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Local businesses get the Google treatment

Jody Wall is a Google-trusted photographer who uses Street View technology to create virtual tours inside businesses
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Google-trusted photographer Jody Wall takes pictures inside Mountain Baby in Nelson

A year ago, Google Street View came through the Kootenays to put our area on the digital map. Now there's another photographer in town to bring local businesses even further into the digital age.

Jody Wall is a Google-trusted photographer who uses Street View technology to create virtual tours inside businesses. He arrived in the Kootenays this month with plans to photograph at least 100 businesses from Rossland to Revelstoke.

The Star caught up with Wall in Nelson, where he was scheduled to photograph inside handful of hotels and guest houses, as well as a couple downtown retail stores.

"I'm going to set a new record [among Google-trusted photographers] for the most businesses photographed in one month," Wall says, noting he's still accepting appointments. "Once I finish with all the businesses on my list, I can come back through a community if there's enough interest from businesses."

Wall, who lives in the Lower Mainland, jumped on the opportunity to spend a month in the Kootenays. He's riding from place to place on his motorcycle.

"It's a great way to spend the summer," he laughs.

Some of the first tours Wall created in Rossland are already online. For example, if you do a Google search for "Ferraro Foods," you can get to the tour by clicking on "see inside" in the Google Places menu that comes up alongside the search results.

Clicking through the tour inside the business is similar to looking through a neighbourhood on a Google's Street View map — you can pivot around 360-degrees from a single view and follow arrow to other points in the store.

"It's a great promotional tool for businesses," Wall says.

It takes him about an hour to photograph a business, which he does during the shop's regular hours of operation. Customers and employees in the photos will have their faces blurred for privacy.

For more information and to book an appointment with a photographer, go to insideview4business.com.

 

Below is the Street View map of inside Ferraro Foods:

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