Have you ever taken a look at some of the crappy photos thrown together on a Google local listing that hasn’t been claimed by the owner? Google might have pulled them from Tripadvisor, Yelp, or some other review site where the photos were taken by customers.
Google sees the gateway to more profit from the very people that drive our economy, small business owners. And now their testing 6 cities by offering up free photography to businesses that will be posted on their Google local listing. There is a catch of course…Google will own all of the rights to the photos, so you can’t go and grab them and use them on your website or other third-party review/local sites.
It’s a good move on the part of Google, because if they’re going to bank a lot of their revenue success on these local listings, they need them to look good, and photos are everything when it comes to appearance.
To learn more about Google business photos, watch their video:
About Erik Folgate
The information in this post is a little incorrect. I am actually an Atlanta photographer that is approved by Google to take these panoramic tour photographs (Google Business Photos) which act like the panoramic tour of “Google Street View.”
All of the photos, including the panoramic “Street View” style tour are available to the owner of the business to embed directly into the business owner’s website. The still shots taken are also available for however the business owner wishes to use them: print, web, whatever for however long the business owner wishes.
This is an incredibly cheap way for a business to get their establishment viewed by the world.
Sphereographic.com