analysis occurs as the content is sent, received, and when it is stored.

If you have a Google Account, we may display your Profile name, Profile photo, and actions you take on Google or on third-party applications connected to your Google Account (such as +1's, reviews you write and comments you post) in our Services, including displaying in ads and other commercial contexts. We will respect the choices you make to limit sharing or visibility settings in your Google Account. For example, you can choose your settings so your name and photo do not appear in an ad.

You can find more information about how Google uses and stores content in the privacy policy or additional terms for particular Services. If you submit feedback or suggestions about our Services, we may use your feedback or suggestions without obligation to you.

In other words if you take a photo of Pho Tay restaurant and upload it to panoramio it could appear in a google presentation of that restaurant/business.  Your name (or google acct.) will have attribution.   In some cases in lieu of a "street view" photo I've found pictures attributed to photos from various individuals.

Separately as I've reviewed these "street view" histories today, it does seem that "street view" photographic resolution improved from 2007/2008 to more current times.

Now back to that original question as to when google started putting up a timeline of older pictures....I don't have the faintest foggiest notion.  BTW:  Google introduces endless changes and more often than not simply doesn't announce it, or might announce it in a very vague way.  Some changes get a lot of publicity via "google followers".  Some get missed by everyone.

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