Google’s staff are up to their old tricks again – causing mischief for the Google Street View camera. This time Google Ireland’s Dublin staff appeared en masse as the Street View car passed the company’s Dublin headquarters.
Google is one of Ireland’s top employers and operates three office buildings in Dublin, which service the Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) regions, and it looks like they were all empty when these images were recorded.
The Street View images show Dublin’s Googlers lining Barrow Street in the Docklands, where Google holds its two largest offices. On the east side of the road is Google’s original office building, Gas Works House, which it moved into in 2003; and on the west is The Montevetro, Ireland’s largest commercial building, which it acquired in 2011 from the Irish government’s toxic-bank, NAMA, for a reported €99.9 million.
These street view images replace older ones which simply showed Google’s offices (with a truck in the way of the Google sign). The original images were recorded in 2009/2010 and launched in September last year, but it looks like these images were recorded around May 2011, before Google officially moved into The Montevetro. These Street View images are now more up-to-date than Google Maps, which still shows The Montevetro under construction.
According to this video by uploaded onto YouTube by user Mrlipsticks, who appears to be a Googler himself, the Street View images were recorded less than three months ago, on May 25 2011.
He also posted this video from the top of the Montevetro Building.
This video recorded from the Gas Works Building shows the Street View car drive by.
In these new images you can see some of Google’s 2,000 Dublin employees holding up signs for Google products such as YouTube, and Google Apps; as well as balloons with the Android logo; not to mention dozens of Google employees with laptops, which are a familiar sight on Barrow Street.
This isn’t the first time that Google staff have come out to wave to the Street View cameras. Staff in Google’s Mountain View Headquarters also lined out as the Street View cameras passed. And, most famously, Michael Weiss-Malik proposed to his girlfriend (for the second time) using Google Street View.
But with that said, here are some of our favourite things in Google Dublin’s Street View parade.
Have a look for this creepy horse-headed man,
View Larger Map
A Google Panda attack, this is what you get for content farming,
View Larger Map
A perfectly timed pitch,
View Larger Map
We’ve no idea what this is about,
View Larger Map
The obligatory Leprechaun hat,
View Larger Map
Google Apps
View Larger Map
The long que of traffic the whole thing caused,
View Larger Map
And there has to be one guy with a Vuvuzela,
View Larger Map
Google is still recording Street View images of Ireland, which it is due to finish in November.
