The Google Street View Prank

when I was reading about this a few weeks ago, they said that the google-street-view car was invited there so they could do the joke.

Repost. But it's still pretty neat.

Well it's not like they waited in that alley for the google car and suddenly jumped forth.

I wish I had known about the google street view car when it had been driving past my house.
We are forever now in the car and going to lunch on a saturday afternoon.

I got Video No Longer Aval so... I guess i missed out.

Is there a way to find out when the car is planned to come by? Or is this kept secret (normally) to prevent shenanigans?

They knew someone on the inside at Google, apparently.

@Mr. Binky: yes, they did know someone in Google, that's how they pulled it off. The video tells the full story.

Nice! I put I sign outside my house. Im leaving it there until google comes by! not there yet!

haha how clever.

I thought it was pretty clever (especially the guys with the laser) but had to really chuckle when I learned this was actually a "public art project" that was the Masters' Thesis (in Fine Arts) for the organizers.

www.cmu.edu/news/archive/2008/November/nov11_streetwithaview.shtml

The description on the above link is a real hoot.
I quote:
"For one day, artists and citizens turned a small, one-way alley in Pittsburgh's North Side into a dream world, an elaborate montage of spontaneous performance and provocative visual art."

AND

"Integrating fiction, community storytelling and performance art into the platform of instant-access, 360-degree imaging, the "Street With A View" project explodes the barrier between reality and performance, life and art. It represents communities and artists taking back the power to define themselves and their environments and to use technology as a tool of self-expression."

Somebody is really taking themself a little too seriously. Come on.... It was a funny prank, but a Master's Thesis project?

An MA in Fine Arts must be pretty easy to get.

I made google maps while out on a jog.

ted writes: "An MA in Fine Arts must be pretty easy to get."

so it seems!

this is not funny or interesting at all

On May 3rd 2008, artists Robin Hewlett and Ben Kinsley invited the Google Inc. Street View team and residents of Pittsburgh’s Northside to collaborate on a series of tableaux along Sampsonia Way. Neighbors, and other participants from around the city, staged scenes ranging from a parade and a marathon, to a garage band practice, a seventeenth century sword fight, a heroic rescue and much more...

Normally Sampsonia Way is a fairly unassuming street, but when Ben Kinsley and Robin Hewlet, two art school grads from Carnegie Mellon University, found out that the Google Maps Street Team was coming to town, they decided to make things more interesting.
The two, along with a group of friends staged a marathon, a parade, a mad-scientists laboratory, a sword fight, and more, all along the route.