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Google Maps recently introduced MyMaps, a feature that enabled users to create their own maps for things such as restaurants in Chicago, Pubs in New York and so on. It seems that the maps created by the users are now integrated into Google Maps itself.
Some example searches include:
You need to scroll down to see the link to “user-created content“. Clicking on this link will populate the same map with the content that users have entered and the push pins will be displayed in blue to reflect this fact. Google is using UGC to provide map content for areas where it doesn’t have data- such as Moscow Hotels.
Google has also said that it may integrate some of this content into its regular results at some point in time, but there is no rush to do so. All Google needs to do is provide more social features like ratings and comments for users to police the system. User ratings will ensure that some nasty person does not enter dummy data into the system and comments will allow others to find out what people think about a particular hotel or restaurant. Even now the UGC data shows some results that the normal Google index does not contain. See images of “Pubs NewYork” for both UGC and Google Search Results below (user generated results are displayed with blue push pins).
According to Nielson NetRatings, MapQuest and Google Maps are top travel sites, getting more traffic than specialized sites like Expedia, Travelocity, and Orbitz. This move will cement Google’s position at the top of Local Search food chain. Eric Schmidt in his latest interview at Web 2.0 Expo highlighted that Local and Mobile are two of the highest priority areas for Google. So if some one wants to get acquired by Google these are the areas to focus on. See his interview video embedded below.
There are a lot of companies working day and night to provide map data and GPS co-ordinates for important Points of Interests (Restaurants, Hospitals etc) in the developed countries. Mapping Technology and data in the third world, however, is almost as old as the human history itself. Lack of infrastructure and low GDP of these countries does not help things either. This new feature will make a huge difference in mapping important locations in the third world.
With products like these, its no surprise that Google has overtaken Microsoft to become world’s most visited site. According to SFGate “Google had 528 million unique visitors in March, up 5 percent from the previous month, according to comScore. Microsoft had 527 million visitors during the same month, up 3.7 percent”. Separately, In a survey conducted by Millward Brown, a British market research company “Google is the World’s most powerful brand in 2007, with the brand valued at $66.4 billion, ahead of GE, Microsoft and Coca-Cola.”
Our previous coverage of Google Maps is here.
