B.C. realtor nearing 44 million views from Google photography days<\/p>\n
Published 9:48 am Thursday, October 29, 2026<\/p>\n
When people are looking into locations, they like to get the lay of the land. <\/p>\n
Thanks to Sean Phillips and his camerawork, they\u2019re able to with a few clicks on the internet.<\/p>\n
Now a realtor in Vernon, Phillips spent eight years as a Google trusted photographer, photographing hundreds of B.C. resorts, attractions and businesses and creating Google Street View virtual tours that let people step inside online.<\/p>\n
Phillips is now nearing a significant milestone: his roughly 7,700 photos have been viewed a combined 43,995,344 times as of Tuesday, Oct. 27. <\/p>\n
One photo alone, of Swan Lake Motors in Vernon, has passed 1.4 million views, according to a milestone notice Google sent him in September. The photo is dated Sept. 3, 2017, and it was one of the first locations Phillips photographed in the Okanagan.<\/p>\n
Another photo, of JC Bradley Jewellers, has passed 100,000 views and was still drawing more than 1,000 views a week in September.<\/p>\n
\u201cI never set out to rack up views. I just wanted people to see how good these places looked before they got here. Every one of those views is someone checking out a local business or planning a visit to the Okanagan,\u201d said Phillips.<\/p>\n
Phillips also filmed for chambers of commerce and city tourism departments, building virtual city galleries where the public could browse a city\u2019s businesses, attractions and services by category. His projects included Virtual Vancouver, Virtual Vegas and Virtual White Rock, along with Virtual Big White \u2013 a walking virtual tour of every store and attraction at Big White Ski Resort. <\/p>\n
Phillips is now a real estate agent with Coldwell Banker Executives Realty in Vernon. A programmer by background, he has put his mapping know-how into free online tools for the community, including a hill-aware walking and e-biking rating for homes and a tool that shows the listing details for the for-sale sign people are parked beside.<\/p>\n
\u201cChoosing where to live is about a lot more than the house. The tools are free for everyone, whether you\u2019re buying or not,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"B.C. realtor nearing 44 million views from Google photography days Published 9:48 am Thursday, October 29, 2026 When…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":950998,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[903,49,48,61],"class_list":["post-950997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-british-columbia","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=950997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950997\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/950998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=950997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=950997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=950997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}