Apr 11 2009
Ten ways to cement your fame on Google Street View
Google is currently embroiled in privacy battles over its Street View service. I don’t see what the problem is, personally, as it gives miscreants like you and I the chance to have our infantile japes immortalised on the Internet for all to see.
Here are just a few of the fascinating things you could do to get noticed on Google Street View.
- Strip naked, walk past the Google car, and when the pictures appear online sue Google for taking indecent photos of you against your will. Wahoo!
- Wear camouflage gear and stand in front of trees. With a bit of luck, the cameras will snap just a head floating in thin air, earning you a place in history as the Google Street View Ghost.
- Hold up a sign saying “you are not here, and neither am I”. One for the philosophers out there.
- Take a chair and simply sit by the side of the road. Now, wait a few months and your Google Street View passport photos will be ready to print!
- Dress up as a medieval minstrel playing a lute and claim that picture of you on SV was taken in the seventeenth century.
- Purchase a fluorescent jacket and pretend to give the SV van a parking ticket.
- Walk on your hands. Hopefully this will confuse the SV cameras so much that they’ll attempt to spin 180 degrees and the van will try to drive on its roof or something.
- Hold up a giant mirror so it looks as if there is a massive glitch in the photo stitching. Use it as evidence of Google’s ‘declining quality of service’.
- Create a life size cardboard cutout of yourself and place it on the street corner. Then, just as the Google van has passed, rob a supermarket. You will have the perfect alibi, because of course you were stood next to a lamppost the whole time…
- Take out a bet that you will be abducted by aliens. Purchase three alien suits and get your mates to dress up in them, go into a grassy area and pretend to be probed by strange implements such as forks and wooden rulers. When this is caught on Street View it will be incontrovertible evidence to the bookmaker and you shall receive your million pounds.
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An Easter egg goes to the person who actually goes out and does any of these, though by the time the snaps become available online it’s likely that it would have melted or been eaten by the dog. Oh well, at least everyone will know who you are.
