So,
There I was going to visit a friend in a new house in Dublin and the ride hailing app had no idea where I’m supposed to go. The place was not on the map.
Would like to say that this was a once in my Google Maps lifetime occurrence back in 2012, but no. It keeps happening. Frankly, sometimes it gets really annoying like when:
- I moved to Singapore and my building had 3 wrong listings put by property agents so I had to make a new one from scratch
- When the new listing got taken over by a Google My Business entry and there was no way to get it back, so I made a “new new” one
- When I visited my friend in Dubai and his building was off by a 100 meters (yards) and no ride hailing apps were finding it
- I’ll stop…
So, I do, what I have been doing for years. Find the edit option and go and add/change details on the Google Maps. Also, add photos. Also, add videos for F&B places (nice touch by the product team). I do it mostly for myself, since I need important places on the maps (when I started, the mapping in Serbia was abysmal), but I realized that even my highly educated friends have no idea how to edit the places where they live.
So, becoming a Local Guide has morphed into an education role. People are at first surprised you can edit Google Maps, but then they are quite intrigued. The SMBs are excited when I show them how they can update or add their place. Thankfully, Singapore is well mapped (except for my building :-), but every time I step out of the country, I keep running in great, local places that just don’t have the Google Maps presence.
It is a good feeling to put some relevant info on the Maps. Coming from a historically neglected region (in terms of tech support), I got used to correcting stuff on platforms. Also, there is less time to show people around in person these days. Making sure Google Maps is good, at least in my neighborhood is is a good enough substitute.
Hopefully, one day every user of maps will make at least one edit. Until then, Local Guides are making sense of the world for users.