MapJack Competes with Google StreetView

June 29, 2007 By Nick Mokey

MapJack offers better image quality at the cost of a somewhat clunkier interface.

Google StreetView has a new competitor. Weeks after Google released StreetView to the public, which allows users to move a character around on a map and see things from his virtual perspective, MapJack.com has launched an identical service for the city of San Francisco.

"Most people are intimidated by maps – they’re confusing and complicated, especially when you need instant information," said MapJack CTO Bjorn Moren, in a statement. "We’ve tried to make it easier for travelers to plan their trips to the city by letting them actually look at their destinations and what’s around them."

Like StreetView, MapJack offers users a top-down view and a draggable character to navigate. Users can also use arrows in the first-person perspective to walk forward, backward, look side to side, and turn around. Unlike StreetView, MapJack does not build a smooth-scrolling panorama at every point in the city. Instead, each view is a static image, but as a trade-off, the image quality is clearly better. Views look much closer to what could be accomplished with a consumer-level digital camera, while Google’s views look closer to webcam quality.

"We developed an array of proprietary electronics, hardware and software tools that enable us to capture an entire city’s streets with relative ease and excellent image quality,” Moren said. “Moreover, our coverage area doesn’t stop street-side; we also include walking areas such as Pier39.”

MapJack is still in beta form, but in the future it could represent a challenge to Google if it manages to expand to other cities and further refine its interface.

Showing 7 comments

Tom at 3:57am 28th July 2008 limey,

Mapjack and google are not live cctv feeds, they were actually taken using a 360 camera mounted on a car. Unfortunately if the city you are looking for hasn't been mapped (ie driven through) you won't be able to see it.
Frank at 9:20am 9th June 2008 This is much better than Google, and I really like the interface. It is faster, it has options for controlling the image quality, you can chose to move slowly or fast by skipping some of the blue dots, and it has a much better full screen view.

I hope Google will learn from this.
limey at 6:52am 29th July 2007 hello everybody the time in England is now 14-50
i have tried to comment once but there appears to be an error.
Can anyone tell me how to use cctv to scan streets worldwide and does mapjack do it if so how

THANKS TO ANYONE WHO CAN HELP
limey at 5:00am 29th July 2007 Hell to whoever reads these comments,
I have only just found mapjack and, as i am aged parent, i have trouble sometimes sorting things to do with computors out, how do i use it to look in other countries?

PS I have just enjoyed San Francisco, i would like to look round England and Spain
James at 9:24pm 30th June 2007 I agree with Alex... I've been living in San Fran for 20 years and MapJack pics sure are nice!! When I compared them to Googles it felt like Google took their pictures in the 80s with that grey hazy depressing feeling to them, not to mention ghosts, double vision and other artifacts.
victor rakowitz - phoenix at 1:55pm 30th June 2007 Your street pictures are like HD comparing to cookie google. Bravo...
Alex Morary at 3:11pm 29th June 2007 MapJack's pictures looks great! When you see them, you wanna go there, to that very location. Google's pictures are more like a crude version of what it really looks like.

For example, compare this:

http://www.mapjack.com/#KkGnWtG7bFAD

With this:

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=37.812327,-122....

And why is the URL so long?