Caption: Image created from Google photo views motivational email ( @AdamGT )
While we don’t get points for photo views there is certainly a lot of interest among Local Guides in the views that our photos achieve and this can easily be seen from the many of posts about this on the Achievements topic of Connect. Motivation for these posts comes from the motivational emails that we regularly receive from Google congratulating us on our latest photo views achievements. Given this keen interest in photo views, and hoping to bring together in the one place, many of the one off posts about photo views achievement, I decided to create a list of Local Guides having the top 100 photo views here on the Achievements topic of Connect, where we shamelessly brag or show off our achievements. The first of these lists was the Top 100 Photo Views List post. This post continues on from there and shows the Top 100 Photo Views leaderboards updated on an approximate weekly basis through December 2020 A summary index to these weekly leaderboards is shown here:
No |
Photo Views Data |
|---|---|
1 |
10 November, 2020 |
2 |
30 November, 2020 |
3 |
6 December, 2020 |
4 |
18 December, 2020 |
5 |
24 December, 2020 |
6 |
31 December, 2020 |
If you were on the first Top 100 List then there is no need to re-enter as you will be automatically added to the new list however you should note the changes detailed in the What’s new section below. In particular, the following should note these changes: @amandhayal , @UrsBolt , @TerryPG , @indahnuria , @AT_Rome , @DFX , @Yogi_hun , @Noble01 and @Waleedkhalid
What’s new?
The first enhancement I’ve made is to introduce “change stats” to show the the number of views, the percentage change and the average views per day since the last update made on 30 November 2020. These values start at zero because at the start of the month the photo views stats are the same as at the end of the previous month. In this way, as well as showing a leaderboard of most views, the lists will now show the change in views of each Local Guide as well as who has the largest change in views from one period to the next. As these values cannot be calculated for Local Guides that join in the current month, these values are shown as zero on the leaderboards and will remain at zero until we roll into the next month. So the sooner you join in the better!
The second and biggest enhancement is that in this post, as well as having the Top 100 Photo Views of all participating Local Guides, this list is broken down into individual lists for each Local Guide level with the photo views of Local Guides at levels 1 to 6 shown consolidated on the one leaderboard. The essential idea here is that all things being equal, one would expect that a Local Guide at a higher level would have done more guiding or perhaps been guiding for longer than one at lower levels and hence, would have likely attracted more photo views. Having leaderboards for each Local Guide level is an attempt at creating a more level playing field, at least for comparison purposes. In this way you can see and compare your photo views relative to your peers; for example, a Level 8 Local Guide can see his/her photo view performance relative to other Level 8s, a Level 7 Local Guide can see their photo view performance relative to other Level 7s, and so on!
Further enhancements are going to be introduced when we roll into the next month, so yes there will be more 
3-D Snakes and Ladders - Let the fun begin!
As well as tapping into the element of gamification in the Local Guides program, with aims of showing the Local Guides having the top 100 photo views, this post includes a bit of fun! Let me explain. The leaderboards in this post are dynamic in that they will be updated (see FAQ #4) and each time another Local Guide with higher photo views than you, either a new participant or someone from another one of the Top 100 List leaderboards, is added above you, you will drop down one position and sadly, if you drop below position 100 you will drop off that list, shoosh! However, even though you might drop off the bottom of the overall Top 100 List, there’s some chance that you will remain much longer, if not for ever, on the Top 100 List for your respective Local Guide level. If you do drop off the Top 100 List for your respective Local Guide level then you will drop off completely! However, you can re-enter at any future point in time should your photo views increase sufficiently enough because of your improved photo performance!
Also, as time progresses, you might jump from one Local Guide level to another, well done you, and thus, you will jump from one Top 100 List to another, for example, from the Level 7 to the Level 8 Top 100 List! What this means is that if you were on a crowded List (say the Level 8 Top 100 List) this might be a blessing as you might jump up to a less crowded list, in this case the Level 9 Top 100 List and being less crowded you will have less chance of dropping off the bottom of the list altogether. However, if you jump onto a crowded List (say from the Level 7 to the Level 8 Top 100 List) then this might not be such a blessing 
In fact, if the next Top 100 List is full, you might not even make it onto the higher List 
So as you can see there are different ways you could drop off the Top 100 Lists. It’s pretty much like a snakes and ladders game; we roll the dice each time there’s an update (FAQ #4), and both the changes in your photo views and any change in your Local Guide level (as well as that of all others on the leaderboards) determine where you end up! Your changes could bump others off one or more of the Top 100 List leaderboards and similarly the changes of other Local Guide’s could bump you off the leaderboards! This will not happen until the number of participating Local Guides increases.
While the effort required to maintain and update the Top 100 List leaderboards will grow as more Local Guides join in, it will become more interesting as the inbuilt snakes and ladders feature kicks in so I do hope that many more will join in. So let’s have some fun. Join in by following the simple steps shown below and please make sure that you read the important FAQs at the end of this post.
How to join in:
- Look at the Top 100 Lists and if your Google Maps photo views is enough to get you onto the top 100 list for your current Local Guide Level then use the method specified below (and this is the only method that you should use) to get a link to your Google Maps Profile and add it in a comment to this post.
- Your link and photo views will then be checked and if all good I will give your entry my like (
) and by this you will know that you will be included in the next update (see FAQ #4 below). If you don’t like this post then I won’t like your entry
. Seriously though, your like will show support for and indicate that you like the idea of having leaderboards like this.
- Read the FAQs below.
