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If you haven’t yet explored Google’s ”Street View” feature (described here, available in many area Google Maps), you should really take a moment to do so. For place-based cultural organizations (those with a building as part of their mission delivery), it offers a powerful way to connect web visitors with your actual place.

Essentially, Google hires a car with a 360-degree camera and a global positioning system to drive around taking pictures every dozen yards or so. The images are then attached to Google Maps, so you get not only an overhead street map and satellite view, but also a view from the street facing all directions. You can even wander up and down the street to view the shops, restaurants, and amenities nearby.

As with most other Google maps, you can grab some pre-formatted code to embed these street views into your own web site, or send them via phone or e-mail, providing what used to be a complex and sophisticated web site feature with little effort and no cost.

Street View is not available in every U.S. city yet (Google just added Madison in March). But even as I write this, I’m sure the little Google camera cars are winding their way around the country, whistling far and wee.