I stumbled onto the hack just before Christmas and was likely one of the first visitors and registered site users. Now only one month old, the Beta service has added even more functionality and just keeps getting better.

After touring New York City using the mashup I had to contact the developer and pick his brain. Taher Baderkhan promptly responded to my questions and has kept me in the loop about the history and plans for the NYCTour. Regarding the history or the mashup, Taher noted the following..."I had the idea for this website from the moment I moved to New York two and half years ago. The big buildings and the grid system were an inspiration. The critical moment happened six months ago with the release of Google Maps. I had my digital camera and good JavaScript knowledge. I also bought a GPS gadget, the Garmin etrex to log coordinates (Most of my friends thought that I was a Geek). I started experimenting in different streets. The GPS etrex does not have great reception in New York City but I was still able to use especially in Central Park." Amazing as it seems, there's an incredible collection of photos available in the virtual tour. Of particular interest to me was the innovative navigation where users click on a direction arrow on the street enabling him/her to walk along a route and view images that are updated to coincide with the location... add to that, a small inset maps (google map) displays a cute icon of a person who walks along the street to reveal the current location... sweet!! 

A pleasant UI offers users a photo frame, direction selection tool, inset map, and textual descriptions for places of interest. Users can select from popular pre-defined city tours (ie. Time Square, Central Park, etc...)

Some information on the data collection process was provided by Taher... "Every trail consists of points and each point consists of at least 4 pictures. I used to stand in the middle of the street after cars pass buy and take four pictures. I would then move another 15 meters (45 feet) and take another 4 pictures. It was tedious and annoying. Cars passing buy and cops giving me suspicious look especially in front of the New York Stock Exchange. The other important part was creating the descriptions, which I compiled for a period of two months. Some stores does not have any descriptions at all which made me contact them directly. The whole process took six months, a lot of hours and almost cost my relation with my girlfriend."
 
Some future plans for the application include:

• more trails
• a feature to upload data to portable devices
• GPS trails
• directory of stores
• more cities

No users of the application can view Videos shot in New York city courtesy of the amazing new Google Video service (see http://video.google.com)

In a recent update after celebrating one month of up-time, Virtual NYC Tour boasts some added functionality including the addition of the NYC Google Videos section (http://www.virtualnyctour.com/videos.php). The site recorded more than 30,000 site visitors in the first month of operation and has already been featured on numerous news resources and weblogs. Other recent site additions include:

• Directory section
• Video section
• Store section
• A revamped menu system
• Added Hints to the navigation panel
• Improved many of the scripts for speed
• Created a mailing list
• Added user reviews

New Features that will be available soon:
 
New York Events
New York News
New York City Guide section featuring articles and tourism tips
 
Taher notes that he needs more time and more manpower. Anyone who knows about more data and data sources for inclusion should also contact him as well.
 
Thanks to Taher Baderkhan for this application and for the additional information... I'm looking forward to watching this application grow!

http://www.virtualnyctour.com