How to get your Google Maps Profile link
Visit your Connect profile page (this is mine);
Right click on View Google Maps profile, copy the address and then paste this link into a comment on this post. Please simplify by editing your link and deleting everything from and including /photos… Your link should then look very similar to this link (no / slash and no photos on the end etc): https://www.google.com/maps/contrib/115161916543124945123
If you need further help with getting your Google Maps Profile link then read this post and make sure that you have set your Google Maps profile link to public as per the instructions in that post as this will give me access to your photo views data! If you enter while your Google Maps profile is set to pubic but change this to private before the next update [FAQ#4] then Snakes and Ladders, shoosh so make sure you read and understand the details about this in FAQ#8.
Conclusion:
To me these posts are more than just seeing who has the best photos or the most photo views. Being able to look at our photo performance relative to that of other Local Guides and our peers, I see posts like these as a way of showing us how we can improve our personal contributions and thus improve the quality of being a Local Guide, and thus leading to better information on Google Maps; it’s a win-win. If it were not for Connect it would be very difficult if not impossible to do this. Connect gives us the opportunity to connect and engage with each other on posts like this.
Finally, if you’re interested in photo views then you might also be interested in the Leaderboards of Photo Views and Leaderboards of Most Viewed Photos posts. OK so here comes “the fine print”, the FAQs. There’s a lot of detail here but please read it because it will answer most of the questions that you might have and then we can focus on the snakes and ladders
Adam
FAQs:
- Is this a competition to see who is the best? While this post taps into the element of gamification in the Local Guides program and aims to show the Local Guides having the top 100 photo views, it also aims to provide a place where we can engage, discuss and learn how we can improve the quality of our photo contributions. Also, instead of having hundreds of photo views type achievement posts scattered throughout the Achievements topic of Connect, it creates the one simple and convenient place to show and compare these.
- I submitted my information but why don’t I appear on the Top 100 Lists? There could be a number of reasons for this:
(a) You provided the wrong link to your Google Maps Profile. The link that you provide must be obtained by the method in the format specified in the How to join in section above. No other types of links will be accepted;
(b) Your Google Maps profile is set to private;
(c) You did not follow the specified procedure or what you provided is unclear;
(d) I haven’t as yet done the next update (see FAQ #4)!
Please be patient while waiting for the updates but do look out for any messages from me, including private messages. When your entry is ready to be included, you will see that I give it my like/kudos. If you don’t see that I’ve given your entry my like/kudos then check all the above again and remember, if you don’t like this post then I won’t like your entry - What happens when my “photo views” increase or there’s a change in my Local Guide level? Yes, photo views and Local Guide levels can change daily however once you are on the Top 100 Lists there is no need to re-enter if and when your photo views and/or Local Guide level changes as I will manage all this for you. Also, the later you enter the Top 100 Lists the more time your photos will have had to gain more views compared to the earlier entrants. Earlier entrants need not worry about this as once again all this will be taken into account in the next update (see FAQ #4). When your photo views or Local Guide level changes so might your position on the Top 100 Lists as detailed above.
- Will the Top 100 Photo Views lists be updated? Yes. The lists will be updated on both a weekly and monthly basis as follows:
(a) On a weekly basis the Lists will be updated to include Local Guides that enter and qualify during that week.
(b) At the end of the month the last weekly update in that month will be performed and the Top 100 Lists in that month will be closed. From that point on no more entries will be permitted in those lists and you’ll have to look at the next month.
(c) On each update the data for all participating Local Guides is updated. In this way the photo views on the leaderboards for each Local Guide is on the same day and as close as is humanly possible, at the same time. - Are the Top 100 Photo Views lists automatically generated and updated? No sadly not. This is a totally manual procedure. Perhaps it might serve as a “proof of concept” and if enough Local Guides like the idea of the leaderboards then you just never know Google might look at implementing the idea in an automatic way. I’d be out of a job but then again I’d get my life back and have time to do more Local Guiding myself
- What happened, I was on the Top 100 Lists but now I disappeared off one or more of them? I’m really sorry about and this could happen for a number of reasons, for one example see FAQ#8. As explained above, the Top 100 Lists are a bit like Snakes and Ladders and for any one of a number of reasons you can drop off one or more of the Top 100 List leaderboards, shoosh! But don’t worry, because you can re-enter at anytime by following the entry steps detailed above. Just keep adding quality photos to Google Maps and on this you can read my comments and observations about photo views in this post.
- Why has my photo views value remained unchanged since the previous update? It is what it is and you’ve had no views since the previous update!
- Why, after the last update, did my photo views value is shown as zero and now I’m at the bottom of the Top 100 lists? You probably changed your Google Maps profile to private since the last update and so I couldn’t read your current photo views value. I had to throw a dart and sadly it landed on zero so I had no choice but to set your photo views value to zero and because of this, you drop to the bottom - snakes and ladders, shooosh! Being at the bottom makes you very vulnerable as you are more likely to drop off the lists altogether (read the Snakes and Ladders section above)!
- Why is there an * at the end of some of the Connect usernames on the Lists? These users are Connect Moderators.
- Why are some entries on the Top 100 Lists shown in [ ]? These are the Local Guides added onto the Top 100 Lists during the current month.
- Disclaimers:
(a) When you enter this post as described above you give me permission to visit your Connect and/or Maps Profile to view and use your photo views data for the purpose of this post.
(b) As a participant it’s up to you to check your entry on the Lists and if there are any errors or omissions to advise me by adding a comment on this post.
(c) The Top 100 Photo Views Lists are not official Google generated or endorsed lists. The lists are generated by me with your permission and from your photo views information!