After the launch of Google Earth, I started using it and become a big fan of it. It was my favourite app and now Google Maps. During that time I spent a lot of time to browse the different places in the world. Especially, the street views of the places I never visited. I found it as a new way of exploring the world without travel.
I was fascinated by the people’s profiles when I saw it with the images available on google earth. It was a very big thing for me to publish photos on the Map. Then it becomes my mission how can dot it, how I can upload my images of places on Google Earth. I Google the information online and ended up signing with Panoramio in 2009.
I still remember when my first photo was approved on Google Earth, I showed it to almost all of my friends.
I took a lot of pictures of local places, gardens, shops, buildings, beautiful scenes with my phone and DSLR. The process of taking pictures then uploading to Panoramio and attaching to its geolocation was very time-consuming. But, when I got the new phone with auto GPS location tag, then it bumped up my speed of putting photos into Google Earth because then I didn’t need to link the photo with its location, it was automatically picked up. One by one I put more than 1200 images on the map.
After, getting into the Google Maps, I started uploading photos in more speed than I used to upload at Panoramio. So far, I have uploaded more than 1500 photos. I enjoy taking pictures of the businesses, restaurants, food and public places. Sometimes my image got picked for the main image of that place or business, that makes me feel very good. During my visit to Melbourne, Australia I took a picture in the library of La Trobe university which was set as the main photo of the university’s google places page for a long time. That alone image got more than 500,000 views.
Reviews and images are the best parts of Google maps. It makes you feel great when your information and experience is being shared as a review. Reviews help people to make their decision to buy or not the services offered by the businesses. It’s something like giving back to the community. I also like to create new places, answering questions, provide ratings, making edits etc.
So far it’s a fantastic experience working on Google Maps and I will continue on it.
What about your Google Guide Journey?
