I discovered the local guides program by luck after I received a push notification telling me to take a picture of the place where I was.
This was in 2016, I was at a movie theatre in a small town in France and this picture was actually the first one to be taken and uploaded to google maps from this place. At that moment, it meant nothing to me. But now I know that it helped people to get an idea of the place for a small cost : taking a picture.
Every time I see friends choosing restaurants or bars, they look at the ratings, the comments and the pictures at google map. When I go to the supermarket during the holidays, I know if it’s open or not because maybe a local guide checked and updated the opening hours.Caption: A photo of cafe tables, chairs, and coffee cups at an outdoor cafe in Paris, France.(500px)The power of the local guides program is the community and the easy way to update informations about everything in the world with a phone and share it in only one application : google maps. Having ratings, comments or pictures of a place make it exist. Taking wonderful pictures make people want to go to these places, it make people confidente of where they go.In a certain way, it leads us to a safer world.
This is what it means to me, to be a tiny part of a strong program that help billions of people by mapping a world that is constantly changing every day.
“Le rivoli” - Movie theater - My first local guide picture.
