Google has spent a lot of time and human hours mapping some of the more remote areas of the globe with its Trekker program, and now users have a chance to go behind the scenes and learn more about both those places and the process. Google put up a new Behind The Scenes site for the Treks Street View project, complete with video, amazing images, maps and audio and visual tours.
Besides being an awesome time-killer for when you have some hours to spare, the Trek microsites give Google a way to show off a number of its products all in one place. It combines YouTube, Maps, Maps tours, HTML5 web technologies, slideshows and more, which also has the benefit of revealing some of the greater potential of Chrome as a browser.
Currently, the Street View Treks microsites cover the Burj Khalifa, Iqaluit, Mt. Everest, the Grand Canyon, the Great Barrier Reef, the Amazon Basin and the Kennedy Space Center. Additional tours for the Galapagos Islands and Venice are said to be “coming soon” by Google, too.
Remember that Google is looking for organizations to help out with the Google Trekker program, so your views could be among the next featured on these microsites. Sometimes it may be tempting to question the utility of Google’s more ambitious initiatives, but as these microsites show, they sure can paint a pretty picture.