I’ve been a local guide for years now, mainly focusing on photography. I thought what I was doing was somehow useful to the community: both business owners who get their business properly represented and Maps users who get more accurate information.
While it is a hobby, I take it very seriously and I have been investing in newer cameras (both regular and 360) on a regular basis which I use nearly exclusively for Google Maps content. I post about 50,000 pictures per year (based on the past 2 years) which are getting a lot of attention: over 26,000 views per photo constantly increasing, around 10 million views per week and over 15,000 pictures that were the first photo of a place. To me, these 3 indicators seem to say that what I am doing is useful.
I’ve wondered at some point why Google Maps didn’t have some sort of program to pay its best Google Maps content producers the same way they do for YouTube (don’t tell me Google Maps is not making money, they keep selling ads all over the place in there; don’t tell me it would create perverse incentives, there are ways to remediate and they are perfectly able to do it for YouTube). As a content creator I feel the behavior is odd, but I accept it, this is the way (at least for now).
But we’ve just reached another level with the disappearance of the free storage for our photos. This means that posting content on Google Maps is going to become a privilege for people who can afford it.
Let me show some easy calculation: 50,000 additional photos every year at 1.5 M per photo (compressed size) = 75,000 M ≈ 75 G. Storage included in 1 free Gmail account: 15 G. Which means within a few months every Google Maps “large” content provider will need to start paying Google to provide content on Google Maps, starting at $10/month for Google One users and $12/month for Google Workspace users (I am in the latter group, which actually makes it even harder on multiple levels). Paying Google $120~$144 per year for providing content for Google Maps is gonna be a very hard to swallow pill and seriously demotivating. (my contribution levels may be out the roof, but I’m not the only one, and even someone doing a 10th of what I do [photo-wise] is gonna have to start paying after 2 years)
Wouldn’t it be possible for Google to exclude Google Maps content from the Google Photos storage count?
What are your opinions @AdamGT@PaulPavlinovich ? Any way to pass feedback from the LGs to the GM team?
Hi @Herve_Andrieu and thanks for reaching out and for tagging me.
Firstly, like any Local Guide voluntarily contributing their time and effort to contribute to Maps, there can be little doubt that what you have been doing is useful and has helped many businesses and Maps users. Regarding the disappearance of the free storage for our photos, I assume you mean the storage of photos on Google Photos which will count towards your overall Google Drive or Google One storage quota. However, since photos that you upload to Maps don’t count towards that quota, and since the nexus between Maps and Google Photos no longer exists, once uploaded to Maps (and you are certain that they appear at the Place of Interest onto which you have loaded them) you can delete your photos on Google Photos! Since you have been posting some 50,000 photos per year, I would think you could delete many without impacting your great work and achievements on Maps! So having said this, Google Maps content (photos) are excluded from the Google Photos storage count!!
Regarding your thoughts about there should be some sort of program to pay its best Google Maps content producers the same way they do for YouTube, there have been a number of ideas put forward by other Local Guides about rewards and you can easily find these on the Idea Exchange. However, why don’t you crystalize your thoughts on this and if you have some other idea then post it on the Idea Exchange.
Wow! Thanks @AdamGT , that is a very relevant answer.
That is big news for me. I never heard anywhere that I can now delete pictures from my Google Photos without affecting my Google Maps contributions.
Do you know any official source that posted this information somewhere? I am obviously terrified of deleting any pictures from my Google Photos as it was directly impacting Google Maps in the past.
First of all you don’t need to be worried about any photo uploaded before June first, 2021, @Herve_Andrieu , because the storage is used only for photos uploaded in Google Photos starting from that date.
Everything uploaded before is stored, at high resolution, for free.
Well, you can make a simple test: download a copy of a recent photo in your device, just to have a backup copy, then delete the photo in Google Photos.
Wait at least 24 hours, then check if the photo is visible in Maps.
This will give you the direct perception of how the system works
I see that my fellow moderators already gave you a lot of useful insights and information. There isn’t much more for me to share apart from confirming that once the upload is complete, the photos you delete from Google Photos won’t be removed from Google Maps. I hope this explanation clarifies your concern.
Thanks @ErmesT@KlaudiyaG and @AdamGT for the answer. I tested it and indeed my contributions are not disappearing. So @AdamGT was able to give me the answer the fastest.
I just don’t understand when, where and how there was official communication on the subject which would have avoided some unnecessary anxiety. I even searched Local Guides Connect and nothing useful came up in the search tool.
I accidentally found this thread and thought I would take the time, as a relative newbie to share some thoughts on my limited experience of trying to pick my way through the processes involved in submitting and managing content to Google Maps.
It seems that there is a mixture of divergent and convergent evolution of processes and features. This appears to be a result of a lack of transparency in the rules and leadership of Google Maps and related projects. An obvious challenge would be to try and generate some form of leadership and project management to try and establish who has control over the disparate processes that appear and disappear without any obvious project management or communication of the changes to form and function.
The graph on my IOS profile has a new feature which is a green section to the graph line and a number which appears to represent the last four days of activity. However, clicking on this actually brings up information relating to the last dot on the graph. The dots would intuitively give the data for each dot if touched but the only data which is actually shown is the data for the last dot. I’m not sure what the value of knowing which days you contributed has over the number of contributions each individual dot represents. i.e. in this graph each dot might represent 1 image uploaded or 200 images which would clearly give the graph a completely different meaning.
So back to my original point. Without a clearly coherent and transparent management and evolutionary strategy progress will be haphazard and contributors will be left confused frustrated and demotivated.
I am not suggesting, for one second, that the current situation is worthless but is feels very much like building a skyscraper with sand foundations. The recent antics of Elon Musk with Twitter shows how easy it is to impact on a large business structure and envisage how easily it could collapse.
So I hope, moving forwards, that instead of tinkering around the edges of small parts of Google Maps and Street View, that someone at the top actually takes charge and instigates an underlying management structure that actually addresses the needs of all end users, contributors and developers.
