Google Street View Virtual Business Tour for House of Shaves Barbershop in Jacksonville, Florida.

Hey, folks. I was recently contacted to shoot for Jacksonville's best barbershop, House of Shaves Barbershop in the Southside area. If you're new to Jacksonville or looking for a new barber, head over to House of Shaves Babershop for some of the best service in Jacksonville. If Southside is too far, they've just open a new location at Riverside in the TIAA Building next to Arepa Please.

If you're looking to have your building captured for Google's StreetView Virtual Business Tour or if you know of any historical buildings that need to be preserved please let me know in the comments below or send me an email at hello@georgemoua.com.

An Unexpected Issue with a Recent Google Street View Virtual Tour

I ran into an unexpected issue on a recent client’s tour. There was an earlier tour at the same location that was causing connection issues with my client’s tour. The fix was rather simple; delete both tours and re-upload my client’s tour. Once we were able to get that done in roughly 24 hours my client’s tour was up and running perfectly.

This should have been simple. Locate the previous photographer and ask them to remove the earlier tour for the company that previously occupied my client’s location. Then delete and re-upload my client’s tour. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy. Unfortunately, the previous photography would not help -- at all. Just said they hadn’t logged into their Google Street View account in ages. So left without direct access to the previous tour we resorted to manual reporting the entire tour for the Street View moderators to review and take down. Thankfully, my client was the original owner of the previous business at this location so we still had access to the previous business’ Google My Business account. From there we reported the entire tour twice and within 24 hours the previous tour was taken down. I deleted and re-uploaded my client’s tour and lo and behold in 24 hours it was connected and working like it should have.

From start to finish, it took about three weeks to resolve the issue. Mainly it was the waiting for a reply from the previous photographer that ended up being of no help. If you ever encounter this issue, I hope you have a better response from the previous photographer or access to the previous business’ Google My Business account to report from or it’s going to take a long while to resolve the conflicting tour issue.

The Jessie Ball duPont Center in Jacksonville, Florida.

Before the pandemic I had the opportunity to photograph the Jessie Ball duPont Center in downtown Jacksonville. It's exterior belying the mid-century modern open floor interior. A wonderful melding of 1960’s architecture and modern sensibilities. What was previously served as the Main Branch of Jacksonville’s Public Library now is a complex that houses some of Jacksonville’s most prominent non-profits.

I got in touch with the duPont Center to capture the Center’s three floors of reservable space. If you need a place in Jacksonville to host an event, a conference, a seminar, or anything else check out their reservation page. If you want a better idea of each space, check out the spaces on Google Maps..

If you're looking to have your building captured for Google's StreetView or if you know of any historical buildings that need to be preserved please let me know in the comments below or send me an email at hello@georgemoua.com

Update #2: Google Maps and Street View Virtual Tours Issue

Hey, guys. So it’s been a few months now, and it looks like the Google Streetview team have finally rolled out a successful fix for their rampaging AI moderation algorithm. Personally, I’ve seen my own clients’ tours finally propagate correctly and with 100% of the connections between scenes present. Great news!

Hopefully, there won’t be any more bugs in the code, but if there are any, you can count on me to let you know.

With the Google Streetview news out of the way, I’ve a lot of new content that I’m producing that should be hitting the Blog page and the new YouTube channel. I’ll be covering topics from designing panoramic brackets for fisheye lenses to discussing the most common mistakes new realtors make and how to avoid them. Sorry for the brief hiatus, but it’s been a good break and I’m ready to start pumping out great content for you guys!

Appreciate y'all for reading.

Update: Google Maps and Street View Virtual Tours Issue

For the past year Google Maps and Street View tours have had issues with proper connections within the 24-48 hour time frame that has not been addressed. Over the past couple of months this issue has compounded into a major issue affecting most photographers participating in the Google Pro Photographer program. Not much information has been given on the status or what’s being done to resolve the issue but a Google moderator has put out the following statement:

Update on recent issues regarding the publication and connection of 360 photos on Google Maps

Hello everyone,

Thanks for your patience over the past couple weeks and for reporting all of the publishing and connectivity issues. The cause of the issues is a recent change to our automatic moderation systems that is giving a high false positive rate for inappropriate content

A few more details:

- This issue primary affects 360 photos (as compared to other photo and video content)
- Images that are deemed inappropriate are not published on Google Maps
- Street View connectivity only applies to live published photos and looks to connect the next eligible published photo. This is why a lot of you have reported missing or strange connections.

What is happening next:

- The teams are hard at work to improve the performance of the auto-moderation system
- We are also introducing a manual check for all newly published photos that have been flagged to lessen the false positive rate further
- After this version is ready, all 360 photos will be re-processed and re-published

We will keep you closely posted on all of the above.

- The Street View team

If you are interested in reading up on the issue click here

5 Major Benefits of a Google Maps Virtual Business Tour.

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You may or may not know about Google’s My Business virtual tour (GMBVT). Along with their Streetview venture, Google is working to digitize local businesses so people searching for new spots to eat, explore, and shop can have a better sense of the local businesses in their area. You may not see the benefits of a virtual tour now, but by the end of this article you'll be convinced.

So, what is a Google My Business virtual tour? A GMBVT is an interactive 360 degree imaging of a business, building, or home. You can look left, right, up, and down with full 360 degree freedom. By connecting multiple 360 panoramas you can "walk" through the business in the comfort of your own home. Try out the example below:

1. It Builds Trust

When customers are searching to a new business to spend their hard earned money, they are looking for well-established, transparent companies. By showcasing your business on a trusted platform like Google Maps, you build trust with them even before they set foot in your business. Adding a GMBVT adds to your social clout and social credibility as a business. Show potential customers you're a well-established, forward-thinking business that's here to stay.

2. It builds SEO

Because it's a Google product, the GMBVT helps to optimize your search engine ranking. Inline with building social credibility and clout, a GMBVT helps also to cement your business as a well established business in online search rankings. And in doing so, you help increase your visibility and online presence.

3. Show them what you got (as the Cromulons would say)

How do you ingratiate yourself with a customer that never sets foot in your shop? Show them what your business has to offer in the comfort of their own home. A picture is worth a thousand words, but an interactive tour of your business allows them to take in the atmosphere, decor/style, and feeling of your brand and business. This way, you'll gain a friend without even lifting a finger to welcome them. Take this charming little cafe in San Jose, California called the East Bay Cafe Depot. It's filled with nostalgia and americana, but you'd never know if you didn't walk in. Since I've captured it for Google maps, now the world has the chance to experience this warm little cafe.

4. You out pace your competition

Tech savvy customers are keen on whether or not businesses are on the latest social media. Like it or not, their judgement of whether or not to patronizes a business is tied heavily towards a businesses social clout. The more avenues you pursue, the higher the scales tip in your favor of being patonized. By being forward-thinking and accepting new technologies like GMBVT you show that you're ahead of the competition. You are keenly aware of a customer that does their research online before entering a shop.

5. Engage with customers without lifting a finger

Virtual tours can serve another purpose if customized to meet your needs. By having a standalone custome tour you can add newlayer of engagement for customers. Add interesting details about your business, add pricing for items show in your showroom or checkout counter. By capturing an online market through a customized virtual tour you can add a new stream of revenue along side Google pushing your GMBVT when you're searched online to obring more potential customers to your shop!

Now you know how a GMBVT can benefit your business and brand, let me take care of capturing your business in it's best light, and in the highest of quality. When you're ready to make the jump and have your business captured for Google's My Business Virtual Tour give me a ring at 916-832-7845, email me at: hello@georgemoua.com or commission me here.