Google Maps gets building numbers, cross walks, a bunch of other features
Open Google Maps and you'll soon see this card, which you can swipe up for the feed. (Also, Google, a Pixel 1 skin from 2016? Really?) [credit: Google ]
Google Maps is getting a bunch of new features this week, so it's time for a roundup! The first feature is definitely one nobody asked for: the new "Community Feed," which is clearly trying to turn Google Maps into a social network. Google's blog post says that "every day, people submit more than 20 million contributions-including recommendations for their favorite spots, updates to business services, fresh reviews and ratings, photos, answers to other people's questions, updated addresses and more." So now Google Maps is getting a News Feed full of all these reviews and updates.
Google's sales pitch reads, "The feed shows you the latest reviews, photos and posts added to Google Maps by local experts and people you follow as well as food and drink merchants, and articles from publishers like The Infatuation." All of these updates are in the style of a social network, with the author at the top, a "follow" link for the author, and the ability to "like" posts. The only thing they're missing are the comments!
To show how serious Google is about this Google Maps Social Network thing, it is putting the community feed front and center in the interface. When you open Google Maps, the community feed card peeks up from the top of the screen, right on the main page of Maps. You just swipe up on it to read the latest updates. If you're not on the main page of Maps, the community feed lives under the "explore" tab, the first tab on the Google Maps tab bar. This also looks like a great spot for ads.
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