Google Earth's new voyager tool: Here's how it works to feed our wanderlust

Voyager is a 'showcase of interactive tours' meant to enhance the latest version of Google Earth

Google has launched a cool new internet thing. And be warned: Your productivity may be about to take a tumble.

Assuming you don’t mind descending down a rabbit hole, you may want to check out Voyager — a “showcase of interactive tours” meant to enhance the latest version of Google Earth.

Voyager, which was introduced Tuesday, allows Earth’s bored employees to feed their wanderlust and pretend they are somewhere — anywhere — other than the office cubicle they are actually sitting in.

Say you’ve never been to Paris. Voyager pairs the view provided by its maps with a still image and a so-called knowledge card to let users hop around the city as though they were on a packed three-day vacation. Similar tours of “Hemingway’s Hangouts,” Frank Gehry buildings and museums around the world are also available.

Want a less urban experience? Jane Goodall will take you on a tour of a Tanzanian park and tell you about her team’s chimpanzee research.

You can even explore Afghanistan with Zari, a 6-year-old Muppet character who hails from the country. Zari loves to read and study — a fortunate trait because, as a knowledge card tells us, “Afghanistan is home to one of the largest populations of young people in the world, but their education system is struggling.”

In a telephone interview on Thursday, Rebecca Moore, director of Google Earth, called stories and storytelling the “linchpin” of the new Google Earth and said Voyager would allow more people to tell such stories in more timely and compelling ways.

“What you’re never going to find in Voyager is, ‘Here’s a tour of homes of celebrities,’” Moore said. “What we want to do is inspire people to explore the world through this interactive educational experience. We see it as a way to bridge cultures.”

For more than a decade, Google Earth has allowed users to see the places they plan to visit before they actually do — or to revisit places they once knew.

But as Google Earth became more ubiquitous, people found other ways to leverage it. Virtual flights over land and sea with Google Earth, it turned out, were an excellent way to learn about places, Moore said.

“In an ad hoc, kind of grass-roots manner, people were using it to tell stories,” she said. “What we realised is we wanted to take it to the next level.”

The latest update took two years to create, Gopal Shah, a Google Earth project manager, said in a blog post. Moore called it “our gift to the world,” noting that the tool is “not commercialised” in any way.

Melissa Parrish, a research director at Forrester, a technology and marketing research firm, said that Google sometimes does create projects “just because they can.” But she said a company does not become as successful as the tech giant “without thinking about the monetisation possibilities of everything they do.”

Google may choose not to place ads directly on Google Earth or Voyager, Parrish said, but she added that every time a user clicks around the world, Google could presumably gather data it can use to target consumers elsewhere on the web.

“They’re Google,” Parrish said. “If there’s one thing they’re incredible at, it’s making money.”

Voyager is among a number of new features within the revamped Google Earth. There are dozens of virtual trips currently available — including one through New York City — and Moore promised more to come.

In the latest version of Google Earth, a “I’m Feeling Lucky” button also emerges, allowing users to stumble upon random locations with a single click. (Kings Island amusement park in Mason, Ohio, anyone?)

A new 3D button lets you see “any place from any angle” and share a “postcard” of the view, Shah said in the blog post.

Eventually, Moore said, Google plans to create a set of easy-to-use storytelling tools that will allow anyone to create tours similar to those in Voyager.

“This is a time when the world is getting factionalised,” she said. “And we need things to bring us together. We see Google Earth as making the world a smaller place — in a good way.” And you thought finding your old house was fun.

© 2017 The New York Times New Service