New categories in Q1 2023

Vehicles powered by electricity are being sold in increasing amounts - and by an increasing number of businesses selling just those. It makes perfect sense then, of course, for the Google Maps team to add some dedicated categories for such businesses. Which is what they have done now, by adding a more general one (vehicles in general) and 2 more specific ones (scooters and motorcycles):

Electric motor scooter dealer

Electric motor vehicle dealer

Electric motorcycle dealer

Something we have seen several times in the past, is also the case now: categories for specific brands of cars or specific regional restaurants and stores:

Tata Motors dealer

Azerbaijani restaurant

Filipino grocery store

Completely new, however, are 2 categories referring to housing for a specific profession - I wonder if more of those will be added in the future? What dou you think: do these make sense and could they be used in your country? The 2 added now are:

Police officers’ housing

Teachers’ housing

Healthcare, then, is typically also a source of new categories. Two new categories from this domain:

Pedorthist (makes orthopedic shoes)

Kinesiotherapist (weirdly enough this one is not translated into any of the other languages I checked)

And then there is “the rest”:

Showroom - I’m not sure where this could be appropriately used; do you know any POIs which are a showroom only? There’s plenty of businesses that have a showroom as part of the businesses, but are there business locations which are a showroom only?

Personal chef service

Crypto ATM - I had no idea this was a thing already; apparently these are machines where you don’t extract cash, but rather insert cash to purchase e.g. Bitcoin

Garden machinery supplier - just in time for me with spring about to start where I live… I have quite a bit of gardeing to do!

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There are really some Bitcoin ATMs in Germany. Funny - here is a list. :crazy_face:

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Indeed @LudwigGermany I also found that website listing them and found out that in Belgium there are … 2! They’re not as POI on Maps yet and StreetView isn’t really helping (I guess it is inside a coffee bar).

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Thanks, @JanVanHaver

I got a bunch of Filipino grocery stores approved and a few Electric motor xxx fixed also.

Some crypto sites said there were 3 such ATMs in Denmark. Not really.

Cheers

Morten

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Could be fun to map one of them in Munich. There are lots more than in Belgium :wink:

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With the info I gathered so far @MortenCopenhagen my best guess is that (at least in Europe) most of them will be inside a business that is accepting payments in Bitcoin.

Aha @LudwigGermany our first mission for Munich is set: add a Crypto ATM to Maps :grinning:

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@JanVanHaver

Hi :wave:

The electrical motorcycle makes sense. People looking for motorcycles dealers in general don’t search car dealers.

The Police officer and teacher housing in the United States would be a waste of server space -showroom as well … :face_with_monocle:

As far as bitcoin Atms, we definetly have those in our area in gas stations, although I’m not sure if people really use them yet.

I’m all about the gardening machine or tool suppliers :person_raising_hand:‍ :female_sign:

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@TiffanyStockstill thanks for the useful feedback (including the remarks about the uselessness of some of the categories :wink: )

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We have one Bitcoin ATM here in Nuremberg. I couldn’t help myself and added it to Google Maps. I think the new category is not yet accepted. The entry appears with an empty category.

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@LudwigGermany and @JanVanHaver

I edited 50+ Crypto ATM in Toronto and San Francisco to select the more specific Crypto ATM rather than just ATM.

Zero of them got approved. Most rejected immediately!

I speculate that the general Bank and ATM protection is preventing such edits.

I will send the following feedback both in-app and from Desktop:

It is impossible to change the category from “ATM” to the new category “Crypto ATM” when this is warranted based on the title field information. Please fix this.

Maybe others would care to do the same?

Cheers

Morten

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@MortenCopenhagen ATMs are normally registered by the bank itself. If the entries belong to the business owner it is nearly impossible to change the category. This was more easy for me here in Germany where most of the crypto ATMs where not on Maps.

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