Google Adds Flickr, Picasa Photos To Street View

Google has been showing crowdsourced photos from its own Panoramio service in Street View for just about a year, and it’s now announced that user photos from both Flickr and Picasa are being added to the mix.

The integration works the same way it has since last February; when images are available, a small box labeled “User Photos” will appear in the upper right of the Street View interface. But with all the new photos in the system, Google’s found a novel way to show nearby and related photos.

Google has placed small, gray circles on top of photos when there’s a similar shot from a different angle. Google shows a polygon layer to indicate what the nearby photo depicts.

We should note, too, that Bing recently added Flickr photos to its StreetSide service.