Last week's update to Google Maps introduced new ways to report errors for Google Maps users, so Google is clearly thinking about using a crowdsourcing approach to mapping for Google Maps. Google also announced that it now includes data from a number of US government organizations like the Forest Service and the US Geological Survey in its maps.

In the US, the Census Bureau creates a fairly accurate base map, and this data is available freely and represents the core data set for the OpenStreetMap project. With Map Maker, Google also offers an easy-to-use mapping product that even non-geographers can use to create and edit maps and which Google has already employed to let its users create maps for countries where no accurate maps existed until now.

While the new maps that were launched last week also include new errors, the overall detail of the maps has clearly increased and now even includes data for the boundaries of land parcels in some municipalities.

Why?

The question, of course, is why Google plans to make its own maps now. For one, chances are that Google is currently paying Tele Atlas a lot of money for using its maps. Mapping services are notoriously protective of how their data can be used, which is one of the reasons Apple can't offer turn-by-turn directions in the built-in mapping application on the iPhone, for example. Google probably wants to be free to do whatever it wants with its maps without having to worry about licensing issues.

By providing its own maps and an API for others to use these maps, Google could potentially become a major competitor to Tele Atlas and Navteq now, and if Google continues to make these maps easily available to developers without cumbersome licensing restrictions, it could bring radical change to the mapping business.

By using a rectangle that conforms to a building's geometry, Street View suddenly also feels a lot more three-dimensional than ever before. According to Google's announcement, Street View can do this thanks to using laser point clouds and by analyzing the differences between consecutive pictures.

Another cool new feature is the ability to go back to your starting point by simply clicking on the return arrow in the Address Box.

As is so often the case for this kind of product, the best way to get a feel for it is to simply head over to Google Maps and drag the little Street View guy to some interesting locations.

More 3D in Google Map's Future?

Given that Google is already surfacing some 3D data in Street View now, it is interesting to speculate what else the company could do with this data. Current 3D maps are often a bit clunky, but at this point, Google's Street View cars have covered an enormous amount of data, and by using a technique similar to Microsoft's PhotoSynth, Google could create an even more compelling 3D experience. Photosynth creates almost 3D-like representations of scenes by stitching together photos shot of the same object or landscape from different angles.

Canpages.ca, the Canadian business directory listing service similar to the Yellow Pages in the U.S., is home to the new mapping service where it's accessed by performing a search on their homepage. After your search results appear, they are accompanied by a traditional map of the business location. At the top of the map, you'll see an option to select "Street View" from the menu bar when it's available. You can also click on any of the blue highlighted streets to delve directly into Street View at that particular spot. As with Google's Street View, you can click on arrows to move forward and backward and there's even a small cartoon figure that appears on the map for reference.

Although the CanPages' Street View maps offer many similarities to Google's, what's most notable about this launch are the many differences between the two services. For example, all of the CanPages maps have been created using high resolution photography. Google, on the other hand, has only used high-res imagery in a select handful of international cities including San Francisco, Paris, and Seattle.

CanPages's maps also offer a fullscreen view which you can use to fully immerse yourself into the city scene. However, don't try to tilt the camera up to the sky - that's one feature the CanPages maps don't have - they're limited when it comes to panning vertically.

Another feature of the new Street View maps is a configuration menu which allows you to customize settings like image sharpness, brightness, quality, and projection or the curved effect. You can also choose to turn on or off additional visual aids, the blue navigation dots, or the grid.

Perhaps the nicest feature, though, is the pedestrian maps. Captured by a team of photographers who traveled on foot with shoulder-mounted cameras, the CanPages maps let you explore parts of cities where cars can't go. For now, this allows you to travel down pedestrian walkways, but the company hopes to use their unique camera set up in the future to film hotel lobbies, retail stores, shopping malls, and parks.

CanPages also made privacy a priority from the start. When Google launched their service, faces and license plates were plainly visible. Only recently have they responded to people's concerns and began to blur these images. On the CanPages maps, however, not only are these items blurred, there's also a link at the bottom-right corner of the map that lets anyone submit concerns about that particular image.

A Better Street View

Considering that Google's Street View technology has still not made its way to Canada, the CanPages maps provide a good alternative - actually, given the features offered, we could even say they provide a better one. For now, CanPages Street View maps encompass the cities of Vancouver, Whistler, and Squamish (all in British Columbia). The company plans to expand to Toronto and Montreal next, followed then by as much of Canada as possible.

Image credits: krisabel.ctv.ca

These are very welcome changes that really help take advantage of the eye candy that is Street View in Google Maps. There's a whole lot of changes that were made today, all with the long-term fight for map users and their ad-viewing eyeballs in mind we're sure. Today's changes are great, though.

Map search is a heated competition between Google, Microsoft, MapQuest (now with OpenID, by the way) and a handful of other consumer market competitors. That competition goes on in both features like this and in image quality.

Why invest time and resources into making map search interfaces better? Because someday this is expected to be a very commercialized part of search. Once this kind of experience becomes widely available on touch-screen mobile devices, expect to see ads all over and even more innovation come to online mapping.

For this year's Tour de France, Google already mapped and photographed the complete route in France and Google's cars have been spotted in various other countries, including Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, and Spain, as well as Japan, Australia, and New Zealand.

In the U.S., Google is currently slowly expanding the service outside of the major metropolitan areas and has started photographing a lot of rural roads as well.

While there will always be some privacy concerns around taking such an enormous amounts of photographs and publishing them online, Google's technology has proven that it can blur out faces and license plates very effectively.

Image of Street View car by Flickr user byrion.

By mashing up Street View and directions, Google has greatly simplified the process of using its street level panoramas to find specific locations. Any point-to-point directions covering an area supported by Street View will have a camera icon next to each step when Street View is on. Clicking on the icon will launch a Street View window, and the directions can be followed step by step within the street-level view.

That would have come in handy last weekend when directions I got from Google told me to take a "slight left" which was really more of a 90 degree turn. Had I been able to check out the step on Street View first there wouldn't have been any surprises.