Be sure and look at the new street views in Google Maps. In some neighborhoods for a few big cities, they give you the ability to “drive around” and look in any direction. Amazon had something like this, but this feels better to me.
Here, for example, is the house where I lived when I was Palo Alto. Not so interesting? Take a look at the view from the Golden Gate Bridge. Be sure and click and drag in the viewing window to change your view. Here’s the cool Ukrainian restaurant on the street where my sister used to live in New York.
Rambles Blog at Star Chamber 
And here are 15 other things to look at: http://mashable.com/2007/05/31/top-15-google-street-view-sightings/
I am disappointed, though not surprised, that St. Louis wasn’t in the running for Street View. I guess, neither was Boston, so who am I to complain. In lieu of that, here’s a picture of me getting out of my car!
http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&cp=qdwv667fyzvz&style=o&lvl=2&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&scene=8880216&encType=1
Jeez, Mike, it’s a good thing you stopped in time, or you woulda gone straight into those railroad tracks. By the way, it looks like you have some spinach or something in your teeth.
Amazon had something like this, though a bit more primitive, as part of their A9 site. I blogged about it in early 2005:
http://www.matthewsim.com/weblog/121/
I went to see what progress they’ve made on it since then and found that Amazon had pulled the plug on the whole operation. I found a blog post with the history, which includes the move of a key person from A9 to Google:
http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/2007/05/google_maps_str_1.html
In short, it is another case of Google not being the first to market with an idea, but being the first to hit on the right combination of features and presentation to make it take off. It also helps that anything they do gets a lot of attention because, well, they’re Google.