On Thursday, the app unveiled a number of new features aimed at making Google Maps more interactive, including a feature that makes it easier for users to share photos of visited places.
Efforts to increase engagement with Google Maps seem to be working: The company said Thursday it now has 150 million “local guides” – users who regularly contribute reviews, photos and information on the map – to the platform. In 2020, local guides added more than 8 million locations to the app.
“With the changes our world has made over the past year, people are increasingly relying on high-quality, up-to-date information about places around them – such as when a nearby restaurant is open or a local grocery store is updated for hours,” Google said in a statement. That, he adds, is “to make it easier for anyone with a Google Account to contribute to their local knowledge.”
One of the new features unveiled on Thursday is “Photo Updates”, which will help people who are planning to visit get a better and up-to-date understanding of places; For example, they can see if a restaurant’s outdoor seating set is shaded. As it turns out in the coming weeks, when the app looks at a place on the app, people can go to the new “Updates” tab, take a quick photo to add and write a comment, without leaving a full rating or review.
Google Maps also makes it easier to report route changes to the app, adding an “edit map” option that lets users correct errors, including missing roads, renaming streets, or deleting wrong roads. The company says it will contribute before releasing road updates.
To get more people to take advantage of these interactive features, Google Maps is launching a “Local Love Challenge” that will encourage Android users to contribute photos, reviews and information, with the goal of updating 100,000 location listings in the coming months.
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